It's Only Rock'n Roll
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It's Only Rock'n Roll |
Start time: 20:05 End time : 22:20
The set list:
PS. No web choice tonight due to heavy rain problems - only 20 songs!
After three songs Mick said: "Well that's it for tonight, in 1964 we stopped in the Hague after three songs, so this is it for tonight". But of course they didn't stop and in spite of the wheather they went on.
Such a shame they didn't play the Web choice, Waiting On A Friend. The setlist was pretty much the same as in the other concerts. Out Of Control (one of their greatest songs at the moment especially live), Anybody Seen My Baby and Saint Of Me were the hits from their latest album they performed. On the center stage they performed among other things Little Queenie and of course Like a Rollng Stone. Great concert again for an audience of 86.000 people (a Dutch record) Mick, Keith, Ron and Charlie were greater than ever on that Saturday evening. Even Charlie seemed to enjoy the thunderous applause he got after the encore "Brown Sugar". Together with Mick it took a while before Charlie left the stage.
The sound was a class above the Amsterdam Arena. An impressive firework ended the concert, organised by the city of the Hague which celebrates her 750 anniversary. My sister was so lucky to meet Mick Jagger in the city coming out of his hotel (pictures coming up on my own webpages).
The funny thing was after 3 songs that Mick remembered his first show in Den Haag. The show was finished after 3 songs, so mick sad: OK THAT'S IT. And he walked off the stage....
After this it was time for another btb song. Anybody seen my baby is in my opinion not such a great song to perform live. It sounded good though. After this they played saint of me. The oooh yeah, oooh yeah thing worked really well today. Out of control is also a great song to play live with Mick running down the stage like an idiot and the wah wah guitar parts and groaning of Keith. The next song was a great and very long version of 'miss you. This is also one of my favourites. Lisa and Bernard were really singing great and Ronnie played some great solos.
Now we got an introduction of the band by Mick and after this it was time for the 2 song solo spot of Keith. He started of with the reggae song You don't have to mean it. The horn section in this song sounds great and Keith was having a great time. After this he played all about you, a great song from the undercover album. Most people didn't know it.
The performance on the center stage was earlier than at other concerts. This was due to the bad wheather I guess. They started off with little queenie, and i was only standing five metres from the center stage!!! The audience loved it and they played another two songs, including you got me rocking and like a rolling stone.
It's only rock and roll is another sing along song and sounded fresh. So were the other live favourites start me up, Honky tonk women with Keith playing without touching his guitar neck. tumbling dice, sympathy for the devil, jumpin jack flash and brown sugar made the audinece go wild again. This was a great evening with 86,000 people having a great time in the driving rain and a band who played like their best days. To speak with Keith's words: It's good to be here, It's good to bo anywhere really. Who cares about a little rain?????
A good friend (thanks - you know who you are) gave me the advise to be there early because after 10 p.m. it would be "guests only". Arriving there at about 21.00 we already had to talk (tip) ourselves in. First there was a local band and about midnight we noticed Bernard Fowler and Pierre de Beauport in the audience. Even after 01.00 a.m. there was a group of well know faces (I don't know every one by name, but I saw Mike, Dave, Pierre and Bernard) playing a very nice set of known and unknown songs. We heard Excalibur, I'm Going Down, Voodoo Chile, The Red Rooster and others. They played a little over an hour. Unfortunately Lisa and Leah and Chuck (as well as the Stones) were still in Hamburg. Nevertheless it was a great experience (after I missed the gig in Amsterdam on July 3rd).
During the day we had a lot of sunshine, in betwwen the showers. We met a lot of old and new friends (Thanks for joining us William). Gates opened at 4.30 p.m. and as the stage was opposite the entrances, we had to run across the field, that was turned into a very slippery and muddy thing.
We were not lucky. Our gate opened a little after the others, so no front row for us today. But we had a nice spot at the catwalk (Ronnie's side) about 12 meters from the stage. Opening act, Big Country, played their (for us well known) set at 6.30 p.m. And again, like the shows in Germany last week, it was dry. The Stones opened at 20.00 h. with a splashing Satisfaction. You could see it right from the start; this was going to be a great show. And it was!
During Let's Spend The Night and Flip The Switch it started raining again. Some real heavy rain from time to time! But The Stones rolled on. Gimmie Shelter, Anybody Seen My Baby, It's Only Rock 'n Roll (where Mick mixed up things twice), Saint Of Me, Out Of Control (which was the best!). No websong tonight. Although the screen "was waiting", Mick asked for his guitar and Miss You was played. Fortunately the middle part wasn't as long as it used to be during this tour. After the introductions Keith did his You Don't Have To Mean It (with Leah Wood on backing vocals for the first time!!) and as always I Gotta Hold You.
The center stage set: Little Queenie, You Got Me Rocking and Like A Rolling Stone. And the grand final: Sympathy For The Devil, Tumbling Dice, Honky Tonk Women, Start Me Up, Jumpin' Jack Flash and the encore Brown Sugar. The show was followed by great fireworks. Remember that this show was done because of the 750th anniversary of the city of Den Haag.
A really great show ("You're a fucking great audience"), but... no surprises and... cut down by one song. Even the websong. The only time we could expect a surprise!!
I'm a bit sad about this. The Stones MUST know that there are lots of fans who see them more than once or twice. A little more respect to those fans, who spent a lot of their money to see different shows and often wait all day to get a good position, would have been nice. Of course I know that there are 83,000 people who want to hear "the big hits". But does that mean that the 3,000 true fans can't have 3 or 4 surprises...?? Sorry, but this has been bothering me for some time now.
One more to go: Mannheim.
Dirk
The Rolling Stones concert was very great, it was my 2nd concert this year, it was better than in the Amsterdam Arena. The sound was much better and Mick talked some words to us in Dutch, the setlist was great but I didn't like "Anybody Seen My Baby" (some fans were screaming "Anybody Seen My Raincoat"). Great pyros, great setlist, a great experience. The Rolling Stones blow us away !!!
There had been showers of rain during the day, like bursts of big rainfalls for ten minutes, then one or two hours of great sunshine. That would have been fine for the show too. But it had been sunshine and not rain for hours, until five past eight, same minute as Keith walked out to do Satisfaction... And unlike most other rainy shows I have seen, it just kept raining and raining and raining. It's hard to have 100% Satisfaction when you are struggling with raincoats, wet and cold, as the bursts keep coming twice during each song.
Mick were running backstage during the songs every time the rain got too bad, to ask for his hat, or to get a new raincoat. Keith did not care at all, it seemed. He just put on his hat and played. He must have been soaking wet all through. And Ronnie seemed to have given up the rain before the show started. He never wore a hat. If none in the band catch a cold next week then it's a miracle.
Mick spent a lot of time walking out to the wings. It felt like he wanted to show some sympathy to us. Then he picked up another raincoat. And another. Out of control was great. But I really felt this whole show was a bit out of control, more under control by the rain.
Then they moved directly into Miss You. They did show the Cybervote web page on the monitor, just the top part, but Miss You was played.
Mick were running through the introductions fast. Then Keith did his set. Leah Wood, Ronnies daughter, was on stage on backing vocals for the first time during the reggea song You Don't Have To Mean it. Usually she only show up if they do "Thief In The Night".
For the small stage appearance we got more rain. It actually never stopped, except for may be five minutes a couple of times. They were running out of coats and towels. But thanks to the great professionals, the Rolling Stones, tbis show turned out to be very good. We got Sympathy For The Devil. It really came to life when Charlie finally climbed up to his drum kit. Keith was backstage having guitar problems, but showed up eventually, and we were back in business.
Even all the way back home, we had rain. Thanks for another great show - I may hate rain, but I love the Stones like 100 time more, and no rain will even stop the Stones, that's proven at The Hague on Sept. 5, 1998!
PS. I know that ice rain did stop the concert in Montreal this winter, but then the rain closed down the city, not the Stones...
Unfortunately the weather was quite bad in The Hague and from time to time it rained for a few minutes. But then it was OK : it became worse during the concert (see later).
They opened the gates at 4pm : big rush and run to enter the closed section between the main stage and the B-stage. I find my favorite position : Keith's side in front of the stairs Keith uses during JJF. But this time I had to satisfy with 2nd row :-). After that usual wait until the opening act. Though the weather was quite good (even sunny) after 4pm we could see that it wouldn't last : big dark clouds in sight which let us fear a thunderstorm during the concert. Apparently we were not the only fearing this : at 6:30pm Michael Cohl came on the stage and announced the opening act : Big Country. To be honest I quite enjoyed their set (maybe because I spent one year in Scotland and hearing this Scottish accent reminded me good memories ;-)).
It was then really dark and it was no doubt that it would rain during the Stones show.
Finally Keith hits the stage at 8:05pm .... and so did the rain :-( Everything reminded me the Paris Longchamps 95 2nd concert where it rained nearly during all the show. As usual under such circumstances the guys did a great job : I would even say that they really played better than in normal conditions. I was really impressed by Mick : he didn't change anything in his performance because of the rain, he kept runing from side to side and stayed nearly all the time under the rain. Keith and Rony gave us a good performance too, but from time to time they were lucky to stay under the roof located above Charlie's drum kit.
All in all it was a great show (especially when considering the conditions). As I said it in part 1, they skipped the cybervote though the WEB page was shown on the big screen before Miss You.
I am too tired to write a detailed song by song report, so here are a few memories on top of my head :
During Miss You, Mick when approaching Lisa said something like "she's totally wet" and this time he didn't bite her toes but instead kissed her breast :) Mick made fun of her after he introduced her : saying "thank you" imitating a female voice.
Rony seemed he was having fun under the rain : at one point he wore on his head a sort of orange bonnet (Dutch color). When he came back from the B-stage he grabbed a big cardboard tongue (one with the Steel Wheels/Urban Jungle design) and hold it high so that everybody could see it.
Keith during I Wanna Hold You (I think) pointed his right hand to the sky making a big "up yours" sign , showing that he didn't give a f*ck to the rain.
During Brown Sugar, when Mick and Keith crossed each other way, Mick said something to Keith that made him laugh. Then when Keith came close to Rony he imitated Mick's "ass dance" : pretty funny :-)
Even if the weather was far from being good, I had a great time in The Hague, and it seems it was the same with everybody there. At the end of the show I met Matt Lee who told me he enjoyed the show too.
Now I can't wait for next Week and the Manheim's concert.
After the third song, Flip the switch, Jagger talked about their 'concert' in 'the Kurhaus': "We stopped after three song so that's it for tonight, see you later". Gimme shelter was next followed by the first variable which was Anybody seen my baby. The next song was It's only rock 'n roll which wasn't played in Amsterdam. After this song Jagger got his guitar and wanted to start Saint of me but by a wrong move he unplugged his guitur and only Jagger seemed to know this because he didn't get any help; It took more than a minute before he got any help.
After Out of control it was time for the web-choice. I knew that Waiting on a friend was in the lead followed by Time is on my side. Both songs would be great. This would be a historical moment because they never played Waiting on a friend in Europe! But a big dissapointment followed: no webchoice!!!!! They continued with Miss you and I really felt bad about this. Almost 90.000 people standing in the rain and it seemed that they would do a short set; very dissapointing!
Little queenie, You got me rocking and Like a rolling stones was played on the center stage and it was dry during these songs. The rest of the set is well known and I was still hoping for You can't always get what you want.
The encore was only Brown sugar and they left The Hague and the rest of Holland with just 20 songs. I have to admit that they played those 20 songs extremely well and despite the rain they really seemed to enjoy and so did I.
For those who were in PARIS at Longchamps for the 2nd show the 1st of july 1995, it was approximately the same kind of hard rain, except that in Paris in 95 we were really cold which was not the case in DEN HAAG. But the show was really wet.
The rain began to fall at the exact time the STONES went on stage. It was exactly 8PM07 when Keith played the first note of Satisfaction. The last note of Brown Sugar finished at 10PM19 and the STONES left the stage at 10PM21.
I have seen the STONES 8 times on the BTB Tour and this concert was not the best. But it was a good concert. Mick was not afraid to be wet and he sang a lot under the rain. They were all wearing a hat and the one Keith had was really funny.
The set list was very conventional with no surprise. I have to say that we are a lot of people who begin to be fed up with songs like "It's only Rock'n'Roll" and "Anybody seen". But where are the "Love in vain" - "Under my thumb" - "Bitch" - "Sister Morphine" that they used to play in WERCHTER or in AMSTERDAM ?
We were a little bit disapointed with the cancellation of the web choice. After "Out of control", it was raining a lot, and the big screen was indicating that the web choice was next to come. But Mick took his red guitar and asked the audience "Do you want to sing ?" and he completely ignored the web choice which was not very fair... It should have been "Waiting on a friend" that I did not hear live since 1982...
The boys played well, especially Ronnie who played some superbs lines on some songs, especially at the very end of "You got me rocking"; it was really suberb and it helped us to forget the rain. So whe had a wet concert and a short concert (only 20 songs). Well boys, see you in Wembley in June 99, and please, bring us some new songs.
There was nothing unusual about the show, except for the rain, that caused some defects sometimes. Like during Out of control, when Mick's harmonica failed to work, and he had to get another one. But this meant that the song was longer than usual, which is great of course. I was disappointed that they omitted the internet-vote. During Miss you Mick licked Lisa, and she put her hand on his genitals (to warm them up). Lisa was very out of control during the whole show, especially during Jumpin' Jack Flash, when she was jumping up and down the whole time, with a big smile, which made Bernard laugh.
It was a great show, and I hope that they will come back to Holland in the next millenium.
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It's Only Rock'n Roll 1998 -
© The Rolling Stones Fan Club Of Europe |