A lot of people here seems to have had an awful experience of the ABB tour. They write that the band played bad, that Keith was extremely bad and so on.

Personally I haven't got that impression. I attended 17 shows in different cities, over a two year period, and I had a great time on each and every one of them. I've seen them many times on every tour, except NS, since 1982, and ABB tour was really rocking! The sound was rauncier, loud guitars, a lot of great songs performed - yeah yeah yeah I know about the war horses - and I just think that it was great rock'n roll shows over all.

There's a difference in the arrangements, which I mostly like, although it means that Keith plays less now, which of course is not preferable. He consentrates more on fills now, and that could easily be his troubled fingers causing this. Can we blame him for that? I mean, BB King sits during his shows nowadays - do we blame him for that?

Of course I hear Keiths mistakes, but I have heard The Stones much much worse on shows from the 60/70/80 than the ones I heard on the ABB tour.

And as far as the bands condition in general, I've seen Charlie and Ronnie live a couple of times lately, and they sure are in great shape. Mick is a fire work as usual judging by his performances lately, and I trust that IF they choose to tour, Keith will be more than ready. He looks fine on all the recent pictures and interviews.

So I really hope for another tour, I was not frightened at all by the ABB tour. Quite the opposite, I was really impressed by the pace and the guts on that tour.

Here's the list of ABB shows I saw. I loved them all.

13.09.05 Madison Square Garden New York
18.01.06 Madison Square Garden New York
20.01.06 Madison Square Garden New York
11.07.06 San Siro Milano
21.07.06 Olympiastadion Berlin
31.07.06 ArenA Amsterdam
01.09.06 Koengen Bergen
03.09.06 Horsen
16.06.07 Stade De France Paris
06.07.07 Stadio Olimpico Roma
03.08.07 Nya Ullevi Gøteborg
05.08.07 Idrettsparken København
08.08.07 Valle Hovin Oslo
18.08.07 Slane Castle Dublin
21.08.07 O2 London
23.08.07 O2 London
26.08.07 O2 London

those 17 shows were wonderful; all the rest were awful. next time, i'm gonna let you pick the ones i go to.

ABB was a fine tour. It was just more of "the same" which is bad if you choose to look at it that way.

All you have to do is listen. And when it's compared to even the Licks tour then yes, it was bad.

Unfortunately the tour was bad. Rio was okay, some shows were okay, but the decline in the guitar department was so obvious it was brutal.

I've seen two shows (Düsseldorf and Amsterdam). Both shows were mediocre, the acoustic in Amsterdam was awful, the guitar playing of Keith in Düsseldorf horrible; from the boots I recognize that the guitar work of Ronnie and Keith declined unfortunately in general. Ronnies solos in the first part of the tour were really lousy (e. g. SMU or YCAGWYW or TD), then the solos were slightly better, but the "Post-falling-tree-Keith" matched Ronnie of the first part of the tour, hear e. g. his "solo" on SFTD in "Shine a Light". Thus I think we saw and heard mediocre guitar work at the best. Since the Stones are a guitar band, the tour 05-07 wasn't among their best.

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NedKelly
I had a great time on each and every one of them.

Good for you. That's all that matters. Who cares what other people think ?

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Keep On Rolling

I went to see them and I had a blast.
They were great.

Well, having a great time at something is not saying the show/performance/etc was great. Or maybe for them it is.

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DragonSky
Well, having a great time at something is not saying the show/performance/etc was great.

excellent point. i've had great times at lousy shows and awful times at great shows. i've also had mediocre times at great shows and lousy times at mediocre shows. for some reason, i've never had a mediocre time at a lousy show, though. strange.

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DragonSky
Well, having a great time at something is not saying the show/performance/etc was great. Or maybe for them it is.

Ooookey,,,Well, the show/performance/etc ...whatever you choose to call it - was great !!!

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seitan

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DragonSky
Well, having a great time at something is not saying the show/performance/etc was great. Or maybe for them it is.

Ooookey,,,Well, the show/performance/etc ...whatever you choose to call it - was great !!!

Coming from someone that doesn't think Keith has arthritis in his fingers that comment makes total sense.

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DragonSky
All you have to do is listen. And when it's compared to even the Licks tour then yes, it was bad.

Could you be more spesific?

I saw the Olympia show in 2003, and Keith was no where near the cords on Hand of fate, except for the beginning and that theme. I'm impressed that they gave it out on the dvd set, but they covered it up pretty nicely... :-) Anyway, my point is that Keith has done increadibly bad songs since the day he entered the stage for the first time, nothing new in that. So he had a bad solo on Sympathy, or whatever, but does that mean he plays bad all the time?

Well, I just don't think so. He doesn't play the same way as in 69, but to this day I enjoy most of his work on the Shine A Light movie as one example. His timing and licks are increadble imo.

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RobertJohnson
I've seen two shows (Düsseldorf and Amsterdam). Both shows were mediocre, the acoustic in Amsterdam was awful, the guitar playing of Keith in Düsseldorf horrible; from the boots I recognize that the guitar work of Ronnie and Keith declined unfortunately in general. Ronnies solos in the first part of the tour were really lousy (e. g. SMU or YCAGWYW or TD), then the solos were slightly better, but the "Post-falling-tree-Keith" matched Ronnie of the first part of the tour, hear e. g. his "solo" on SFTD in "Shine a Light". Thus I think we saw and heard mediocre guitar work at the best. Since the Stones are a guitar band, the tour 05-07 wasn't among their best.

You can't do much about the acoustics, can you?

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DragonSky

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seitan

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DragonSky
Well, having a great time at something is not saying the show/performance/etc was great. Or maybe for them it is.

Ooookey,,,Well, the show/performance/etc ...whatever you choose to call it - was great !!!

Coming from someone that doesn't think Keith has arthritis in his fingers that comment makes total sense.

Again - youre missing the point - if he's got it - it didnt stop him from playing great, and it didnt bother the show at all.

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seitan

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DragonSky

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seitan

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DragonSky
Well, having a great time at something is not saying the show/performance/etc was great. Or maybe for them it is.

Ooookey,,,Well, the show/performance/etc ...whatever you choose to call it - was great !!!

Coming from someone that doesn't think Keith has arthritis in his fingers that comment makes total sense.

Again - youre missing the point - if he's got it - it didnt stop him from playing great, and it didnt bother the show at all.

You don't get it. There is no IF he's got it - he DOES. And the decline of the ability of Keith has been noticed by a lot of people, especially on the Bang tour. It's one thing to have fun at a show and catch them actually performing well, it's another to think they are the greatest rock'n'roll band in the world these days as well as the previous few tours when they were called that as they entered their peak performance years touring and recently they're not anywhere near great. You think Keith's playing is great on the Bang tour? Well good for you. Obviously your idea of what is great is way off the mark when it comes to reality.

I saw 9 shows on this tour. I loved them all. Had the best time!! The best was Atlantic City. Great show! Great set lists!

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NedKelly

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RobertJohnson
I've seen two shows (Düsseldorf and Amsterdam). Both shows were mediocre, the acoustic in Amsterdam was awful, the guitar playing of Keith in Düsseldorf horrible; from the boots I recognize that the guitar work of Ronnie and Keith declined unfortunately in general. Ronnies solos in the first part of the tour were really lousy (e. g. SMU or YCAGWYW or TD), then the solos were slightly better, but the "Post-falling-tree-Keith" matched Ronnie of the first part of the tour, hear e. g. his "solo" on SFTD in "Shine a Light". Thus I think we saw and heard mediocre guitar work at the best. Since the Stones are a guitar band, the tour 05-07 wasn't among their best.

You can't do much about the acoustics, can you?

This is right, but do you think that Amsterdam was brillant, but since the acoustics wasn't okay, no one heard it?

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DragonSky

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seitan

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DragonSky

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seitan

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DragonSky
Well, having a great time at something is not saying the show/performance/etc was great. Or maybe for them it is.

Ooookey,,,Well, the show/performance/etc ...whatever you choose to call it - was great !!!

Coming from someone that doesn't think Keith has arthritis in his fingers that comment makes total sense.

Again - youre missing the point - if he's got it - it didnt stop him from playing great, and it didnt bother the show at all.

You don't get it. There is no IF he's got it - he DOES. And the decline of the ability of Keith has been noticed by a lot of people, especially on the Bang tour. It's one thing to have fun at a show and catch them actually performing well, it's another to think they are the greatest rock'n'roll band in the world these days as well as the previous few tours when they were called that as they entered their peak performance years touring and recently they're not anywhere near great. You think Keith's playing is great on the Bang tour? Well good for you. Obviously your idea of what is great is way off the mark when it comes to reality.

Oh, I have noticed the decline of the Stones, believe me - In my opinion, the best Stones tour was in 1969 - The Let It Bleed/Get Your Ya Ya's Out - tour, but that's a matter of musical taste. No need to argue about that..I dont think anyone could ever top that tour.

I had a blast at the Louisville show. It was probably the weakest of every show I have seen, but there was nothing wrong with it. Ronnie played great, Keith didn't play badly - he just didn't play very MUCH.

But it was fun, mostly because of the atmosphere and because of Mick - who had the crowd eating out of his hand on that chilly September night.

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NedKelly

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DragonSky
All you have to do is listen. And when it's compared to even the Licks tour then yes, it was bad.

Could you be more spesific?

I saw the Olympia show in 2003, and Keith was no where near the cords on Hand of fate, except for the beginning and that theme. I'm impressed that they gave it out on the dvd set, but they covered it up pretty nicely... :-) Anyway, my point is that Keith has done increadibly bad songs since the day he entered the stage for the first time, nothing new in that. So he had a bad solo on Sympathy, or whatever, but does that mean he plays bad all the time?

Well, I just don't think so. He doesn't play the same way as in 69, but to this day I enjoy most of his work on the Shine A Light movie as one example. His timing and licks are increadble imo.

He was better overall on the Licks tour than on the Bang tour. While that is not exactly a big hurrah it has been acknowledged by quite a few people on this board, seeing that observation is quite a reliable truth. His screwing up the solo for SFTD has been an ongoing deal ever since 1994 now so at least he's consistent.

It was the worst of the Cohl era tours. Keith was the biggest weakness. The new material also wasn't that great and didn't translate well to the stage.

GREAT tour

I went to 2 shows....Philly and Hersey, Pa. and LOVED them both...
For me it was one of their best shows....I had Great seats.
And Keith and Woodie sounded fresh and excited...

Went to 3 shows, enjoyed all of them and was glad to be able to see The Stones.

That said, the only part that I thought wasn't good were Keith's vocals. He sounded terrible at one of the shows.

Ronnie's face was blank and had zero emotion in the Rio footage - I can still remember Keith saying "All right Ronnie", like it was a reminder for him to play.

Probably the funniest thing I remember from that tour was that Keith was not on stage for Streets of Love in one of the shows I attended. People head for the toilets when Keith plays his songs and he apparently did the same for SOL.

C´mon folks ... how about having a little drink or/and smoking that stuff Mick Jagger mentions before "Let´s spend the Night together" on Still life ... and a stones concert is big fun, even at the bb-tour. Don´t be that critical, the stones are human beings and no red wine, getting better while aging ... I was just glad to see them, havin a good time, singing with the folks, who cares about the rest ... .

All concerts behind 1965 are very disappointing, no action, really.











... perhaps a little gleam at





Thereafter they have never done a good tour anymore, no Brian, no Taylor, no Stones ...

The Twicks show I went to was superb, I don't listen to badly recorded Boots from someones phone. The concerts I went to were great....

It wasn't so much that it was "bad" but more so "it was getting worse." Since B2B on we've seen elements of the band start to deteriorate with each tour that came around. I personally started to see it slip by the second leg of the B2B tour.

By the time ABB came around, Keith had become practically undependable, musically. He was there for all the warhorses but practically MIA besides for his usual noodling on the other songs in the set. Keith has lost interest in playing rhythm guitar which leaves us with the two guitar players' roles completely reversed. Ronnie has picked up the rhythm when he hears Keith start to noodle. It's much easier to noodle than to remember chord changes.

This was a shame because ABB was the best SOUNDING tour in a while. Guitars were right up front in all the shows I saw them.

What makes all this suck all the more is that they had us paying $300/$400 for a ticket. This is what we get for that money? That's were part of the negativity comes in. I've said it before...the Stones musically speaking, are not a band where they should feel justified to charge that amount of money. Those days are over. Yet I have no doubt they will continue to do so. And that's where my (and perhaps many here's) anger stems from.

We'd get a much happier mood around here if the highest ticket they sold was $170. Considering 95% of it is a show we've all seen before...that price is about right.

Seeing the band live is the event. I do agree that Keith hit the skids on "Little T&A" which was paiful to watch and hear.

Secondly, after viewing. YouTube video of JJFlash which isolates on Keith, it was obvious that Blondie was covering for him. Spa YouTube search for "Keith Richards drunk onstage". Watch and listen. It isn't Keith or Ronnie playing the reoccuring riff. It is Blondie.