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BOSTON -- The Rolling Stones met The Green Monster last night as the veteran British rockers launched their world tour at Fenway Park.
The band, fresh from month-long rehearsals in Toronto -- including a club show at the Phoenix just 12 days ago -- drew a sold-out crowd of 30,000 to the oldest major league baseball park in North America which hosted the world series winning Boston Red Sox just last fall.
"Yankees suck! Yankees suck!" chanted the boomer-heavy audience as the Stones took the stage on a muggy summer evening.
In fact, the green baseball diamond was still visible on the floor with chairs for concertgoers positioned around it.
"It's great to be back in Boston, I can tell you that, the city of champions," said wildly energetic lead singer Mick Jagger, 62, initially dressed in a silver velvet fedora and matching, short-cropped jacket.
Guitarist Keith Richards, 61, who later took over on lead vocals for two songs including set highlight Infamy from the Stones' forthcoming new studio album, A Bigger Bang, referred to the ballpark as "hallowed ground."
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But the place to be may have been the two levels of standing room seats for about 250 concert-goers that were actually built into the Stones enormous gleaming steel stage -- believed to be the largest of its kind ever for a rock and roll show at 90 feet tall and 285 feet wide, the span of a 747 airplane.
The first and second levels of built-in seating were 35 and 45 feet, respectively, above the stage, on either side of a remarkably crisp-looking video screen. The major downside to those seats was that people were largely looking at the back of Jagger, Richards, guitarist Ron Wood, 58, drummer Charlie Watts, 64, and the rest of the touring band which numbered 13 people on stage at its biggest configuration.
You also have to wonder about the sound back there given it wasn't the greatest at the side of the stage but much-improved in front of it.
Other bells and whistles included various staircases and catwalks and a smaller, b-stage which broke apart from the main stage and saw the band travel across the floor during Miss You in a neat visual trick.
When the mini-stage moved backwards during Honky Tonk Women to join the main stage again, a large pair of blue, flowered inflated lips floated up behind the group.
The Stones opened their two-hour-and-10-minute show with the rather predictable duo of Start Me Up and You Got Me Rockin' -- fireworks notwithstanding -- before really hitting their groove with Shattered and Tumblin' Dice.
Truthfully, whenever the band, rounded out by Chuck Leavell on keyboards and Darryl Jones on bass, grew to include three back-up singers and a four-man horn section they better suited the gigantic setting. Particularly good in that regard was the cover of Ray Charles' Nighttime (Is the Right Time), which saw backup singer Lisa Fisher let it rip soulfully and impressively, while a large image of Charles was shown up on the video screen.
Richards was also in good form on lead vocals for both The Worst -- which saw backup singer Bernard Fowler share a microphone with him -- and Infamy, which proved to be the best of the four new tunes played last night (the same four they played at the Phoenix.)
Other highlights included Beast Of Burden, Miss You, Sympathy For The Devil and You Can't Always Get What You Want, and yes, more crowd-pleasing fireworks at the end of the show.
But couldn't we all have done without Jagger welcoming California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to the concert? He was apparently in the audience on an unsuccessful fundraising mission much to the chagrin of a small group of protesting nurses from his state who were demonstrating outside the venue against his plan to increase the patient to nurse ratio.
The Stones have a second sold-out show at Fenway Park tomorrow night and don't return to Toronto to play the Rogers Centre -- formerly SkyDome -- until Sept. 26.
SET LIST: What they played
Start Me Up
You Got Me Rockin'
Shattered
Tumblin' Dice
Rough Justice
Back Of My Hand
Beast Of Burden
She's So Cold
Heartbreaker
Nighttime (Is The Right Time)
The Worst
Infamy
Miss You
Oh No, Not You Again
Satisfaction
Honky Tonk Women
Out Of Control
Sympathy For The Devil
Jumpin' Jack Flash
Brown Sugar
ENCORE
You Can't Always Get What You Want
It's Only Rock 'N' Roll