“They’re a legend,” says Nancy Otto, who will attend the concert with her husband John. “We grew up with them. It will be a fun concert on a beautiful October night.”
Otto and another neighbor got online when tickets went on sale, buying them for other neighbors in the development off Fruitville Pike.
The group includes a friend whose brother happened to pick Saturday as his wedding date.
“He told him, ‘I’m not going to your wedding unless you have it in the afternoon,’ ” Otto says.
The brother complied.
The concert will mark only the second time the Stones have played in this part of the state.
The first was in 1964, when 800 fans saw the group at the Farm Show Building in Harrisburg. They played with Bobby Goldsboro, the Patty & The Emblems and other groups.
Tickets cost between $1.50 and $3.50 for that concert, according to an article in today’s Patriot-News.
This time around, the group will play for 32,000 fans. Tickets cost between $60 and $175. The opening act will be Beck.
The cost, or a possible traffic snafu being caused by some road work on Route 743, is not deterring fans.
Steve and Joan Frantz of Lititz paid $125 each for their tickets. Like many fans, Frantz is of the age, 50, to recall the group’s early days.
“I still remember I was 8 years old the first time I heard ‘Satisfaction,’ ” he says. “How many groups are around after all those years?”
The concert, Frantz says, will be “a once-in-lifetime experience.”
Frantz expects a diverse crowd, with fans his age and the age of his kids, who are in their 20s.
“Everybody loves the Rolling Stones,” he says.
Don Thomas, another Milton Estates resident, says his wife, Cheryl, is an avid fan, and has probably seen the group a half a dozen times. He’s been to see them twice.
Their music, he says, has become part of the American experience.
“I wouldn’t say I’m a huge Stones fan but when they came out to sing, I knew all the songs and all the words,” he says, adding, “You just have to marvel at these guys. They know how to do a show. They bring the kind of energy that is an inspiration to anyone over the age of 20. These guys are in shape.”
Hersheypark Stadium has hosted other big acts. The Dave Matthews Band, a regular at the stadium, draws between 28,000 and 30,000 fans. ’N Sync also drew a similar number of fans when it appeared there in 2001.
But in terms of status, the Stones top the stadium’s list, says Hersheypark spokeswoman Kathy Burrows.
“It’s a big night for us,” she says. “It’s absolutely the biggest we’ve ever done, in my opinion. It’s the Rolling Stones. They’re icons.”
The concert begins at 7 p.m., an hour later than its originally scheduled time of 6 p.m.
The Bigger Bang tour opened in New York in May and will run through March. The group will arrive here from Pittsburgh and then head to Washington, D.C.
A group of fans from a national computer message board will be gathering before the concert at Shakey’s, a bar and restaurant on Mill Street in Hershey.
More than 300 people from all over the country are expected at the party, which will feature a Stones tribute band, Zip Mouth Angels, at 2:30 p.m., said message board operator Doug Potash. (The board is at www.shidoobee.com.)
Local fans who plan to take Route 743 to Hershey may want to leave a little extra time in their schedule.
A Dauphin County section of that road, also known as Elizabethtown Road, will be closed from 6 tonight until possibly 6 a.m. Monday for construction, PennDOT announced.
Traffic will be detoured around the closure by way of Old Hershey Road and Ridge Road. The detour will take people about a mile out of their way.
The road closure is necessary so that a 48-inch drainage pipe can be replaced. 
