Re: Dublin reports and comments
Date: August 19, 2007 20:07
Ronnie was introduced as the "Boy from Naas", and then, resplendent in a green shirt for the occasion came out and stood rubbing his arms as if he was freezing his bollocks off. Being something of a 'local', he got a massive reception. Never seen anything like it, a long chant of "Ronnie, Ronnie, Ronnie" which he of course absolutely milked, prowling around the stage and getting the crowd to keep it going. Mick had to delay Charlie's intro because it went on and on. Ronnie eventually went over to Mick, grabbed his microphone and shouted "Up The Royals" (I assumed this was some Gaelic football reference as I dont know of any football team in ireland with that nickname - with the benefit of research, it seems that Meath (the county where the show took place) is known as the "Royal County", so presumably the local team are known as the 'Royals')
Charlie got introduced as "Charlie O' Watts", Keith got a huge welcome and made some sarcastic wisecrack about the weather. I dont know...I didnt find it THAT cold, to be honest. Depends what youre used to, I suppose.
Musically, they sounded really good. Keith made a bit of a botch of the first part of the solo in 'Rough Justice' - Roadster and I shot ourselves a quick look that said "Eek!" but things soon recovered. His solo in 'Sympathy' was pretty short and ragged, but the song picked up and the latter part of it was pretty glorious. At one point, Mick missed a cue, sang in a place where he wasnt supposed to and Keith looked around in bewilderment with this pricless expression which seemed to say "Jagger - what the @#$%& ARE you doing?". Otherwise Keith seemed sharp enough. You kinda knew it was gonna be a good night when he absolutely bounded onstage, hit that first chord of 'Start Me Up', kicked his leg in the air and the crowd went absolutely nuts. He came out to both catwalks at various points, got down on his knee to the crowd when playing his solo on 'Tumbling Dice - generally he seemed to be moving around quite well.
Ronnie though was absolutely superb. He really has risen to the challenge this summer when it was needed.
Mick said a few lines in Gaelic before one song. No idea what it was as I dont speak it, and it was probably phonetically strange for some of the locals too., but a nice touch nonetheless. When doing his spoken intro to 'Dead Flowers' he asked 'Do you want me to say it in Gaelic?" and then did! 'Dead Flowers' was really beautiful. Great to see Keith singing back up vocals on it, although it was noticeable that when doing so, he didnt play guitar (it seems to be a Gerald Ford 'dont walk and chew gum at the same time' thing).
'Midnight Rambler' - well, I dont need to say much about it, other than it was utterly explosive. They just always seem to manage to nail this one.
'I go Crazy' went down really well. Helped partly by Lisa wearing a skirt which was flapping around so much in the breeze that at one point you could almost see what she had for breakfast. At the end of it, it just segued into 'Tumbling Dice' without a break which was really nicely done. I've really liked the versions of this song on this tour - Keith's added some extra little touches to the coda at the end which come across as a bit jazzy.
Keith's set worked fine. Sang 'You got the silver really nicely and 'Wanna hold you', a train wreck on some early shows, seems to be working out nicely.
Hard to really judge the b-stage because when youre standing there, youre hearing two sound systems competing with each other and sonically its a bit chaotic. Crowd absolutely went nuts during it though. We were at the back behind Darryl so it was hard to get too many good photos. They went through the closing warhorses really well, with JJF being really good and Brown Sugar was quite flawless.
There was one moment more than any other that took me back to my first show at the same venue in 1982. I distinctly remember watching Mick towards the end of that show on JJF sprinting from one catwalk to the other and thinking "he's almost 39. How the @#$%& can he do that. He'll never be able to do THAT again in two or three years". Back then, I was 19 and you just associated musicians over 40 in the way we'd see the likes of Chuck Berry nowadays. Well, during 'Brown sugar', Mick just TOOK OFF and SPRINTED like a young gazelle down the catwalk to where the b-stage was. Cue a quite audible mass "GASP" from 60,000 people wondering how the hell a 64 year old man who has been moving like he does for two hours be capable of that.
This was the first time I'd been to Slane in twelve years (my 6th visit overall with 1982 being the first). Theyve certainly organised it a bit better than was the case many years ago and those responsible (and the local police) deserve a lot of credit for doing so, plus the local villagers for putting up with this influx every summer. The ONE sore point was the walk from the buses to the castle itself which took about 75 minutes. Easy enough for someone able bodied like myself, but an absolute nightmare if (like a mate of mine) you're not so lucky. the rain stayed off for most of the day once we arrived, with just a couple of showers during the opening acts. Incredibly muddy in parts though, although we had a bit of canvas to stand on at the b stage which made it easier. dreadful getting out back up that hill in the mud, however. Took at least half an hour to get out of the castle grounds.
Probably the youngest crowd I've ever seen at a Stones gig. Maybe even more so than 1982! When people doubted the Stones could sell this show out beforehand I said that the fact that it was at Slane would mean theyd be guaranteed to sell 30-40,000 tickets regardless of who is on, as this has become the biggest musical 'event' in Ireland every summer. So, it was a very youthful crowd, most of whom would have been seeing the band for the first time. the reaction seemed very positive, with them being really into it from the first number. Hopefully the lively reception from this show and the Isle of Wight festival have shown the Stones the positives to be gained in not continuing to ignore a younger audience.
Also it was probably the most drunken crowd. As the great Spike Milligan once said, "All over the world, people are dying of thirst - but it seems the Irish were born with one". We'd no sooner stepped off the bus at 2.30 pm and there were scores of people already off their tits. Never saw anyone arguing or fighting, though, everyone seemed in high spirits. That said we did see one pair of guys holding on to each other and staggering around in a way where you'd have thought they were siamese twins who had been joined at the shoulder. One of them was a complete bollocks. In the space of 500 yards, he had managed to almost get himself arrested twice by acting the maggot in front of a police car and then a policeman on a horse - in between those two he managed to fall on his arse into a puddle. We were just talking about how much of an idiot he was when we heard this shuffling of feet beside us and looked around just in time to see the silly twat staggering past us and then falling head first into what was probably the deepest and muddiest puddle in the whole of Ireland that afternoon.
So, anyway, a historic day with a bit of an 'alpha omega' to it with the Stones playing what may be their last Irish show (and maybe even their last stadium sized show) back where I'd first saw them a quarter of a century earlier. At that time Mick bade us farewell with a promise "we'll see you again some day". How we laughed at the time of the absurdity of such a remark - then again, it wouldnt be the last time we underestimated how utterly unique this band is.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2007-08-19 20:40 by Gazza.