It appears that the Rolling Stones will be playing at Scott Stadium this summer. In today’s Progress, John Yellig writes that three UVa sources have confirmed that the “major announcement” that Musictoday has planned for Tuesday will be that the news will be that the legendary rock band will be playing in town. Presumably, proper confirmation and details will be available in a few days.
News and meta-news about Charlottesville, VA, since 2001.
Sideblog
Police announced this afternoon that their investigation into what was initially believed to be a fatal fire on Rugby Avenue is now a homicide investigation. #
The Virginia Supreme Court has denied George Huguely’s appeal. His second-degree murder conviction will stand, WRIC reports. #
In a carefully worded story, and not citing specific sources, WTVR reports that forensic evidence belonging to Jesse Matthew Jr., the main suspect in the disappearance of Hannah Graham, matches forensic evidence collected during the investigation of Morgan Harrington’s 2009 murder. #
In the wake of Hannah Graham’s disappearance, and the evidence that came from private security footage, city officials are revisiting the question of installing security cameras on the downtown mall. #
Both Charlottesville Registrar Sheri Iachetta and former Electoral Board member Stephanie Commander have turned themselves in to the police on
foursix and four felony counts of embezzlement, respectively. #Ten years ago, the National Institutes of Health budget doubled and schools like the University of Virginia built massive new research facilities. A decade later, those buildings remain largely underutilized. NPR visits UVA in this story on the effect of federal binge and spurge spending in the sciences. #
In 2012, Council approved a new student housing complex on West Main—now some council members are questioning whether what they were shown matches what was built. #
The Architectural Review Board has approved a bike-themed mural on West Market, below the McGuffey Art Center, although at least one member expressed concerns that it might look like the bicyclists were riding away from Charlottesville’s downtown. #
City Police Chief Tim Longo is meeting with city leaders to work on protocols regarding the use of military surplus police weapons in Charlottesville. #
A 100-year-old Colonnades resident received military honors for her service in the WWII Women’s Army Corps #
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It’s going to take a little while for this to sink in. DMB playing Scott Stadium was big – REALLY big. This eclipses that by a magnitude of ten.
People of Charlottesville: prepare yourselves for $200 concert tickets.
I thought that UVA promised the stadium area residents that Scott Stadium would not be used as a concert venue when it was expanded. They lied once for Dave Matthews and now this? I’m glad I don’t live around there anymore. Game day parking and traffic is bad enough. The DMB concert traffic wasn’t as bad as I expected, but still more than the residental roads should be forced to handle.
Having seen the Stones at a stadium concert in the ’90’s, I’m not sure that the Cville and UVa powers-that-be have any clue about what they’re getting into with this.
Should be interesting. Glad I live in the county.
I don’t think they ever did promise that the stadium would not be a concert venue–I thought that in fact that was explicitly part of the deal, that the stadium would be a major venue for all kinds of national-level acts. That was supposed to be part of the big appeal of expanding the stadium–not just for the basketball team but to get major cultural and musical acts coming to Charlottesville. I don’t think there was any lying this time around.
the Rolling Stones haven’t been “Legendary” for a long time. Now they’re just plain “Famous.”
I’ll be interested to see the details — the stadium seats about 62,500 now for football — but if they open the field to seating or general admission, that could add, 10,000+ more? That would be quite a sight to see 75,000 at Scott Stadium.
I just wonder how the turf would stand up since it’s right in football season… perhaps they’ll only have the band on the field and audience in the stands…?
It’s relatively easy to protect the field – they played at FedExField a few years ago in October, right in the middle of football season, and the turf wasn’t damaged. In a worst-case scenario, if the field has to be replaced that’s probably not a mojor cost of doing business for a show that could gross as much as $6 – $9 million (I’d be surprised if tickets aren’t 3-6x the cost of the DMB tix, which were around $35, if memory serves).
It’s safe to bet the stage setup will be similar to the DMB show in ’01, which means no seating on the hill, and the sideline stands toward the open end will be unused – or obstructed, at best. Once you put seats on the field, there’s probably a wash in terms of seating.
If UVA and the City handle transportation like they did with the DMB show, there should be no major problems.
As for the band being “legendary” or merely “famous,” that’s subjective. They’ve sold a mega-gazillion records, they sell out huge venues all over the world at premium-plus prices, they’ve been in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for 26 years, and they still put on a GREAT show after 40 years. Many of their songs are culturally iconic – who doesn’t know the first few notes of “Satisfaction,” or the opening power chords of “Brown Sugar?” A lot of people love them, some can’t stand them, others may be ambivalent, but they’re almost impossible to ignore. They meet all the standards of “Legend” that I’m familiar with.
Oops -sorry about the bad link above. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
I have to apologize for my earlier post on this topic–I thought we were talking about the new b-ball arena, not Scott Stadium. B-ball I think has explicitly been formulated as a major-acts venue. I can see now why residents around the football stadium might be disgruntled about bringing the Stones to play in their backyard.
Does no one think this legendary/famous rock band/major act might be the Who? or the half-a-Who, as perhaps they ought to be called? wishful thinking on my part….
When they expanded Scott stadium there was a deal. That deal was that aside from the big homecoming DMB concert there were not going to be any concerts booked for the stadium. It was to be college sports only.
I live in Johnson village and the football games are bad enough. I am royally pissed off about this. This means a ton of traffic, people trying to park and/or urinate on my lawn and loud noise all night. I have a 1 year old daughter who will be awake and crying til the wee hours.
There is a place for this kind of thing. Northern Virginia. This is a quiet neighborhood where people live to get away from noise and traffic. UVa is asking for some figurative bricks through the window right now. If the city can do something along the lines of suspending water and sewer service to the University for a while, I’m all in favor. These people running UVa have been bad neighbors for a long time. Now they’re also going to be loud neighbors having huge drunken parties all night full of obnoxious guests. It’s time for the city of Charlottesville ‘go nuclear’ on them.
UVa is going to claim that this is some kind of great thing for Charlottesville and that its going to bring in a lot of money for us. That is just a lie. All these tens of thousands of people are going to eat at McDonalds along the way and then drive their drunken selves out as soon as the show is over. They aren’t going to be hanging around and doing the tourist thing. Even if they were it’s not as if retail and restaraunts are choking in Charlottesville. We don’t need an infusion of money like that badly enough to make the enormous sacrifice in quality of life.
Besides, the Stones have sucked since the 80’s and everyone knows it.
Interesting spin. When the stadium expansion began, there was no DMB concert on the horizon, so I don’t see how it was part of “the deal.”
This was in the Cav Daily the Monday after the DMB show:
From the University’s standpoint, the concert went over well. Saturday marked the first time Scott Stadium was used as a concert venue, making the night a trial for possible future concerts [emphasis added]. University Executive Vice President Leonard W. Sandridge Jr. said he was pleased the way the concert turned out.
“I did go, and I enjoyed it,” Sandridge said. “This was a very special interest, in that the performance was good for our students and was a means to allow a benefit for our community.”
As for future concerts held at Scott Stadium, the fate of these events are still up in the air.
“We haven’t ruled it out,” Sandridge said. “We’ll have to wait and see.”
Traffic flow, of course, increased during the hours before and after the show.
Rebecca White, University Parking and Transportation director said she was pleased with the way traffic flowed Saturday night, though 30 cars were towed.
Transportation “worked pretty well,” White said. “Fans used outlying areas prettily heavily, so traffic around the venue was light.”
I was not at the DMB show because we had a blues festival at the Amphitheater the same night (which was hurt attendance-wise by the competition, but still made really good money for Habitat for Humanity), but I don’t recall hearing about any crowd problems, and everything I heard indicated that stadium traffic was less than for a football game (they didn’t allow parking at the stadium, or tailgating), which as we all know can tie up the town for hours. I think they did a great job with logistics, and the crowd didn’t raise the hell that was feared.
A tremendous number of DMB concert-goers came in the night before (they literally packed the Amphitheater – and it was raining), and filled eateries on the Downtown Mall. They booked just about every single hotel room in town – we had to beg and plead and pay a SERIOUS premium to get a room for John Mayall at the 5th street Holiday Inn.
Granted, the Stones crowd will be a little different, but it will also be A LOT older. There was no beer sold for the DMB show, and it wouldn’t surprise me if there is none sold for the Stones. Even if there is, without tailgating it’s not likely we’ll see as many obnoxious drunks as we see during football games.
And as the crowd will be older than the one DMB drew, I think it’s pretty safe to imagine they’ll also be spending at least some time in town, and will certainly spend their money here, and not just at Mickey D’s.
Also, I imagine the stadium was there before nearly all the people who live near it. It’s a large structure, pretty hard to miss. It’s on all the maps. Typically, structures with 60,000 seats are used to cold events that draw 60,000 people. The fact that it’s being used to attract large crowds should be no less shocking than the fact that they gamble down at Rick’s.
There will always be folks upset with this sort of event, no matter where it’s held. I’m willing to bet there will be more people upset because they weren’t able to get tickets. Personally, I’m glad it’s going to be held here, and I applaud with great appreciation whoever pulled it off (Coran Capshaw? UVA? Kirby – Kirby, was that YOU?!?!?!).
And you’re dead wrong about the Stones sucking since the ’80s. Technically, the Stones have sucked since Mick Taylor left the band in ’74, and I can prove it… but they’re still one of the best shows on the road. Check out the Four Flicks DVD from a couple of years ago. The geezers can definitely still bring it, and they’re likely to be even more on top of their game this time, now that the mantle of being the Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World over Sixty has been snatched from them, possibly forever, by Cream (thanks to the magic of bittorrent, there are already decent audience recordings of last week’s shows out there. VERY tasty!).
FWIW, DMB fans are a different breed of cat. Many people made a pilgrimage, of sorts, to Charlottesville. Hordes had their photo taken in front of Miller’s, and I gave tours of downtown to hundreds (no exaggeration) of people that day.
I have no idea of what the economic impact of Stones fans will be, but I suspect that you’d find less interest in visiting the sights of Charlottesville among Stones fans than DMB fans.
I agree. I think the DMB show will turn out to have been a bigger deal than the Stones show. Different generation – different type of partying. The same people complaining about the show will probably be the same folks going.
There will be a lot of people interested in going to the show… but it’s not as though it’s a rare occurance that the Stones play a concert. UVa students certainly know the Stones and will go see the concert (if it’s affordable). There won’t be as many out-of-towners coming to the Stones concert as the DMB one (as Waldo said… at the time DMB fans would travel near an far to see them… and C’Ville had DMB history (heck I went to high school with Stefan the bassist)).
I don’t live near the stadium, nor would I ever live near a stadium unless I understood the “risks.” I’ll probably go to the concert just for a “life experience”, certainly not to hear good music (I can only imagine the sound will be awful)…
I’m really not very interested in how well the DMB event went ‘from the University’s standpoint.’ I’m more interested in how these things go from city residents’ standpoints. I remember that for weeks after that concert lots of people were saying ‘thank God that was just a one-time thing.’
Those of us who live near the stadium (bear in mind that you can be over half a mile away and still have to deal with the noise, traffic and crowds) knew that we were signing up for one football game a month for a few months out of the year. We can accept that – especially since it’s the local boys playing. What my neighbors and I don’t want is a situation where UVa decides that this should be a new profit center and then there’s a huge concert happening every other week. One Stones concert is going to be acceptable. I’m just not convinced that it will be only the one concert if UVa makes some real money from the event.
Note that Scott Stadium has not had it’s current 60-some thousand seat capacity for very long. And throughout it’s history it has been just a football stadium. A handful of games were played there every year. None of us who live in the area had any reason to think that it was going to be turned into a major concert venue when we bought our houses.
As far as the post-80’s Stones are concerned I have 2 words to say: ‘Dirty Work.’
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Not “Dirty Work!” There’s no way to justify that one.
It’s now official, FYI:
http://www.virginia.edu/topnews/releases2005/concert-may-10-2005.html
One night of traffic for a great show? Even if it becomes habit, what’s more important? I can understand how it would be frustrating, and I can see how this forum is a good place to express that frustration. But, do you think that there should be no shows? I do agree that there should be a limit, however. Once a week would be excessive on everyone. Looking at folks comments, I think the best question is what would be an appropriate number of concerts at Scott Stadium?
With ticket prices ranging from $102 – $453 at various venues, I imagine that not too many yard-pee’ers and slobbering drunks will be able to afford to go to the show. On the other hand, imagine the sea of SUV’s that will be seen around Scott Stadium.
lol @ every post
I really like Cville and its citzens. Here we want excitement yet we don’t want them in our backdoor. We complain that there isn’t any real music venues yet when one of the greatest bands ever wants to play WE COMPLAIN about the noise.
Look Jack, I have a question directed to you. And this isn’t a flame or anything, but why did you pick to live near the staduim? You must have known about the potential problems during gameday. God knows, I live in the county because I don’t want to deal with the people downtown. I would never live in the Downtown Mall because of it.
Again I am not flaming, but it seems like this event is an once a while and you are complaining about yet you are the one who choose to live where you are at?
Thank you IamDaMan3!!
If the people close to the stadium don’t like the “disruption” then maybe they should move to the country! It’s terible that the University can’t just pack up and move their sports facilities to make a few people happy! I do think they might want to leave town the evening of October 6, 2005. This Stones news is the greatest thing to happen around here since, well, I can’t think of anything bigger at the moment! And I’m sorry, but this event could do sooooooo much for this area. And I don’t mind saying that I hope this is only the beginning!!!
To be fair, choosing to put up with game day traffic and sporting events is a whole different thing than concert traffic and performances. Folks going to games tend to be good-natured, effusive UVa-boosters. Folks going to concerts come from far and wide, and have no reason to have any love for C’ville or UVa. People who live in Gainesville will attest to the problems with drunks, littering, vandalism, parking, etc. that come with playing host to concerts.
These are generalizations, but you can see why there could be a marked difference between the two types of events.
I live on Shamrock Road! Should I sell parking…seating on the front lawn?
Nah, I’ll be in the stands!
Last time I saw the Stones was the Voodoo Lounge Tour at RFK. Counting Crows was the opening band. Who will be the opening band in C’ville?
Wouldn’t it be great if it was a local band…Monticello Road…pay back to the small town invasion!
24 years ago I bought my house in Johnson Village so I could walk to Graduate classes at UVA…I still love to take the short walk to UVA.
During the week I can walk and talk with neighbors that have watched my kids grow up…I can walk to the nearby pool (FSBC) and pub (Durty Nelly’s)…but every now and then life gets exciting! Almost as good as a place in New York City!
Coran Capshaw ….bring the excitement to town…we love it!
If anyone can help with the password for tomorrow’s VA presale, I would be grateful. Wanting to go to this concert really bad!!
Are there any hotels within waling distance of the stadium?
WALKING
You can walk anywhere if you have the time. :)
Many of us walked to Scott Stadium from the Downtown Mall for the DMB show in ’01. It was a much more pleasant half hour than fighting traffic to have driven closer.
Waldo, would that be a yes or a no? We will be travelling from Gloucester County and are not too familiar with the area. We were hoping to book some rooms in a hotel within walking distance.
I really don’t know, Red. For all I know, you’re 90 years old. Why don’t you get in touch with the visitors’ bureau? I’m sure they can help you out.
I live here — I don’t stay in hotels here.