It's Only Rock'n Roll
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It's Only Rock'n Roll |
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Stones
NEWS |
Tell Me Forum |
Hackney Diamonds |
Tour 2024 |
Mick Jagger |
Keith Richards |
Charlie Watts |
Ronnie
Wood |
The Rolling Stones : 8:50pm - 10:45pm
The IORR show comments:
Finally a show in a big city! A show where transportation do work. A show where you can have a beer or a drink in the city, then go any time you like to the show by train or tram in 10-15 minutes, then you are back home in 30-45 minutes after the final bow. Finally! Thank you Frankfurt!
People complain about seats on the floor/pitch, for the first time in stadiums in Germany. But fact is because of the seats I was able to meet up with a great Stones fan from Antigua in the Caribbean. It is always a great honor to meet up with other fans who travel far and "aim high" for Stones shows and the passion of rock'n'roll. Also, it turned out we shared memories from the San Juan Puerto Rico show which was just great, the week before the free Rio Copacabana show.
The stadium in Frankfurt is terrible for sound. Absolutely useless for music. If Amsterdam ArenA is bad then this one is useless. In fact the A.dam Arena is perfect compared to the stadium in Frankfurt. This stadium have a roof which means all the sound is bouncing around between the walls forever, making the quality of the music almost non-existent. Probably the worst concert venue in Europe.
But - The power of the Stones makes it all very different! Monkey Man. Magic through the big echo. Sweet Virginia. Just beautiful. Midnight Rambler. Can't live without it. First time on this summer tour but please play it again. The crowd just loved it!
Some say the big hits don't work. Too boring. Well how about "Tumbling Dice"? If they did not play that great song every night the show would not be worth going to! There would be a missing link. The song is so complete. The band work so many ways in the venue. It is a core part of the show and every single person in the crowd love it. If you don't like TD then you need a break or a vacation!
Keith did two great songs. Before They Make Me Run made some of us run for the B-stage. With perfect strategic postition for the B-stage security told us to come closer. I mean it took like 1/10 of a second in fact before they told us and the front rows were all packed with fans, just as the band came closer with "It's Only Rck'n Roll".
Satisfaction was played on the B-stage as before on this tour leg. The highlight of this song was seeing Charlie smiling wider and wider as the song moved on. He just loved it. And his double beats on the bass drum told us he was in the mood for this show. And his t-shirt was of course yellow color like it should be for this place. Keith did the opening of Satisfaction, and unlike before, he did a long walk-around for his 2nd solo, but thank you very much, he was back in the front for his 2nd and most important solo in Satisfaction. Just as he finished his long and great riffs, not a solo, but the core part of Satisfaction, the riff playing, he tossed his pick out in the air to one lucky guy who aimed for it like crazy and got it in his hand, this very lucky guy... Thank you Keith!
All good things have to end, and they moved back from the B-stage. During "Sympathy For The Devil" Keith was on his way to the wing on Ronnie side when the song literally collapsed. Keith's guitar did not work. Which tells us how important his playing is on these songs. He moved quickly back to center stage and over to Pierre his guitar technician, who fixed the problem, and for the rest of Sympathy Keith was very, very on!
Paint It Black. Even a muddy echo venue can't take away that great song. Fantastic. And by the way... The echo sound in the Frankfurt stadium might have been extreme, but the crowd was the best so far this summer. Which says a lot, knowing for a fact that the "kids" at Isle of Wight were just fantastic as well.
Brown Sugar and Jumping Jack Flash. Satisfied? Indeed!
Over the last years the tickets got more and more expensive, but the same time Keith and Ron are playing less and less on their guitars. And a lot of wrong tunes, so that Blondie now plays guitar too, to hold the band and the sound together. They are getting old. I love the Stones and it was my 14th Stones-concert - and not my last one. But you can see and hear that they are loosing their power and the magic moments are very rare. Only Mick gives everything on stage to entertain the audience. The others are obviously unconcentrated. But these boys are the Rolling Stones and I love them.
1. The stadium and the crowd... placing the stage on the sidetribune was a good idea..cause: The stadium seemed to be full at least... it looked pretty packed, the atmosphere was great... the fans were into it, especially during the second half and there were already no bad places cause evrybody had a much closer view to the stage... I guess approx 25.000 visitors...
2. I had block A2 row 1 seat 10.. so this was front line , you could not get closer to the stage.. but they left about 2 meters space between row 1 and the iron wall... everytime I wanted to go front, I was told to go back by the security... rubbish.. after the Stones hit the stage on 08.50 pm evrybody was on his or or her feet... as if there were no seats at all.. I could hardly see Charly from my place.. I could not see Bernard,Lisa and Blondy at all, cause the stage was so high and I was on Keith side just opposite to the horn section.
Now the show.... so I had the so called best seats in the stadium... and I got the worst sound i ever wittnessed at a Stones gig... and I saw more than 30 or 40 Stones gigs so far... believe it or not.... setlistwise tonights gig was one of my favorites.. but what do you do if you are not able to recognice the songs.. such as, Bitch, Monkey man, even Rambler was a mess soundwise... i could hardly hear the guitars.. Micks voice could not be heard at all.. the horns.. forget it.. it was a horrible mish mash...
I really wanted to cry... never thought it could get such a shitty lousy sound.. The Stones themselfes were in good shape.... Mick at his best... he talked a lot to the audience... he apologized for not playing last year and so on, Charly was cool... he had so much fun during band intro.. Ronnie was very concentrated.. Keith, well Keith...on some songs he was on.. on others he wasn't.. well this is Keith as we all know him, BUT: he was not the keith I saw last summer...what I mean ?..I am not sure, but he partly looked and behaved like he was kind of sedated (sediert in german)... as I will go to the next Stones gig in Paris on saturday I will watch him again carfully and than I will see if there is something or if it was just an off night like he has it from time to time...although I do not mean this musicalwise..his guitar playing seemed to be ok so far...well at least from what I heard from time to time.During Symphathy something was wrong with his guitar...he stopped the solo and went to Pierre the talked to each other, checked the guitar and so... during JJF & BS he was on fire again...I think. They playd about 1 hour 55 minutes and performed 19 songs.
So all in all....it was , again, a high energetic Stones show...with Jagger setting the standard to higher levels....He alone, is worth the ticket price, The the band was on fire, the audience was hot, too....the sound was absoloutly aweful...it can`t get worse...and therefor I could not enjoy the show as I could , or better as I should.
Keith was somehow strange...and now I am looking forward to Paris...where I will have normal FOS tix...and this is my experience from todays gig....being in the first ten rows is too close...the stage is too high...you can not see evrything whats going on stage....I mean the whole production ( stage, sound and performancewise has become so large, that, if you are really front row, the show is blowing away over your head... so IMO the best place on a Stones gig is FOS about 10-15 meters from first row..just between main and bstage..this is the place to be..cause there you get both...perfect sound and perfect view.
They're getting worse and worse, I have to be so honest to say that.
There were five or six songs which were played very well, including Rough Justice, Monkey Man or Brown Sugar, but the other ones included so many mistakes..The main dissapointing was Sympathy. Although the intro is played almost two minutes, Keith wasn't ready to the first chorus and came out on stage for the verse in which he,and ronnie too, didn't play one single note. And why did charlie stand up during sympathy and went behind the stage and came back after about 30 seconds? In the middle of a song! That never would have happend earlier!
Jagger really holds the stones together. Now he sometimes does three things in one song: playing guitar, playing harmonica and singing of course (Sweet Virgina)...really, Keith can't do ONE of those no more. I think he is really tired of playing his songs over forty years.
Ronnie was, to my surprise, very good, he always knew his parts and where what to play. Such a thing makes me happy by now. Keith's set ... And I saw many people who sat down (on our lovely seats) as he began playing, sorry, trying to know his words and chords. It doesnt work anymore. Some were playing the verse, others were playing the chorus..Nothing fit there.
The setlist was OK, but I missed gimme shelter as a warhorse. I don't need a James Brown cover.
The absolutely highlight was midnight rambler! Its a great, great song and it was played so well.
About the sound: It was awful. The sound was swimming around, but that may be caused by the place of the stage, because it wasnt far to the other side, you know the stage was buildt up at the long side of the stadium, so the sound is reflected earlier, but I dont really know if it was that.
I was there, cause I love all of their songs, but their best period is really over..
Maybe they're a little bit better in d�sseldorf. I hope so.
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Thanks!
Thanks to
Detlef Neumann,
Dietmar Albrecht
and
Klaus Lauterbach
for photos!
Thanks to
Jochen Schr�der,
Thomas Holm�n
and
Neil Ebden
for news links!
It's Only Rock'n Roll 1980 - 2007