Not Fade Away : Music: It may be a drag growing old, but graying Rolling Stone fans still can attend concerts by their favorite band.

Robert Friedman was one of the defiant ones: Dressed brazenly in hip sunglasses and a long-tailed satin jacket, he was a fortysomething rock ‘n’ roller, another now-antique Rolling Stones fan who showed up at Wednesday night’s Rose Bowl show with that same old fire in his eyes.

The Hermosa Beach resident, with graying shoulder-length hair, what was left of it, was in no mood to relive the moment he first heard Mick Jagger’s snarling voice--while on an acid trip somewhere in India during the 1960s. He was here to party in the here and now, memories be damned.

“Sure, I’m a child of the ‘60s,” he said. “But this is the 1990s, and the Rolling Stones are playing to a packed house in the Rose Bowl. This is not something to be missed, I don’t care how old you are.”

On Wednesday, the aging fans entered the Voodoo Lounge--the West Hills grandmothers wearing Woodstock T-shirts and white-haired company executives in tattered blue jeans--all in search of a little satisfaction, Rolling Stones-style.

Nearly 80,000 strong, the crowd included “Big Chill” types who had weaned their children on rock ‘n’ roll, baby boomers who have seen some of the music that first aroused their passions 25 years ago reduced to TV jingles and nostalgic romps on oldies stations.

Outside the Rose Bowl, you could actually see the scalps of the ticket scalpers. Heck, even the little old lady from Pasadena showed up.

But these concert-goers realized that it’s not the age lines that count, it’s the music. So, get off of their cloud.

“I don’t care if I am 54,” said Libby Garramone of Las Vegas, perched on a curb outside the stadium. “I have a right to be here. This is my generation. And as far as age goes, hell, it’s only a number, not a state of mind. People talk like 50-year-olds are already dead. Not even close.”

Roger Hayot, a 39-year-old Los Angeles restaurant owner, left work early to drink in the heady concert atmosphere of Jagger and company. Again.

At the group’s recent Las Vegas concert, the lifelong Stones fan gazed across the sea of faces--the laugh-lined, gray-bearded visages--feeling like part of a movement.

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The graying fans might sing the once-naughty sounding, “Let’s Spend the Night Together” with an added refrain: As long as we’re asleep by 10 p.m.

Hayot was surrounded by fellow rock veterans taking part in what might be their final encore party performance: Old men with bellies protruding over belt buckles, mothers in too-snug tie-dye dresses, 50-year-old men suddenly looking a bit insecure in their dusted-off skull-and-crossbones bandannas.

“It was kind of weird, kind of scary,” Hayot said of the Vegas show, “all these people trying to relive a past era--drinking beer, smoking pot, whooping it up, but at the same time looking each other in the eye with a look that said, ‘We’ve all gotten old, haven’t we?’ ”

Rose Bowl officials expected 75% of the crowds at both the Wednesday and Friday performances to be “senior Stones fans,” many of whom saw their first Stones concert when Richard Nixon was president--25 years and 25 fewer pounds ago.

“It’ll be a pretty mellow crowd,” said David Jacobs, the Rose Bowl’s 50ish general manager. “It will also mark the first time in the history of the stadium that a lead singer is older than the general manager.”

Still, you can’t always get what you want: At the Rose Bowl, there was a waiting line for luxury boxes. Unlike at other recent concerts, Stones fans snapped up the Rose Bowl’s 40 luxury boxes--some of which go for $2,000 apiece.

“I could have sold those boxes four times over,” said David Sams, who markets the boxes. “I guess Stones fans want to keep champagne in the fridge. And--who knows?--maybe be closer to the bathroom.”

As fans tick off their years, so too do their idols--and not always gracefully.

In recent weeks, three veteran performers suspended tours for health reasons: Crosby, Stills & Nash scrapped their remaining concert dates because the 53-year-old Crosby needs a liver transplant. The Eagles postponed their reunion tour because of guitarist Glenn Frey’s gastrointestinal problems. And 42-year-old John Mellencamp was sidelined by heart problems.

Indeed, the concert road takes it toll--even for fans.

“On the plane back from Vegas there were all these guys my age and older, totally spent. . . . Our minds still want to party like the old days. But our bodies won’t let us,” Hayot said.

And for some aging rockers, there’s an urge to arrive at the show four hours early, so there’s ample room to park the car. And when that last encore comes, they don’t all dance at their seats; some head for the exits to beat the traffic.

“All I could think of all day before the concert was ‘Boy, am I gonna be tired tomorrow,’ ” said 51-year-old Dennis Peterson of West Hills, who first heard “Satisfaction” in a bar on Lankershim Boulevard in the mid-1960s.

Said his 22-year-old daughter, Stephanie, who came more to see the opening Red Hot Chili Peppers and Buddy Guy: “Yeah, we left the new car home so it wouldn’t get nicked. And we all left the house at 3 p.m. so we’d have room to park. I mean, c’mon Dad.”

Together, young and old alike, they came ready to rock, to watch the 5-year-old girls do somersaults on the grass outside the stadium, to laugh at the bearded Bible-thumper with the megaphone who railed against the sinful wages of fornication and rock music.

And though the music makes fans like Hayot feel almost young again, there’s a jolt back to reality when the aging band members take the stage.

“Looking at Mick Jagger is like looking into a mirror,” he said. “And that mirror made me feel old.”

Actually, the Stones said it best themselves: What a drag it is getting old.