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The Double Door club gig

Exactly two weeks after they did their first 1997 club concert in Toronto, and just hours after they arrived to Chicago, the Rolling Stones did their 2nd pre-tour club concert on Thursday Sept. 18 at the Double Door, a small club in Chicago who normally house alternative music rock bands.

The decition to do the Double Door club gig wasn't done until midnight the day before, on Wednesday. Hard core fans with contacts jumped their cars to rush into Chicago. At 9 AM in the morning they put up a sign outside the Double Door simply telling The Rolling Stones. They charged a standard fee of $7 per ticket, you had to show an ID card, and they wrote your name on the armwrist band that was put on each ticketholders hand to prevent ticket scalping (i.e. no blackmarket sales).

A total of 230 tickets were sold to people calling in early on the Double Door. Another 170 tickets went to VIP people, and some lucky guys mamaged to talk their way into the Double Door last minute. The crowd of 400 was actually 100 less than the club can hold, but the Stones management wanted space for TV and radio equipment as well.

The show was on shortly before 10, and they played the following set of songs:

  1. Little Queenie
  2. 19th Nervous Breakdown
  3. You Got Me Rocking
  4. Crazy Mama
  5. The Last Time
  6. Anybody Seen My Baby
  7. Out Of Control
  8. Let It Bleed
  9. Shame Shame Shame
  10. Honky Tonk Women
  11. Start Me Up
  12. Jumping Jack Flash
  13. Brown Sugar

Crazy Mama is in, which is great! Let it Bleed was played a few times acoustic during the 1995 European tour. The new single Anybody Seen My Baby got it's live debut at the club gig, and Shame Shame Shame is an old Jimmy Reed song, played by Willie And The Poor Boys, anong others.

Due to the crazy mood and lights from the camera setup, the club temperature got to the boiling point. It was too hot for Lisa, so she moved outside the club during some songs she wasn't on, to talk to some of the 1,000 or so fans out there, not having tickets to get in. The club door was open, and people outside could actually see parts of the stage, and hear the music very good. A warm nigh in Chicago, indeed!

The Chicago rehearsals

On Friday Sept. 19 it was raining heavily, and the first rehearsals at Soldier Field was cancelled. On Saturday Sept. 20 they rehearsed all of the set from the beginning up to the Keith songs - Bitch and Ruby Tuesday was tried out twice each. On Sunday Sept. 21 they rehearsed the remaining parts of the set. For the final rehearsals on Monday Sept. 22 they checked out some of the songs that still wasn’t perfect. They did Sympathy For The Devil twice, and checked out the intro plus Satisfaction four times. On the day of the concert, Tuesday Sept. 23, they rehearsed the songs on the smaller center stage, before the gates opened.

Previous page Next page First page IORR home It's Only Rock'n Roll no. 30 - Oct. 1997 - © The Rolling Stones Fan Club Of Europe