up to now the european gigs had 2 kind of setlists:

One show with Rambler before Night Time ...and Paint it black instead of Start me Up at the end, by puting SMU on the bstage....this is the setlist I love most ....and the other version with Tumbling Dice before Night Time, plus songs like She is so Cold or All down the line , in the first part,
Start me up at the end by puting Get Out of my Cloud on the bstage....which IMO is far inferior than the other version.

The dramturgie of the show is much better with MR & PIB cause we have
4 fast rockers at the beginning, than the 2 ballads plus the midtempo song Tumbling Dice followed by the double punch of a hard Core blues "Rambler" and the Vegassoulblues "Night Time"..

And the final part is much more intense and much more enjoyable by having Paint it black between the warhorses....

I have seen both versions within 5 days...The "good" one with Rambler & Black in Paris...what a superb gig it was...and the "poor" one in Cologne...with Tumbling Dice as the highlight of the first half....
Oh man, I do not want being TD the highlight of the show..as much I like it...

I know this is all a matter of taste....you prefer this, I prefer that..
but IMO this 2 songs( Rambler & Black ) are performed in such a fantastic way on this tour, including the overhelming lightshow-stagedesign-choreographie, which leads to a kind of quality improvement of the whole gig.

I would say...having MR and PIB in the setlist on this tour makes a good show become a superb show....but not playing them just keeps a good show being an average gig...you know what I mean guys ?

By the way...you may have noticed already that I do prefer the bluesy Stones.
That said, I just saw the Fenway dvd...and I realised that "Back of My hand" is a fantastic live blues..which , especially in europe, would have become a highlight for the fans...like SOL it would be a showtstoper. I know that, for example, the german audience loves this kind of Blues performed by the Stones...just imagine they would have playd BOMH,MR and Night time...as they did deveral times in the US...the european stadiums would be near boiling point...I tell you that...

Finaly one last word to the fact, that the Stones are not behind their new album, cause they just play the same 3 songs show by show....
If they would have the balls to perform, lets say:
Oh no.. & RJ, Rain fell down, Streets of Love and Back of My hand,
all this 5 songs in one show, they could again proove, they are still on top of their game, by performing such different kind of tunes..such as a rocker, a funky style, a ballade, a blues tune..I mean this is the power of ABB...the musical variety of songs...but if you just play the same 2 rockers evry night, people do not realize the quality of ABB IMO.

I mean..the above mentioned songs plus This Place is empty by Keith would make 6 songs from ABB....so they still could play 10 of the hits, plus 4 songs left for obscure,rarly playd songs and all this stuff we hard core freaks do love....I bet my left hand, that even the stadium audience, with the so called "Tourist fans" would love the show...they could even convince the moaners that their new material is as cool as the old stuff..

Is this so hard to understand ?

Anyway...on with the show !

Cynextsummer
Salar

Part of me hates to admit it because its a song Im sick to death of, but Start Me Up has been quite good on the 3 occasions I've seen it on the b-stage this year. Paint It Black is consistently the highlight of all of the 'warhorses' in the closing third of the show.

I'd also prefer to hear more than 3 songs off ABB (hopes were raised in Vienna, I think it was, when they played five) and I think both Rough Justice and ONNYA (which sound too alike in concert anyway) are long overdue a rest as theyve been there all tour long, in favour of a couple of the other stronger rockers on the album, like Dangerous Beauty..

SOL has been surprisingly very good when played in concert, although with Biggest Mistake out as a single next week, it would be nice to maybe rotate the two over teh 2 London shows.

Paint It Black and Rambler don't always go together.As always,the first few shows had the ("best" might not be appropriate here) least sh**ty set lists.

I just wish they would change some of the final numbers

After Bstage:

Undercover / Route 66 / Carol
Sympathy
Paint it Black
SMU/Respectable/Hangfire
Brown Sugar
Street Fighting Man

YCAGWYW
IORR ?