In retrospect, I should have realized that I was jinxing myself when, at 3 pm yesterday, as I arrived at Goffert Park, I remarked "the weather couldn't be better." A few hours later, it wasn't cheers that greeted Van Morrison - it was cracking thunder. Soon we were being pelted by bitter-cold rain. Luckily, we were provided with tarps, thus creating a tent that encompassed almost the entirety of the FOS area. This is where things got fun - with all of the hashheads toking up under the plastic, a well-sealed "fishbowl effect" took hold. Hey, when in Holland . . .!
That prima donna Van Morrison couldn't handle the rain however, and left after playing only three songs. (It appeared that Bobby Keyes stole his outfit later on, as well) Then again, nobody could see the stage at that point anyway, so the management should have just put on a Van Morrison CD and told us it was actually him performing! Not only that, but what with all of us under the tarp, it was almost one of thoes European arena shows that we've all been clamouring for.
Anyway, as Keith says, On With The Show. And that brings me to the painful part: speaking in terms of sheer execution, the Stones simply are no longer a great live band. (With the exception of Charlie, who, yet again, missed nary a beat all night.) The guitars were simply MIA through much of the show: Keith played probably only 50% of the time, and when he did, it was either tired old Chuck Berryisms or just noise. Happy should be renamed Sad: it was an absolute trainwreck. CYHMK was marred by the all-too-human riff's slopiness as well. As for Ronnie, well I love the guy, but his playing was servicable at best. The guitarists seemed mainly concerned with looking 'cool' : smoking cigarettes and posing. (Yep, Ronnie's smoking again onstage.) OK, fine, superficial bastard that I am, I will admit that I think they do look cool smoking! (As the saying goes, at least I'm deep enough to realize that I'm shallow). As for Mick: his antics, as always, were a hoot, but his somewhat lackluster vocals detracted from a few numbers - mainly She Was Hot. And as for his costume . . . well, you guys have seen the pictures, right?
There were certainly bright spots, however: It's All Over Now was superb (the berryisms worked very well there), as was All Down the Line. (Ronnie really came through on that one.) And how can you go wrong with Sweet Virgina? And yes, I'm one of those sickos that loves the hell out of Tumbling Dice every time he hears it. As for the setlist, for the most part, I think it was very good. However, only 19 songs (and less than two hours) after we endured the rain seemed a little skimpy. Bring back the two-song encores! Also, despite my repeated cries of "Play Indian Girl" they declined to honour my request. Aah, such is life . . .
And more importantly: despite the subpar guitar work, I still had the time of my goddamn life. Myself and some German friends I met up with were RIGHT IN FRONT! Maybe FIVE METERS AWAY from the stones themselves! (I'd only seen them as roughly the size of ants before.) Hell, I could see every last wrinkle in Mick's face. I also noticed that Mick doesn't really look at the crowd (his eyes are strangely vacant), whereas Ronnie and Keith certainly do. (I even made eye contact with Ronnie! I can die happy now.) The atmosphere down front was just great - lots of hardcore fans like ourselves. I even found myself joining along with the 'Hey Heys' of YGMR - my head said no, but my gut said yes!
One last thing: let me give a warm thank you to the wonderful people of Nijmegen. (A really lovely city, by the way.) I went out to a few bars after the show, and the Dutch people I met were uniformly exceedingly generous. One of them even let me sleep in her bed!
Believe you me, that was much more pleasant than what my original accomidations were: sleeping on a cold hard bench in front of the train station.
See you in Paris!
*and i'm just like that bird - singing just for you*
Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2007-06-09 16:24 by the singer not the bong.