By Tom and Lisa Feissner
Planet Depos-American Realtime’s Tom and Lisa Feissner waste no time when it comes to finding adventure. On their first trip to Tokyo, they had a few days off in between depositions at the American Embassy. While searching online for what to do, Tom found an announcement on Twitter that the Rolling Stones were kicking off their 2014 tour at the Tokyo Dome the next day.
“This was an incredible opportunity that we could not let slip through our fingers,” Lisa said. The challenge was how to obtain tickets to a sold-out show on extremely short notice without being able to speak Japanese. Amazingly, Tom found two tickets listed for sale on Viagogo. Tom and Lisa then agreed to meet the sellers in the lobby of the Tokyo Dome Hotel before the show. As Lisa described it, “Tom was wading through the crowd in the hotel lobby, talking to the sellers on his mobile saying, ‘my wife is wearing a red coat, do you see her?’ It was hysterical.”
After standing in line for swag for nearly an hour, the show was about to start. It was then that Tom and Lisa took a closer look at their tickets: They were completely in Japanese. “We had absolutely no idea where to go,” Tom said, “but with the help of fellow Stones fans and an abundance of ushers, we found our seats.”
In keeping with the tour’s “14OnFire” theme, the stage was literally set ablaze when the band played “Sympathy for the Devil,” eliciting cheers from the audience. The Stones also invited the Tokyo Freshman Choir to sing the opening for “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” which gave the show a uniquely Japanese feel and made for a truly memorable evening.