Quote
BowieStone
Really surprised with the great reviews.
I thought this was a pretty dull, lifeless gig.
Also very slow. Songs like Miss You and MR seemed incredibly slow.

It was my third of the tour; Hamburg was good, Amsterdam was great.
But this one? No, it seemed the autopilot was on. I hope not for the rest of the tour as I am going to all remaining gigs.

I can live with the usual mistakes. But I never thought after one hour: I wanna go home.

Could be my position though. Normally I’m much closer to the stage. Now I was watching the screens.

I don't know how anyone could watch them night after night play basically the same setlist, with some songs slowing down to waltz time. This has occurred over the last ten years or so. I can see going once on a tour for sentiment sake, but I don't get what people expect to hear differently from one concert to another. The days of them ad libbing and going in an interesting direction or two are long gone. Now it's considered a triumph when they get through a song and it sounds reasonably close to what you remember. Strange.

I am also surprised about the good reviews. When I read them I thought I was at another concert. Compared to Amsterdam this one was really lifeless and dull. The sound on general admission was awful and echoing.

My friend left after one hour. Arnhem will be my last concert on the tour and I hope they are worth the money.

I really enjoyed myself at this show. Everybody was in great shape and gave their most. Personally I think this was better than Amsterdam. Bitch and GOMC sounded great. The rest was also superb. We parked across the stadium near a nature reserve for free! After the show we were in no time on the road.

"I am also surprised about the good reviews. When I read them I thought I was at another concert..."

If the sound was that bad on some venue's points, maybe the audience really attended "different" gigs...

Quote
Hansman
SFTD

[www.youtube.com]



Band introduction/Happy

[www.youtube.com]

WTF Keith is playing better with his left hand. And so does Ronnie. )

Judging from YT clips and stably believing that clips are usually not doing justice to the real sound: Very good COOMC, really excellent "Bitch", solid "warhorses" (at least which I heard so far). And somewhat ( I repeat, somewhat) more assembled Keith's solo on SFTD, compered to some other concerts. Honestly, I cannot understand why the particular gig might be considered overall as "dull" and "lifeless".

PS 24FP, don't try to dance that "Bitch" as... waltz, with a lady you want flirt. No romantic atmosphere I guess, my friend. Not at all...

Quote
MonkeyMan2000
[www.youtube.com]

Bitch

I wish I had been there!!

GREAT version

I was in the pit (Keith side) and it was a really, really great show. I was in Barcelona and Amsterdam as well, but this one was the best in my opinion. Bitch kicked some ass and Gimme Shelter was a very nice version (love Sasha more and more..). Mick looks like more in shape than in the other concerts i've been too this tour. I think the 'bad reviews' is about the seats you have in the those closed venues. In the pit the sound was good.

By the way: Did anyone mark the little emotions of Mick after singin street fightening man? I have never seen that before! He hold his hands to his face for a few seconds. I've got a picture of it, but after 14 years on this site I still don't know how to post it

Once or twice I heard how echoey it was off of the back of the hall and thought that would sound bad further back, but one of the best things about the pit (which I hadn't considered before) is that you are completely immersed in the sound. I had very little sense of anything going on past the catwalk, what the crowd was like etc.

Dialling it in? Absolutely not. I thought Mick was a little lower-key than he has been in recent years, but I also though he was singing more than he has been rather than whatever we call what he usually does. Keith and Ronnie definitely weren't dialling it in - they probably need to concentrate more than in the past, but they were very attentive to each other in their playing. I though last night was a great example of the ancient form of weaving.

Spontaneity and improvisation? There hasn't been much of that at Rolling Stones shows since 1989. If that's what you're going for, that ship sailed long ago. Actually, there's probably a bit more spontaneity on this tour than between 1989-2007 as they have to recover from their mistakes more often. They've made more pretty obvious mistakes on this tour than I can remember on any other. There was one song last night (Bitch?) where Mick and Keith started into different sections. But that's all part of the fun. But 'spontaneity and improvisation' aren't the only (I would say aren't the main) reasons for attending a Rolling Stones show. Last night, I could have watched Keith seem so happy while singing Happy twenty times over and it would have been a great show.

Slower songs? I will admit that this was the thing that had bothered me earlier in the tour. I've seen three shows now (Munich-Zurich-Duss) and at the first one I thought several songs were way too slow (MR and JJF in particular). They were better in Zurich but I was looking forward to them being indoors, in warmer environments as I thought it might be better for Keith's fingers. Last night, even if some of the songs aren't as fast as they were in the past, I didn't feel any of them were 'too slow'. The one remaining issue for me is JJF, where I think they have simplified the riff a little to make it easier for Keith to play. It's my favourite song and in all three shows so far it hasn't been 'right' for me in some way (I can barely dance to it, which is just weird). But, overall, the speed (and the quality) of the shows I have seen so far has increased as the tour has progressed. Rambler (another favourite of mine) cooked last night; the switch to the fast section at the end of the song is still not as smooth as it used to be but it definitely wasn't too slow.

One thing I think about later Stones shows generally (and we might say this is from 1989 onwards, or even earlier) is that if they don't 'grab' you in some way, they can seem pretty dull. I remember hating both Wembley 99 shows because I couldn't connect to them from the back of the stadium, and it seemed like the band were dialling it in. Non-fans think that the band have been dialling it in since 1975. That 'grabbing' is highly dependent on location, acoustics, crowd dynamics and so on. If you're in the wrong place, it's hard to 'get into' a Stones show, but people then view it as a result of the performance, when actually performances are relatively consistent.

It's undeniable that the band are getting older, and it's having some effect. Adding two years in your seventies is more noticeable than in your thirties. They definitely seem a bit slower to me than in 2015. But this is all a reflection that they are actually still a real band, for both good and bad. The morning after the show I still feel the same about it as I did last night - the 2017 model of the Rolling Stones is still a very good band.

Sorry, longer post than I intended...

syrel

My daughter's (13) first Stones show. She liked it (not everything but I think most of it)! Thanks to the tall guy who give her enough space to stand in the 1st row!
As mentioned by someone above: Parking: desaster. How do they manage it after football matches? In Amsterdam it was working fine.
Opening the gates: They began the checks, then they stopped everyone: computer problems - they couldn't scan the tickets. They had 3 years to be preparded since the last Stones show at the same location.

Quote
Cristiano Radtke




[twitter.com]

What about the litho? Not bad, I think.I thought this time the litho's weren't limited, but the one I bought yetserday was numbered. Also those you order through the webstore?

This was a solid concert! Very nice.
Got "No Filter Pit"-tickets with our Lucky Dip! We went into the pit at about 20:00, half an hour prior to showtime, and could comfortably find ourselves a spot in the back half of the section, Keith side. We decided on the corner of the catwalk and the platform. Even my wife, who is just 1,60 meters, had a great view of the mainstage; it helps when you're nearby, but especially (and this goes for all of the standing areas) when there is nobody in the 1,5 - 2 meters in front of you!

Some logistic reflections:
- Compared to Zürich, sections where more stirctly observerd. As far as I could tell, you could not just walk from the standing area to the seating blocks.
- For people in the pit and the seats on the floor, there was a seperate bar. This was particularly lousy, as they only sold beer, altbeer, coca cola (no diet, I'm a diabetic) and sparkling water (no still). They also had Brezel (pretzel), but by 19:45 they ran out of those. So back out we went for a bratwurst and a diet coke, before going into the pit.
- highly efficient crowd management, especially after the show, that held up streams of people alternately to allow different streams equal access to the parking lot: "schliessen!... offen!". Apart from one guard who was completely drunk and kept directing Lucky-dippers to the Abendakasse at the wrong (Nordwest) entrance, they did a great logistical job.
- The parking lot is highly thought through. When you drive around the thing, you have no clue where you are. But even if it is almost a kilometer from the arena, we went out by 22:45, were in our car by 23:05, and on the motorway by 23:25. You have to keep watching the lane changers and pedestrians, but it went faster than we thought it would go.

Some show reflections:
- SFTD second solo by Keith was done very, very well compared to some performances in later years.
- In his usual native comments, Mick asked if there was anyone from Cologne, followed by "Kölle Alaaf!". Lovely . Even if I live about one hundred kilometers away in The Netherlands, I know that praising comments about Cologne in Düsseldorf and vice verse will get, let's say, lukewarm reactions. I don't know if he was informed of this and did it on purpose, but I got the impression that he had expected a louder response...
- Mick commented that the first time they were in Germany, they landed at Düsseldorf airport. He showed uw a picture of that event (people running) on screen.
- It took a while, in my opinion, to get the crowd going. I got the impression people didn't even know Tumbling Dice, and the announcement of the blues tunes was not received by any noticeable reactions. Might have been me or my position.
- Very good guitars, very nice base solo in Miss You, and very nice (and audible this time) sax solo in Brown Sugar.
- Because of the closed roof which was directly above the stage, it was not only hot, but fireworks were limited to a position at the side of the stage. Took us by surprise on the way off the field. Nice to have some, still!

Had I known there was no feed from the stadium, I would have posted the setlist directly here on iorr. But I didn't check the tread assuming there was; last time in Zürich I gave up posting after the second song because you people here knew what was going on before I was done typing! Sorry.

Quote
desire
I am also surprised about the good reviews. When I read them I thought I was at another concert. Compared to Amsterdam this one was really lifeless and dull. The sound on general admission was awful and echoing.

My friend left after one hour. Arnhem will be my last concert on the tour and I hope they are worth the money.

We had seats in 136 with perfect sound and sight. Of course echoey - it is an arena. But a lot better than 2014. Due to the new setlist, the big hits start late. But when they did - the crowd went along very well with Mick.

Midnight Rambler war fierce and the crowd loved it. Great gig - honestly.

In the second half of the show I heard a strange noise during the quiet parts between the songs and also after the show. Friends of mine did the same. It sounded like a big aircondition of the venue.

Quote
MAF
In the second half of the show I heard a strange noise during the quiet parts between the songs and also after the show. Friends of mine did the same. It sounded like a big aircondition of the venue.

Yes, I could hear this between songs, assumed it was aircon (thank god - I was melting!), but couldn't hear it during songs (again, thank god!).

syrel

Thank you Rolling Stones for again a great evening ! Another stadion another country,another ambience. Happy to see so many people for our band !

BV, did you see Angus Young during the show ?

***
I'm just a Bad Boy Boogie

Quote
stone4ever
Yeah thanks for the scopes and all the great pics.

Hopefully better luck with scopes next time. The band looked and sounded great tonight.

Hi there, folks!

What a GREAT show and what a dissappointement as we couldn't get the Scope running for you!!!

Really, an awesome show!

The Scope: we realy tried it! And it worked perfectly, before the Stones came on. As the support act, Rival Sons, was playing, we tested the connection for a while, and as you can see here (check the "Test RS" stream), it worked!

So when the Stones came on, we started the feed. AND BAM! We got no connection! In the display, it said something like "Error with APP-Start" and there was NO connection anymore! We tried to get it running several times during the gig, but always with the same result: the App couldn't establish any connection!

So, very sadly, we couldn't share the fun of this great gig with you. I am really terribly sorry for raising hopes we couldn't fulfill. But there simply was no way to get it done.

The reason for this can only be EITHER

a) the connections at Esprit Arena were too small for handling all the connections which started whe the Stones began playing, OR

b) there is some intentionally blocking of specific ports which the Periscope APP uses, OR

c) the volume of data is intentionally narrowed down when the Stones start playing, OR

d) some folks checked out our announcement and blockt our IP somehow.

IMHO, I tend to look at b) and c) as the most likely answeres to all this mess! And guess what, AFTER the gig, we could go live again: see here (check out the "Test after RS" stream).

so if I could do some streaming again, then I would try with Facebook - that worked better last night, right?

Quote
waterrats
so if I could do some streaming again, then I would try with Facebook - that worked better last night, right?

Don't bother and enjoy the show!

Just as long as the guitar plays, let it steal your heart away

Quote
marcovandereijk

Quote
waterrats
so if I could do some streaming again, then I would try with Facebook - that worked better last night, right?

Don't bother and enjoy the show!

THIS I do anyway. I was smiling from one ear to the other the whole show and was just HAPPY even when not moving too much. So if the stream had worked, I would have been very delighted to have been able to share the fun with you!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2017-10-10 13:48 by waterrats.

Quote
RG
I was in the pit (Keith side) and it was a really, really great show. I was in Barcelona and Amsterdam as well, but this one was the best in my opinion. Bitch kicked some ass and Gimme Shelter was a very nice version (love Sasha more and more..). Mick looks like more in shape than in the other concerts i've been too this tour. I think the 'bad reviews' is about the seats you have in the those closed venues. In the pit the sound was good.

By the way: Did anyone mark the little emotions of Mick after singin street fightening man? I have never seen that before! He hold his hands to his face for a few seconds. I've got a picture of it, but after 14 years on this site I still don't know how to post it

Would really love to see the picture! You have to upload it on a public internet address in order link it backk here clicking on the picture icon

Bitch

[youtu.be]

Cool report RP-online - sorry, my english is to bad to translate, perhaps somebody else

Quote
waterrats

Quote
stone4ever
Yeah thanks for the scopes and all the great pics.

Hopefully better luck with scopes next time. The band looked and sounded great tonight.

Hi there, folks!

What a GREAT show and what a dissappointement as we couldn't get the Scope running for you!!!

Really, an awesome show!

The Scope: we realy tried it! And it worked perfectly, before the Stones came on. As the support act, Rival Sons, was playing, we tested the connection for a while, and as you can see here (check the "Test RS" stream), it worked!

So when the Stones came on, we started the feed. AND BAM! We got no connection! In the display, it said something like "Error with APP-Start" and there was NO connection anymore! We tried to get it running several times during the gig, but always with the same result: the App couldn't establish any connection!

So, very sadly, we couldn't share the fun of this great gig with you. I am really terribly sorry for raising hopes we couldn't fulfill. But there simply was no way to get it done.

The reason for this can only be EITHER

a) the connections at Esprit Arena were too small for handling all the connections which started whe the Stones began playing, OR

b) there is some intentionally blocking of specific ports which the Periscope APP uses, OR

c) the volume of data is intentionally narrowed down when the Stones start playing, OR

d) some folks checked out our announcement and blockt our IP somehow.

IMHO, I tend to look at b) and c) as the most likely answeres to all this mess! And guess what, AFTER the gig, we could go live again: see here (check out the "Test after RS" stream).

so if I could do some streaming again, then I would try with Facebook - that worked better last night, right?

You don't need to apologize for anything, you did your best, that's all anyone can ask for.
Thanks once again for trying so hard for us.

Quote
gipsy12
Cool report RP-online - sorry, my english is to bad to translate, perhaps somebody else

the Author is using unusual words for describing what happened. Hard to translate in the same style.
Headline:
"Little Mick wants to be picked up from the Jungbrunnen"



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2017-10-10 14:23 by MAF.

Quote
waterrats
Really, an awesome show!

The Scope: we realy tried it! And it worked perfectly, before the Stones came on. As the support act, Rival Sons, was playing, we tested the connection for a while, and as you can see here (check the

b) there is some intentionally blocking of specific ports which the Periscope APP uses, OR

c) the volume of data is intentionally narrowed down when the Stones start playing, OR

IMHO, I tend to look at b) and c) as the most likely answeres to all this mess! And guess what, AFTER the gig, we could go live again: see here (check out the "Test after RS" stream).

so if I could do some streaming again, then I would try with Facebook - that worked better last night, right?

Thank you very much for giving it a try waterrrats.

I am delighted you had fun at the show... and it is great
you are the kind of person who can both scope and enjoy a live show.

It is a puzzle about scopes on this Europe tour...

I think the only solution is for them to play Scotland in 2018
and then come back and play the states again so we can run some more tests.


Thanks again for trying!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2017-10-10 14:37 by Leonioid.

Yes, a really great concert gig with some highlights I won't miss:

- the both Blues numbers from "Blue and Lonesome" work very well.

- "Bitch" was precisely nailed with some great never heard Keith-licks.

- the most impressive moment for me: Keith's "Slipping away", nice solo and very authentic music.

- some nice guitar work by Keith and Ronnie on "Gimme Shelter".

- excellent closer: "Satisfaction".

Over all good guitar sound, prominent in the mix.

In general the Esprit Arena is a football stadium ("Fortuna Düsseldorf"), thus the sound is often contaminated with many echos if the roof is closed. Yesterday I was lucky to stand at a right place where the sound was very good.

I saw Copenhagen shirts at the stand last night - but the Duesseldorf shirts are sold out online except size S. It is a great shirt cause you got the Stones printed on the back as well.

So short review;

arrived at 17u, long long cues. Doors did not open till 17.30. Lucky Dip ticket booth was very oddly placed, between the main waiting line. At 18u I got my dips. They were GA, I already had GA so i sold one pair and got into the waiting line which was huge and did not move one bit. So i sneaked back into the lucky dip line and there i could just walk right on.

A Stadium is always impressive. So big and small at the same time... In Hamburg we had to wait 7 hours for the Stones, now it would be only 2,5.

I did not like the warm up band. Also the sound was very bad (dead center between the 2 towers at the back) so after the warm up band I moved the side but more a little closer to the stage.

At 20.30 (as BV posted) the show started. From the first moment you could see Mick would be great today. Keith sounded great from the first rif.

I loved the fact that everybody seemed to have a great time on stage. Terrific versions of Bitch, GOOMC, Paint it Black (Ronnie wow) and Happy. After that it was the warhorses.

I do like miss you this tour. It's just... better. Rambler was unbelievable great. I think Mick did a harp improvisation at one time. At one time the song became a trainwreck but then it came back together. It was amazing.

Street Fighting Man is just unbelievable on this tour. I remember last tours Chuck is way to prominent but not this time. Mick's singing was fantastic.

Mick had a black red leather jacket, he looked 20 years younger and danced his ass off. Keith was playing amazing. His soloing was better than i have seen this decade and he seemed to have a blast. His singing also has improved so much since 2006 and is at the same level as the licks tour.

Ronnie looked not so great but played amazing. Charlie being Charlie.

After show 2 hours on the parking lot. Horrible organisation. Before the show the stewards were there to get the money, but after the show there was nobody to be seen.

The Stones are rolling and they cannot be stopped. Enjoy them while you can, you will not regret it.

PS: This was my 13th show, I would rate this one just below the best ones I have seen. But anyway, all Stones shows are great.

Quote
waterrats

Quote
marcovandereijk

Quote
waterrats
so if I could do some streaming again, then I would try with Facebook - that worked better last night, right?

Don't bother and enjoy the show!

THIS I do anyway. I was smiling from one ear to the other the whole show and was just HAPPY even when not moving too much. So if the stream had worked, I would have been very delighted to have been able to share the fun with you!

Many thanks for all your efforts! Intention and attitude is what counts!