It's Only Rock'n Roll
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It's Only Rock'n Roll |
It turned out the set list of the Fort Lauderdale show was identical to the Toronto show. Moonlight Mile. How great it is to get this obscure old song live. And how great the sound was in this arena, which is similar to many new arenas built in the States, just a big steel arena built for sports, like ice hockey. But this one had great soud; may be not perfect acoustics, but the Stones crew had managed to get the sound on both the main stage and the B-stage very, very good.
Saint of Me did actually get lots of singing along. It was a nice and warm crowd. My seat was in front of the small stage, $100 price tag, but the view was great, and the sound could not have been better, except may be louder.
Paint It Black was the crowd pleaser tonight. Especially the younger people among the fans loved it, and the great response it got were feeding back into the Stones for the rest of the show. <> Keith had a great laugh, and got a fabulous ovation. He said "It's great to be back, it's great to be anywhere", like he use to do, and the crowd loved him. Noboby went for beers, they stayed to hear You Got The Silver. Again, great version, another obscure song to be played live. If you haven't seen the Stones on this tour, then try getting to a show, and hope for "Silver" by Keith. It's really special to see him sitting on his stool, playing the bottleneck...
Route 66 rocked perfectly from the small stage ... down to St. Louis... Get Your Kicks. My "cheap" $100 ticket had suddenly been upgraded to a front row seat as they played the small stage... "Just My Imagination" was strong too, and "Midnight Rambler is simply a highlight of the show, with all the great harmonica, guitars, blues, blues, blues. The crowd is singing along: "Have you heard about the midnight rambler".
The rest of the show is a winner. I would not say that the crowd is going wild, but they are giving the Stones great feedback, and by the time they finish "Sympathy", it is over all too soon.
By the way, the crowd behind the stage here in Fort Lauderdale was seated all the way down to the stage. At some of the other shows I have been to in the past, they have left the first 10-15 rows behind the stage unused, i.e. emty. May be it was totally filled up because Miami was a complete sell out. I don't know. But what I do know is, the fans over there had the best seats in the house, on the shoulders of Charlie, and the show got better because it was so nicely and tight all wrapped up, with fans 360 degrees arond the stage, and so close!
About the set list in general: Well, to be honest, I do no expect any more changes at all. This show is very predictable by now, set list wise. In Washington D.C. I hope to get a little bit of variation, as they do two shows, like a few other places on the east coast this month (Philly, Boston, Hartford). May be we get both "Memory Motel" and "Moonlight Mile", one night each. It's a good set, an I can understand why they don't want to throw in new and "unsafe" songs. Sure it would be great to have "Might As Well Get Juiced" or something really old and obscure. All we can do is hope, but still enjoy what we get - a great show anyway!
Start Time 9:25 End Time 11:20
The set list:
Jumping Jack Flash is a great opening song because everybody in the crowd knows it and can sing along... the power continued right on into Live With Me even though a lot of younger fans didn't know it, but the crowd reaction lessened during Respectable and You Got Me Rocking... So it was perfect when Keith launched into the opening riffs of Honky Tonk Women as the fifth song! The crowd was instantly back into it...
it was great to finally hear Moonlight Mile in person after hearing it on a few bootlegs from the tour... it has gotten stronger since the first ragged try in Oakland! We got a great sing along on Saint Of Me, lots of the younger audience members knew this one! I was apprehensive about hearing Some Girls without the harp on it but it works perfectly and has also gotten stronger...
Paint It Black got an incredible recption from young and old alike, man what a wonderful, powerful version! Unlike the slightly slowed down version of 19th Nervous Breakdown we got on the B2B tour PIB lost NONE of its pace and power!
During the band intro's when Mick introduced Keith he put an arm around his shoulders and led him to the microphone, about as close as I've seen them get to each other onstage in years! I knew they didn't do You Got The Silver in Tampa two nights earlier so I was prepared just in case they didn't do it here either... but while Keith talked to us for a minute I saw a roadie bring him his accoustic and a stool and I knew we were gonna get lucky tonight! And I'll tell you this song alone is worth every penny of the ticket price, Keith poured his soul into it! And unlike the last few tours NO one left during his set... maybe more Stones fans ARE going to their shows these days!
Out Of Control featured the return of the Mick in a box effect that they used on the early shows on the Voodoo Lounge tour... one second there is a blue spotlight over the microphone and the next Mick is standing in it... don't blink! Then it was time for them to come out to us! Our seats were in Section 111, right behind the soundboard....the sound during Route 66 was horrible from our vantage point, I was worriedabout the other two songs but we lucked out, they fixed it by the time Keith hit the opening notes of Just My Imagination...great version but it begs for Keith to do backing vocals like he did on the '81 tour and unfortunately we didn't get it, but a great version none the less....
the whole show was building up for something and we found out what it was when Mick started blowing the harp and you recognized Midnight Rambler was comming up! I'm going out on a limb here and saying this is THE best live version of Rambler EVER...including Get Your Ya-Ya's Out! I can see the cards and letters rolling in now! Wait till you hear it yourself then post in here and let me know what you think...
After Midnight Rambler is where I have trouble with this setlist...how are you going to carry the momentum over to the six songs left in the set? To me the answer was they couldn't... Tumbling Dice was next up and you could see the bands interest and concentration start to fade... Keith even got lost in the middle of the song for several bars, I'm not sure what he was playing! What they should do is leave Rambler till the last song before the encore like they did in Oakland and leave before the encore with the crowd begging for more! As it is now Sympathy is more of an afterthought than a killer closer like some closers have been on past tours....
But I'll tell you this, I'm looking forward BIG time to seeing them again in Columbus on April 3rd! One reason for that is because I'm seeing them with my girlfriend Sym, we met in a Stones chat room and it seems fitting for us to see them together.... and if Keith or one of his people reads this PLEASE play You Got The Silver in Columbus, if you don't I'll be in trouble because I saw it down here.... but if you could also throw in Thief In The Night you might help me get lucky that night!
You got me rocking sounded great , as did saint of me. honky tonk really got the crowd going as did paint it black, which i though sounded better than when they did it on the steel wheels tour. oh some girls was great, alwas wanted to hear that onel. keiths tunes were really cool and most of the people stayed in their seats! the small stage was the highlight for me. all three songs were just fantastic. route 66, imagination, which i am not a huge fan of really surprised me, it was great and of course m.rambler just blew me away, again much better than the steel wheesl version.
Then it was the ending songs which sounded just like the other tours, good but nothing really changed, although i thought sympathy sounded better than usual. all in all a gret show. go at and see them if you can. one side bar, when i got back to the hotel the girl working the counter asked me how the show was, after some chit chat she tells me the band is staying there. i didn't beleive her at first but then i realized she was telling the truth. she said mick came in just a little bit before us wearing a baseball cap. so we waited arount till 3 oclock for some signs of keith or woody but no luck. it was there last night there so maybe they jumped a plane to the next city. damn!! oh well, a great night.
We had expected floor seats for the price and were kind of disappointed when they came in the mail and read "Section 120". But wow! What a spot. Right to the left of the stage. Mick was there all nite.
The set list was somewhat different from prior shows (prior tours) with Some Girls being the hilite (at least for me). Now that I think about it, Some Girls may have been my first show, '81 maybe. That year I toured around a bit and saw them in a few places. I'm considering that this year. The smaller venues and the simple stage are awesome.
With Tommy Hilfiger sponsoring the show and the high dollar ticket prices, I thought a few super models in Tommy's new line would have been huge. In the absence of Jerry Hall and friends, I was tempted to strut my stuff along the catwalk! Not that I'm any Jerry Hall, but I could have stepped right up there. I may have needed a hand, maybe just a boost from security or a pull from someone on stage. (Has anyone seen my bra?)
It was great to be down with all of the backstage crew/friends. I hope to see them again later this year. Does anybody know what's planned for New Years 2k? See you there!
Most fans, lucky for the Stones, feel the same as Steven Tyler who once said it doesn't matter what the tickets cost to see the Stones, the important thing is seeing them. Let's dispense with the negatives first. The price of tickets in relation to length of show and number of encores. The Stones would not be pleased to hear the comments I heard when it was realized there would be no additional encore after Sympathy for the Devil. Secondly as being a Stones fan since 1971 I was filled with a feeling of utter disgust when seeing the pamphlets advertising Stones checks with the tongue logo on them for your checking account, I'm glad I didn't see these till after the show was over. My last bitch is the embarrasement I felt when the front man for the Fly's pointed out the real Stones fans, and put the stage lights on the people sitting in the top most level behind the stage, let's be realistic, what kind of seat is that, I would have felt totally fucked if that was where I ended up. I've got nothing against making money but I really feel this direction is taking the Stones into the unchartered waters of greed and avarice.
Enough of the commentary, on to the show. First let me say that the front man for the Fly's is a true professional, he worked the crowd up for the Stones. Thanking the audience numerous times for their patience and allowing the Flys to complete their set. He was very aware of the response opening acts sometimes receive from a Stones crowd (I think the real reason for Green Days reluctance). He told the audience how they had played on the same stage with many acts, including Green Day, but none had kicked their ass to the extant the Stones had done in Tampa. They played for about forty five minutes and had a clean powerful loud sound. At this show were many, as Mick says,"lovely ladies in your leather and lace". I'm not talking the over forty crowd but young women looking very good. There were also your typical older suit types with their trophy dates trying to impress by how close they were to the stage.
We sat in section 4 on the floor about 30 rows back from the stage, Woody's side. As Ed says the sound was good, what Ed didn't say was that Ron Wood received the longest ovation of the night, so long in fact that Mick cut into it to introduce Charlie. It was interesting to watch Keith's expression while he was inhaling on a cigarette and watching Ronnie egg the crowd on while they cheering him. The sound from the B stage seemed muffled where I was standing, not quite as clear. We were about 25 feet from the small stage on the left side. The best part of the show for me was Midnight Rambler, if anyone has fantasies of the '69 tour as do I, this is as close as you will get to that moment in time. Mick to me seemed as if in his mind he was back in '69 with his movements and facial expressions during that song, quite like his head movements in the film "Gimme Shelter". The surreal moment was during Midnight Rambler when any hardcore fan would have done anything to be there.
There was this guy about fifty sitting down with his head in his hands looking at the floor, twenty feet from the B stage, not wanting to be there having to be consoled by his date. Do you think any of you would have traded places with him. On a side note, Mick you look great, take your fucking shirt off. See you in Philly.
Thanks to Ted Saxlid and each and every one of you for supplying links to online newspapers, and reviews, of course!
Read all about the "No Security" and "Bridges To Babylon" tours of 1999 in the It's Only Rock'n Roll magazines. New issue IORR 35 out Jan 20, 1999, and the complete No Security guide in IORR 36 is out April 23, 1999.
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It's Only Rock'n Roll 1999 -
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