This was the best show of the summer for sure. And it was the best performance of the tour. And the largest crowd at least 100,000 of which half were for free and many paid 1,000 Rubel which is 30 Euro i.e. 40 us dollars. Cheap cheap cheap. The crowd was great. The "sitting down" bit I read about above must be a local thing. They were absolutely into the show. And the "venue" was absolute beautiful. Unique buildings surrounding a large place/square in historic beautiful St Petersburg. Keith did his best opening parts on Rough Justice, it reminded me of his previous highlight in Russia, see my report about Flip The Switch in Moscow 1998: [
iorr.org]
Indeed it was a great great show and a great great crowd. Mick, Keith and Ronnie were running around on the B-stage like maniacs. They wanted this to be a great show. Keith was 100% sharp and concentrated all through the show. The security style was changed 180 degrees vs. the previous show in Russia 1998, when they had 1200 uniformed police all over. Now there were suit and tie style security, firm but nice. Nothing on sale anywhere except for special t-shirts. Total of 10 - ten - toilets for thye entire crowd. But it was a great show.
It is now half an hour past midnight here in St Petersburg and I need a beer or two. Then I will write a detailed report with some great photos here soon after. I made some fantastic photos because it never went dark, twilight during the encore.
Bjornulf