It's Only Rock'n Roll
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It's Only Rock'n Roll |
The show was on an old airfield 40 minutes south of Vienna, in a place called Wiener Neustadt. After 20 minutes of walking from the trainstation we were there. About 60,000 people, were there to make a great show.
I happened to end up by the small stage on Ronnie's side, and just stayed there until they went back on the main stage. Being quite south in Europe, and with some dangerous and dark rain clouds covering the sky, it was quite dark by the beginning of the show. And when they finished Gimme Shelter, it was all dark.
Anybody Seen My Baby worked great, and the crowd loved it, singing along, dancing, great tune! Charlie owned the following version of You Got Me Rocking, which is really a tune where each of the members of the Stones play a vital role, and particulary Charlie, with his strong drumming.
Saint Of Me made a nice sing-a-long finish. Then Mick walked to pick up his silver jacket, and as he was back, the crowd had restarted Saint Of Me, doing the verses on their own. The entire stadium picked it up, and just like in Amsterdam #4, the singing went on and on. And Mick did not have the heart to stop us. Chuck and Charlie jammed along with us, and I wished they had kept it going for more minutes. But they had another song to do.
The opening chorts of Out Of Control stopped our singing, but gave us another great song. Mick seemed a bit tired, as he did not jump and scream as much as he use to do, but the song was great.
The web choice was Under My Thumb. Star Star was close, and I hoped it would make it. But what followed tonight made my day anyway, as "Thumb" was the greatest version yet. Mick singed the instrumental opening like Ta Ta-Ra Ta-Ram-Tam to tease us. Then the song started. Strong version. When it finished, Mick came back and did some extra verses. The "extra" Thumb lasted for one or two minutes, while the band jammed along, we were singing, and Mick worked hard on keeping it going. Indeed a great version, and if it keeps going like this, I could take "Thunb" every night!
Miss You did more singing among the crowd. Keith did Thief In The Night, and again presented Leah Wood with a kiss, saying it's cheaper when they are Ronnie's. Wanna Hold You was strong as usual.
Ever since Miss You people had been coming up to us, from all over, to the center stage. It wasn't really crammed, but it certainly makes it tense, as you know they are about to arrive soon.
Then they were here - 3 meters (10 feet) away, perfect. The sound on Little Queenie was muddy, simply because we hear the monitors on the small stage louder than the main PA; time delays etc makes it strange and bumpy. Everyone seemed to enjoy it. Mick said: Ronnie, do you remember this one? Then they did The Last Time. Darryl came to jam with Chuck. Keith walked over to our side and to Mick in the middle at times. The band really enjoyed it. By Like A Rolling Stone it was already a perfect set, even if this was by no means an exceptional set. I guess it's just the joy of being so close, and the excitement among the crowd so up close!
Whenever you have the chance, I would recommend going up there to the small stage, but make it early, either before the show (then you will be in perfect position, or before Miss You, then you will still be very, very close!
The rest of the show was just as good as it use to get. Five great classic songs plus Brown Sugar as an encore. No surprises, but why change such a great set? The fireworks were enormous, as they did not have to worry about the crowd or people living close by on this remote airfield. Thanks to the Austrian crowd for making Wiener Neustadt a much better show than the previous I saw in Zeltweg, south of Austria, 1995.
Start time: 21:35 End time : 23:55
The set list:
Although they played almost exactly the Nuremberg setlist, there is always new excitement, new adventures and new moments of pleasure. We wanted to be in the FRONT ROW again, this time on Ronnie's side. We made it!! Needless to say that it took us hours of waiting, standing, being pushed. But when "Satisfaction" was on the way all the troubles were forgotten and we could scream out all our tension.
The crowd was great, remarkably young, the average age in our section might have been not more than 25 years. AND THEY DID ROCK! Especially the new songs were appreciated very much. On the other hand they did not know the words of "Like a Rolling Stone", there was not that much support by the fans as there was in Nuremberg.
"Under my thumb": At first I thought: Oh no, the third time for me to hear this cybercast vote song! But then it turned out to be one of the highlights for me. When Mick was singing the lines " ...under my thumb there is a siamese cat of a girl.." he stood right in front of me with his hand up to his eyes to shadow the lights and smiled at ME!! It was such a great feeling! And the song in that extended version was just great, too.
This time I had the very definite feeling that the Stones are trying to come into closer contact with their fans; Ronnie also smiled at me as I shouted his name, Mick clapped hands to the audience on Keith's side (to bad for me!), Keith came down to the lower way of the stage from one corner to the other. And they were all so much more relaxed than they were in Nuremberg!
BOYS, PLEASE LET THIS TOUR NOT BE THE LAST TIME!!!
S T O N E S F O R E V E R !!!
Nothing new with LSTNT,FTS and GS as he following ones. We got Anybody see my baby and a strong You got me rocking. Next was Saint of me. To my surprise Keith turns this song to be better and better (It never was one of my faviorits on the B2B tour) Web choice was Under my thumb as usual you can say, but the croud loved it.
Keith did TITN with the beautiful Mrs. Wood on backup vocals and Mr.Chaplin on acustic guitar (and Pierre on Keyboards of course)
B stage songs were LQ, TLT and LARS. A Keithaholic had a T-shirt with After Elvis only Keith written on. First when Keith saw it he just smiled, but when the guy threw it to Keith he actually took it and put it in his trousers. Later he personally gave this guy a guitar pick. The rest of the show was as usual or let me say great as usual. There�s just one thing left to say Munich we�re coming
The first four songs, (4. Gimme shelter) seem do fulfill my fears, the sound wasn�t good, but then the whole thing startet to get really great. Keith is in a fantastic shape, so are Ronnie, Charlie and Mick. To be honest, the departure of Bill Wyman was the best thing to happen, Darryl Jones is just great on bass, they did a great version of miss you with a long instrumental part, which was great. They did also Anybody seen.. , Out of control and Saint of me, an Keith did Thief in the night. Saint of me was the highpoint of the show, The song was already over and the audience was still singing "you never make an saint of me, oh yea, oh yea, " for minutes, mick was saying: "thats our job to sing", he did not know what to do, wow.
No voice problems with mick, and keith was playing most of the solos, and he was just great, for me musically the whole thing comes right after their 1978 tour (got the bootleg from the memphis show - some girls are bigger than others). I liked the more guitarbased sound very much, its not with that much keyboard like in 1990 or 1995, most of the time the keyboard was in pianosound.
centerstage was great with Little queenie, Last time and Like a rolling stone (best version i have ever heard)
After that, there was this "greatest hits block", Sympathy, Tumblin, Start me up, Honky tonk, Jumpin, Encore: Brown sugar. They did great versions, without doubt, but i dont understand why they always have to play all this stuff, i mean they could leave some of this and exchange it with not so often heard songs, for example "Too tight", or "Too though", whatever.
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It's Only Rock'n Roll 1998 -
© The Rolling Stones Fan Club Of Europe |