The Rolling Stones have put 'Lucky Dip' tickets on sale this morning for their eagerly-awaited May 17 show in Croke Park where they'll be joined by The Academic.
"All Lucky Dip tickets will be sold as a pair," Aiken Promotions explain. "The ticket locations will be throughout the venue, including Side View Upper Level, and Field. You and your guest will find out your seat locations when you pick them up the night of the show.
"We will be using strict anti-scalper measures to ensure that these tickets go to Stones fans and don’t end up on the resale market with wildly inflated prices. We appreciate your attention to the following, so that you have the best experience possible:
* You must pick up your tickets in person, along with your guest. Once you have the tickets in hand, you will be escorted into the venue. There will not be an opportunity to leave with your tickets before going into the show.
*Picture ID, your confirmation number, and the credit card used to make the purchase are required for pick-up. Without these things, you will not be able to pick up your tickets.
* If we suspect any reselling or transfer of these tickets they will be immediately voided and you will not be entitled to any refund."
Responding to today's big announcement, The Academic's Craig Fitzgerald says: “How do we feel about playing a show with The Rolling Stones at Croke Park?" say the lads. "I think we are all still getting over that phone call! To be sharing the stage with the greatest rock and roll band of all time in a venue that we’ve always dreamed about performing in is a bit surreal. We grew up on their music. Now that we’re playing Croker with them it’s a dream fulfilled!”
Mick Jagger was in top form yesterday when he talked to Miriam O’Callaghan on her RTÉ Radio 1 show.
“It should be really fun,” Mick says in relation to Croker. “We haven’t played in Ireland for ages. I still really enjoy getting up there and the audience is giving you a lot of buzz. Obviously it was brand new when we played the Adelphi (in Dublin) in 1965 – we played about six numbers and went off. It wasn’t that difficult really. Now it’s longer and a bit more taxing. As you get older it doesn’t get any easier playing two hours, but it’s still really fun. We wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t.
“In the end, when you go on stage and you’re doing the music together it all gels and everybody’s really happy to be there. It all works perfectly. It’s better than anything else.”
He spoke fondly of hanging out with the recently deceased Claddagh Records lynchpin Garech de Brún at his Luggala country pile in Wicklow.
“I had some really great times with him and The Chieftains walking the valley." Mick reminisced. "I always loved going to that house. It’s on sale, so everything’s going to change now but it always does. At the last Slane show we did I met Garech by chance in a bar. I said, ‘Are you coming to Slane?’ and he didn’t know anything about it, so I got him all the passes and all the VIP entrance things and he drove there himself. Just before I went on stage I got a message saying, ‘Do you know a Garech de Brún, he’s been stopped at a police road block?’ I said, ‘Yes’ and he just about made the show.”