I don’t remember when it happened exactly. But since that day I began to obsess again about this band. Why? God only knows. I married in 1983, , and left my rock and roll life behind me. My taste in music changed a bit and included hypnotic Middle-Eastern Arabic music. HOWEVER, one evening I sat down to watch TV, and lo and behold, VH1 was hosting an interview with the Stones. I was drawn to the screen and sat down to watch the interview. My daughter interrupted me with a question. "Honey" I said to her, "Do you mind not disturbing me in my few moments of ECSTASY in life?" "You like THEM?!. They’re so ugly." She seemed horrified. "Shhhhh" I hissed back. Imagery became such that nearly every hard-looking, Israeli male with dark spiked hair began to look like Ron Wood.

I bought their latest CD "Bridges to Babylon" thinking that perhaps if I listen to them all day at work on my CD ROM I’ll get my ya ya’s out and be real sick of them very soon. I perused their Websites and I wasn’t getting any better. They were in the midst of a world tour and I began to get depressed at the fact that I would never get to see them perform again because they, well, never come to Israel. Then one Friday I glanced at Travel Tips in the Jerusalem Post and a trip to Athens, Greece in September for Stones fans to see their concert was being organized by ISSTA tours. Was this for real? Was I seeing things? Could it be time for a pair of bi-focals?….Needless to say, I booked a flight the very next day.

Vacation time should be a stress-free time, but I was stressed out. I didn’t have a passport and just the thought of spending at least 3 hours at a government office to get my passport was unbearable. I didn’t really have the $ to go either, but I thought that’s where prayer comes in handy. And what about the kids? Are they old enough to fend for themselves? I reasoned that’s where husbands come in handy. I just had to convince him that this trip would be just what I needed before the glut of Jewish holidays. It took a bit of pleading with him.."Please, I always shop at second hand stores and the shuk (market)..I’m not usually so extravagant, so please be okay with this. And besides who knows if they’ll be alive in a few years from now for another tour. " It slowly dawned on him that there was really not much he could do or say to talk me out of it. Once on my side, he decided to come along for chaperone purposes. The responsibility of running the house and babysitting was dealt out to my teenage daughter, who promptly invited ten of her friends over for one night when we wouldn’t be there.

I fared not much better at work. "You’re going to see the Stones in Greece? Get a life," my supervisor bellowed. But my friends at work were supportive and thought this was a "cool" thing.

The day came for departure to Athens. I hadn’t been outside of Israel since moving 3 years ago.. We looked around the airport lounge and saw some young people in their 20s and figured they were going to the concert. The older passengers …well, we couldn’t figure out if they were going to the concert or were just vacationing in Greece. At Athens airport I met up with a group of young Israeli men who were not travelling via ISSTA, the group that had organized the Stones package deal, but were travelling on their own. The Stones were not going to Israel on this tour, had never been to Israel, and these young men just out of the army, young enough to be my sons, decided these were reasons enough to pick up and go to Greece to see them in concert. We got to our hotel just in time for breakfast, where we met 2 English speaking women named Jackie and Helen. They actually were part of our ISSTA group. They were from Canada and Australia, but lived in Israel for over 30 years already. Both were married and in their late 40s, early 50s and were living in the coastal area. They did not come with their husbands because they were meeting four other women later on this afternoon and decided going to a Stones concert was more of a women’s thing. After they left, two Israeli men came down for breakfast. They were also in their early 50s and were from a small settlement on the West Bank. They left their wives behind for this trip, "this is a men’s thing" they informed me. "We’ve been waiting years for this" he told me. Apparently, no one asked their spouses’ permission – they just told them they were going and that was that. I secretly wondered if I had done myself a disservice by bringing my own husband along. It seemed to me that we were the only couple on this trip.

I got ahold of the local English daily, Athens News, where they reported the Stones arrival into Athens just a couple of hours before us. It also mentioned that they were staying at the Intercontinental Hotel. Had this been 20 years ago, I would have rushed down there immediately and pasted myself by the hotel bar hoping I could get a glimpse or a photo of one of my favourites. But, I tried to convince myself, I am all grown up now with a husband and five kids, and can’t do these types of things anymore. (But I should have!!! - and next time I will!!!!). I actually did ask my husband to come into the hotel with me and pretend we were just plain tourists out to see Athens' finest hotel pubs and restaurants, but he steadfastly refused to go and I was too chicken to go alone. (He probably was afraid I'd run off with Mr. Wood, had I caught I glimpse of him.)

Since it was several days before the concert would take place on September 16th, my husband and I took in some sights. We roamed around the old Plaka district of Athens, getting lengthy lessons in Greek mythology from all the boutique owners. When they asked us where we were from we told them "Israel". We saw the puzzled look on their faces because they heard us speaking English to one another and explained that we are originally from Canada and only three years ago moved to Israel. Oh, that explained it, as a smile of feigned comprehension spread across their faces..

The following day we decided to take a cruise to three Greek Islands. Aboard deck we spotted two Israeli couples on this tour. It wasn’t hard to play "Spot the Israelis." Yes, they were also going to the Stones concert but paid a bit extra and got a hotel in central Athens. From then on we stuck like glue to each other. Both couples were in their thirties and forties, and were from Beersheva, a town in the South of Israel. We had fun taking photos of all the Mediterranean sites such as octopus and squid stalls, things one doesn’t usually get to see back home in Jerusalem.

D-Day finally arrived. We reasoned that with 80,000 people going to the concert, traffic would be heavy. Our group milled around the hotel lobby figuring out what we should do, in typical Israeli style, discussing the pros and cons of taxis versus other means of transport. On the one hand, it would be difficult to find taxis never mind trying to find one coming back after midnight. My husband looked around at the more than 50 or so people and an idea struck him. Let’s rent a bus to take us there and back. He phoned around and got a good deal on one. It would cost less than the price of a taxi for each person. As soon as my husband explained this good deal, we made a whole new set of friends. As we waited for the bus, we took photos of one another. This was surely a memory. One lady, brought her 21 year old daughter along to the concert and I thought I saw a romance blossom as a handsome young man chatted her up and they exchanged phone numbers. The camaraderie I was looking for on this trip had finally begun.

When some of our group found out that my husband, prepaid the bus driver, a bit of hell broke loose. "Figures you’re not Israeli. An Israeli would have given the man ½ of the money to make sure he doesn’t run off with it and to make sure he shows up to take us back to the hotel!!!!

As the bus neared the stadium some people suggested that perhaps we ought to make a "blessing". The honours were bestowed upon my husband, the organizer of this bus trip. He protested modestly. Perhaps he was shy, or perhaps it never dawned on him that blessings are made on things such as this, but this all-non-religious group was adamant that a blessing had to be made. So one of the women got up to the front of the bus and actually made this special blessing over the bus microphone. "Blessed are you King of the Universe who let us finally see the Rolling Stones in concert." "AMEN" we all answered in unison.

Upon entering the Stadium they tore up my tickets. Brutally. This was no ordinary ticket. It had a hologram on top of the Bridges to Babylon album cover and it was preforated on top so that you can keep most of the ticket. I yelled at the people who had sliced up our tickets so savagely, but they explained that they couldn’t just take the smaller top part.

Cameras and camcorders were not allowed in the Stadium. I took a chance as my husband had bought me a zoom lens just for the concert and I certainly wasn’t going to let him waste his money. Desperate to capture the event, I decided to take my chances. I gently placed the heavy camera with its zoom lens on the bottom of my large straw bag. I put a black dress with black spaghetti strap sandals on top of the camera in order to camouflage any camera straps sprouting out underneath. Sure enough, as I got to the gate, prayer came in handy once again. The ushers checked my bag for said contraband. They found no evidence and, luckily, I was let through. I wanted to get shots of the fans in the Stadium while it was still light outside but was too frightened to take my camera out just yet. I waited until it got dark.

At the stadium our group did not get any satisfaction from our seats. We were seated in the uppermost tier and the farthest away from the stage. This was too much for Roochie, the woman who brought her daughter. "How can she jump on Mick Jagger from here?" remarked David from Tel Aviv. "Don’t worry" said her friend, "if she said she was going to jump on him, she will." Roochie disappeared together with her daughter. Some of us walked to a place closer to the stage and stood by the railing. It was getting cold. I put on my Stones t-shirt that Al bought me so I could warm up a bit…. After the warm-up band came on we decided to try to get down to the lower tier to get a better view. Al stuck a 5,000 drachma note ($20 equivalent) under his ticket and asked an usher to please get us a seat where the press seats are. At first he was hesitant to do anything – then he said, "Look I won’t take your money, come with me.." I thought he was going to take us to the police. I was wondering if what we did was illegal in Greece, as I trailed along after my husband. But the kind usher sat us down in the lower tier near people who were well dressed, and about our age group, close to the press seats. I took out my camera, positioned my aim and got ready to fire away.

The Stones opened up with "Satisfaction". The stage was the most elaborate set I had ever seen in rock history. Greek fans, on the Stones official website, had picked the song "She’s like a Rainbow" and they went into a rendition of that. I checked to see how many bathroom breaks these 50-something band members would take. Perhaps it was one, or two, or was it just a change of outfits? In the middle of the concert a bridge came out to the centre of the stadium where they were Stones unplugged. No special lighting effects, just raw, hard, older bluesy numbers such as "Little Queenie" were played. This was a treat. The concert ended with an encore of "Brown Sugar" to the blaze of fireworks going off from the set.

After the concert the honest bus driver did show up to take us back. David teased Roochie…"We didn’t see you throw your underwear on stage at Mick – What happened?" The men discussed the lighting effects and the band’s guitar riffs, while us women of all ages were marvelling about Mick Jagger being able to strut his stuff like a teenager across the stage for two hours, and his stage antics, like sucking the toes of his backup singer, Lisa Fisher.

The next day we hired the same bus to take us to the airport. We all felt a bit down that it was all over already. One person suggested that we all should have worn our Stones t-shirts that we bought at the concert to the airport. Like we belonged to a club or something. The trip to Athens, Greece to see the Rolling Stones in concert was worth every penny, shekel and drachma it took to get us there.

There wasn’t any other show like this in the world. We exchanged phone numbers with promises to get together with our families. And then and there a few of us women in our 40s and 50s decided we had better get in as much as we can, while we can, knowing that there will be a slew of UK concerts in June of 1999. The Stones are aging and so are we, but we, obviously are fighting it tooth and nail. So kids, so much for another family vacation this year ..I’m going to either Sheffield or someplace in Europe with my new-found Wild Old Women friends. Just letting you know ahead of time….

Here's photo of me relaxing after this tiring but enjoyable trip in one of the beautiful restaurants of the Plaka district in Athens.