WILD HORSES CAN'T KEEP FANS AWAY.

Byline: Mark Baker The Register-Guard

PORTLAND - It was only rock 'n' roll, but they liked it, liked it, yes they did.

`Best show since '75 - I think this is really going to revitalize a lot of their old songs!' an excited Bruce Nelson of Eugene said right after seeing The Rolling Stones show at the Rose Garden Tuesday night.

And he should know. After all, he's seen all of the Stones' American tours since 1965. That's 20-something shows (Nelson lost track long ago) during four decades of performances by the longest-running - and, many would say, the greatest - rock band of all time.

Although Nelson, 55, has been going to Stones' concerts since Lyndon Baines Johnson was in the White House, his companion Tuesday night - his new bride, Suzee Nelson - was seeing the band for the first time.

She turned down her husband's first invite 36 years ago. "I should have gone," Suzee Nelson said before Tuesday's show. "It was Altamont - what was I thinking!" she said playfully.

The Nelsons first met in 1969 in Los Angeles when a mutual friend introduced them. Bruce invited Suzee to the infamous Stones' concert at the Altamont Racetrack east of San Francisco, where the Hells Angels were hired for security and ended up stabbing a concertgoer to death in front of a horrified Mick Jagger, the rest of the band and the crowd of 300,000.

Suzee passed on the invite because she was then dating Brian Cole, the bass player for The Association, the 1960s rock band that is best known for their 1966 hit song, "Cherish." They dated for five years, until Cole, from Tacoma, died of a heroin overdose in 1972.

Bruce and Suzee remained good friends over the years, but lost touch in the early 1980s. Both had been through two marriages when Bruce Nelson, who is retired from the insurance business and moved to Eugene from Waldport in 1999, "Googled" Suzee on the Internet last year. Her name came up as an employee of the Dallas Opera in Texas. He left her a voice mail, then they corresponded by e-mail for a while before he finally flew down there and took her to see The Cure, another one of their favorite bands.

They were married in September and now live in Eugene.

Bruce Nelson first saw the Stones at the Los Angeles Sports Arena on Dec. 5, 1965. He was 15 and paid $5.50 for his ticket. He paid $350 - apiece - for the tickets to Tuesday's show. He wasn't going to do it, he said, but then he bought the Stones' new album, "A Bigger Bang," and loved it.

"It's their best work in 20 years," Bruce Nelson said of the "bluesy" album.

The Stones played only a few songs from the new album, though, thrilling the ecstatic crowd of 20,000 mostly with songs of old. They opened with "Start Me Up" after Jagger came flying out on stage in his skin-tight, black leather pants and sparkly burgundy top to a thunderous roar. Then it was on to "It's Only Rock 'n' Roll," "She's So Cold," "Tumbling Dice" and a long rendition of "Midnight Rambler" that saw Jagger wiggle his hips (when doesn't he?) and prance out along the central catwalk, deep into the crowd of baby boomers who were waving their arms maniacally along with him.

Back on stage, guitarist Keith Richards wore his trademark headband, a cigarette dangling from his lips. Ron Wood strummed his guitar as Charlie Watts' arms flew upon the drums like a man half his age.

"I like the fact that they're still out their doing it," Bruce Nelson said. "The energy they bring is just unbelievable."

Although most of the crowd seemed to be baby boomers, plenty of 20-somethings were there, too. A Rolling Stones show is also a trip down the marketing lane. A crowd that was five-deep stood in front of a makeshift storefront before the Stones took the stage after warm-up band Motley Crue. There were Stones T-shirts, a $245 Stones jacket and enough flashing red-and-blue Stones' tongues to fill half the arena.

After seeing them at places such as the Hollywood Bowl, the L.A. Forum, Angels Stadium in Anaheim and the Rose Bowl, Bruce Nelson saw them here yet again - even if his mother wouldn't let him go to that show 1964, when he was just 14.

Was Tuesday's show the Stones' last song and dance in Oregon? That's what everyone thought the last time they were here, in 1998.

"I think a member of the band will have to die before they stop playing," Bruce Nelson said. "I certainly didn't think that, when I was 15, I'd be seeing them again when I'm 55."

CAPTION(S):

Mick Jagger (left) and Ron Wood perform at the Rose Garden in Portland. Kevin Clark / The Register-Guard Bruce Nelson shows some of the Rolling Stones memorabilia he has collected.