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The Rolling Stones Fan Club of Europe
It's Only Rock'n Roll

Rose Garden
Portland, OR
Friday Jan. 30, 1998

Review by Ed Beaver

The Oregon Stones fans were sort of lucky when Eugene didn't want to have the Stones at their stadium (as it would take a practice or two avay from their schedule...). So when the Stones put together a few Arena shows for the last part of their tour, Portland got their Arena show at the Rose Garden. And their appetite for tickets made a 2nd night possible shortly after.

The Stones hadn't been in Portland for ages. The stage setup was the same as in the Madison Square Garden shows. The Rose Garden have just 600-700 seats on the floor, while MSG have close to the double. This made the center stage even more intimate

The Portland crowd was freaking out the same moment as Keith walked on stage doing Satisfaction. They went mad, simly bananas. I thought, this would be wild. The crowd was wild, like starving for the Stones. Finally they didn't have to travel to Seattle to see a Stones show.

The crowd continued to be wild during Let's Spend The Night Together too. But then things started to calm down, as if they had done their freaking out for the night. Flip The Switch was great, in fact greater than usual. Gimme Shelter suffered a bit from Lisa having a cold. You Got Me Rocking was back into the first part of the main set, and rocked nicely.

Already Over Me is great with Mick doing the acoustic guitar. Then it was Bitch. On Saint Of Me Darryl came running like aa tornado over the stage, to join in with Bernard, staying with him doing his bass works.

Out Of Control was not so out of control as usually, Mick slowed down, and didn't jump around as much as he use to do on that song.

Shine A Light was in the set list as the web choice, but they didn't play it. Just 21 songs tonight...

Charlie had a great day. His drums were mixed extremely loud for the show. So was darryl's bass at times. The beat was loud and steady. During the presentations Charlie was having a great time drumming and introducing Bobby Keys among others.

Miss You was a great sing along song. "You were better than Seattle, I think", Mick said to please the local fans. The guy next to me cried out "Fuck Seattle" (sorry about the bad language), so I guess Mick knew what he was talking about...

Keith did Thief In The Night, with Blondie on acoustic guitar and Pierre on piano. Then he did the usual Wanna Hold You. The center stage rocked great. With Sympathy For The Devil the crowd were picking up the wild mood they had in the beginning of the show. Then it was the standard build up for the climax, JJF. Only one encore, Brown Sugar.

Was it as great as MSG? Don't ask me. Don't compare shows. It was great. Period. Who need stadium shows, when we can have these arena shows?

The set list:

  1. Satisfaction
  2. Let's Spend The Night Together
  3. Flip The Switch
  4. Gimme Shelter
  5. You Got Me Rocking
  6. Already Over Me
  7. Bitch
  8. Saint Of Me
  9. Out Of Control
  10. Miss You
    -- Introductions --
  11. Thief In The Night (Keith)
  12. Wanna Hold You (Keith)
  13. Little Queenie (center stage)
  14. I Just Wanna Make Love To You (center stage)
  15. Like a Rolling Stone (center stage)
  16. Sympathy For The Devil
  17. Tumbling Dice
  18. Honky Tonk Women
  19. Start Me Up
  20. Jumping Jack Flash
  21. Brown Sugar (encore)

Read all about the Bridges To Babylon tour in the It's Only Rock'n Roll magazine issue IORR 31 out Jan, 1998.

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