11:28 AM PST on Wednesday, November 2, 2005

By kgw.com and AP Staff

AP photo

The Rolling Stones perform in Seattle two nights before their Portland appearance.

Baby boomers turned out at the Rose Garden in full force Tuesday night as the Rolling Stones performed in concert -- jamming in Portland.

It was the rock and roll icons first visit to the Rose City since 1998, which was their last concert appearance here.

The Portland concert was the latest on the Stones' world tour to promote their new album, "A Bigger Bang," unveiled earlier this year. The album marks the first collection of all-new material from the Stones since 1997’s “Bridges to Babylon.”

Their concert tour began Aug. 21 at Fenway Park in Boston, where the legendary rock dinosaurs played in front of the Green Monster. Dates in North America continue through December, with the Stones most recent performance in Seattle before their Portland appearance.

Shows will continue next year in South America, Asia and Europe.

Concert prices have averaged $100-105 per ticket throughout the U.S., although that's face value.

Here in Portland where the concert sold out in its final days, some die-hards paid as much as $400 a seat on the Web site Craig's List to get a chance to see the super-group that's been around for over 40 years.

The North American concert tour is alternating between stadiums, arenas and smaller venues. The last Stones tour, in 2002-03, generated $88 million in ticket sales in North America during its first year.

Scores of fans gathered Tuesday afternoon outside the Heathman Hotel in downtown Portland to catch a glimpse of the legendary Stones as they departed for the Rose Garden performance.

Keith Richards walked out to the delight of fans, then Charlie Watts signed a few autographs and finally Ron Wood dashed out. But fans didn't catch a glimpse of Mick Jagger, he avoided the spotlight.

Watts, who underwent six weeks of radiation therapy last year for cancer but maintains "I'm fine," has previously said this will be the last Stones' tour. But his bandmates have been quick to contradict that claim.

“We don’t plan that this is the last tour, and we certainly don’t announce it,” said Jagger recently, calling that “a trap” aimed at getting money from fans. “We take each tour as it comes.”

Richards, 61, has said money was not the point of this return to the road. “You can have the money,” he told a journalist recently when asked about the potential windfall from the tour.