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Tim Ries

The Rolling Stones
Ahoy
Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Friday August 15, 2003

The set list

  1. Street Fighting Man
  2. Start Me Up
  3. If You Can't Rock Me
  4. Don't Stop
  5. Monkey Man
  6. Sweet Virginia
  7. Loving Cup
  8. Rocks Off
  9. Tumbling Dice
    --- Introductions
  10. Slipping Away (Keith)
  11. Before They Make Me Run (Keith)
  12. Love Train
  13. Can't You Hear Me Knocking
  14. Honky Tonk Women
  15. Satisfaction
  16. When The Whip Comes Down (B-stage)
  17. It's Only Rock'n Roll (B-stage)
  18. Brown Sugar (B-stage)
  19. Jumping Jack Flash (Encore) 

Toots and the Maytals (warmup) : 8:15pm -  9:05pm       
The Rolling Stones             : 9:55pm - 11:55pm

Review by Arno Koel, Haarlem

I played my Exile on mainstreet cd in my car on my way to the Ahoyhal, because I figured that The Stones would play some songs from that album. And they did! The concert started with an energetic Keith, working the whole of the stage. I was at Ronnie's site and Keith came twice to do his moves for us. On If you cant rock me Mick used the ramp leading to the B-stage for the first time. Don't stop gave us Lisa. She was wearing a glittery Ikette-style dress. After this song Mick told us in Dutch that he was sad, because this was the last show in Rotterdam, for a while.

Monkey man had a very nice slow groove. After that Mick anounced the Exile part. We all sang along with Sweet Virginia. Mick kept his acoustic guitar on and they played Loving' cup. My favorite! But I was the only one, the audience went very quiet. The ending of this song came rather sudden. Ronnie discussed it with Charlie. Ronnie did a lot of chatting with everybody in the band. Rocks Off and Tumbling Dice completed the Exile part. During the introductions Mick sang Happy birthday to one of the hornplayers. Keith sang his two songs beautiful. Before they make me run is an another personal favorite of mine, which makes me a very happy man. If I remember well, Love train was played for the first time in Europe. Mick was dressed in a raincoat with hat and shades for this Philly-soul classic. I don't know why this song is in the set, but they play it well. Mick urged us to dance, it is probably his choice.

And then the band floated on that conga-beat sound of Cant you hear me knocking. With a fantastic sax solo by Bobby Keys and an exciting harmonica played by Mick, who always keeps a free hand to direct the audience. Mick also played maracas, which reminds me of old television footage from the sixties. From a distance you see the young Jagger again. Ronnie took all the time in the world for his solo on his silver stratocaster. Suddenly the band stopped. Leaving Ronnie gesturing at Mick, who walked to Charlie. Charlie reacted by shrugging his shoulders.

The grand finale was made up of the classics. Especially on the B-stage the two guitarplayers did some very exciting rocking. I noticed that Mick whiped off his hand very thoroughly after all the touching of hands on his way to the B-stage. He won't catch any illnesses during this tour again. They left the B-stage on the opposite site, walking through a corridor through the audience. After the encore Charlie got some extra applause by kneeling down to fix his shoelace.

A great setlist, good sound and a band in very fine shape. I loved every minute of it.

Review by Uncle Phelge

Again Holland had a great show. After the two outdoors at the Kuip this was the last show in Rotterdam. Mick told us "ik voel me een beetje verdrietig vanavond want dit is de laatste show in Rotterdam. Maar we zien jullie over een tijdje!!"..trans. "I feel al little sad because this our last show in Rotterdam for a while!!"

After a really good warm up by Toots and The Maytals..(they doing better indoors then outdoors) the boys hit the stage around ten o'clock and gave us a show to remember. Some highlights for me:

WHAT A GREAT NIGHT IT WAS!!

Review by Marcel Bizarro

For the first time since October 14th 1973, The Rolling Stones played in Ahoy in Rotterdam tonight. It was my for time ever indoor show (after i�ve seen them 27 times in Stadiums and big fields) and it was the best Rolling Stones Show I�ve ever seen. Just like the two Stadium Shows in Rotterdam this week, the sound was great again. They opened with awsome raw version of �Street Fighting Men�. Followed by �Start Me Up� and �If You Can�t Rock Me�. After �Don�t Stop� and �Monkey Man� they played an unforgettable �Exile On Main Street� set with: �Sweet Virginia� (which gave me chicken skin), �Loving Cup�, �Rocks Off� and �Tumbling Dice�. Keith came with: �Slipping Away� and �Before They Make Me Run�.

After this Mick Jagger came on stage in a long white leather jacket, a white head and dark sunglasses and they played the old O�Jays song �Love Train�. Then came the highlight of the evening: �Can�t You Hear Me Knockin�, excellent solo�s by Ron Wood and one of the best saxophone players in the world: Bobby Keys. The crowd was very excited, everybody was sing along every word of the songs. After �Honky Tonk Women� and �Satisfaction� the Stones did the following three songs on the small stage: A rough version of �When The Whip Comes Down�, �It�s Only Rock �n Roll� and �Brown Sugar�. After they�ve left the small stage the crowd went mad. I�ve never heard so much noise to get an encore. They end there Ahoy show with �Jumping Jack Flash�. It was a show I will remember ther rest of my life!!! Unfortunately I don�t have a ticket for the �Utrecht� show. It wil be the first dutch show in a long time which I�m going to miss.

Review by Mathijs

Together with 3 friends we arrived at the Ahoy around 15.30, and a large crowd had already gathered. We met up with about 20 friends and people from the Dirty Work mailing list. It was nice meeting Skippy from Sticky Fingers Journal again, after I met him in Cleveland in 1999. At about 17.00 the people in line started to panic a bit, but we all managed to squeeze in, and we were about fifth row at the entrance �right behind people who had been waiting since 08.30�.The doors opened at 18.45, and what a mess�.Instead of using barricades to control the crowd, they just open the doors, and let everybody make a rush for it �pushing small girls to the glass walls, having older women crash to the glass doors. This was really pathetic. When we entered the floor, it turned out that you were only allowed to go to front stage Keith�s side, the remaining floor (thus also the B-stage were we had planned to go) was closed. Of course people started to panic, and the security was literally mobbed by 100�s of people just pushing the outside. Me and a friend were almost thrown out as we used some force to throw the supervisor of his feet�great fun I thought. But we managed to get to the B-stage with about all of our friends, were we had excellent view of the stage.

The Stones opened like they didn�t open for a very long time: fast, raw, hard. Everybody seemed willing and ready to deliver, and especially Keith was giving his best. The first 8 songs were just excellent �I really think up until this point it was one of the most enjoyable shows I have seen (including Olympia). Tumbling Dice was fast, but slowly the Stones seemed to be drained a bit. The Keith songs were slow paced, but a bit too slow paced for me, and most of the crowd. To me, the Keith songs seemed to be a turning point for the Stones, it seemed that the energy had run out. Love Train was terrible, it just didn�t work. It seemed like some kind of American entertainment with a dressed up Jagger, and the Dutch crowd just didn�t like it. CYHMK was nice, but certainly not the best ever version. Nobody seemed to be able to find the 1-count, and especially Keith seemed to be out of it. Honky Tonky and especially Satisfaction were a disappointment to me �how dare you play Satisfaction in a small arena? When the Whip was great, it was fast and raw, but again Keith seemed to not know it. He was playing in D, and Ronnie came up shouting to him �A ! It�s an A!!�, while drawing out an �A� sign to Keith! IORR and BS were run-throughs, as were JJF.

So, to me, the first 8 or 9 songs were really excellent, really one of the best shows I have seen. But after that, it indeed was Slipping Away. But, the crowd was cooking and proved that I just may have seem them a bit too much�

Two more shows to go: Vredenburg and Astoria, and I slowly start to have a feeling the Astoria show will be my last ever Stones show�.

Review by Hendrik Mulder

We arrived at the Ahoy around 13.00 and it was more crowded as I expected. In the next couple of hours I spoke with many friends from all over the world. It was really nice to see that all those people had high expectations from this Dutch show. Doors went open around 18.30 and it was a complete chaos. When entering the arena only the Keith' side was open and I noticed that Ronnies side was completely empty! I was very dissapointed with the 20th row or so, then I saw that they opened Ronnies side and we all ran to this side and we made it to the 2nd row; great!

Stones started around 22.00 with Street Fighting man and this is really my favourite opener; great version and Keith was giving his very best. The audience went completely crazy and this continued with Start Me Up. Ronnie was way better than first Rotterdam shows and he performed If You Can't Rock Me really well. Monkey Man went wrong in the beginning but it's always nice to hear this song, even without Lisa. The Stones treated us with the Exile setlist: Sweet Virginia, Loving Cup and Rocks Off. After Sweet Virginia they did the 4th song from Exile: Tumbling Dice.

I expected that Keith would do Happy but he did Before The Make Me Run which was one of the best versions I've ever heard. For me this one, the Exile set and Street Fighting Man were the stunning highlights of the evening. Can't You Hear Me Knocking was nice to hear but it was clear that it didn't ended as they wanted. Rest of the show were the well known songs. It was nice to hear When The Whip Comes Down but from my position the sound was unfortunately not that good. Anyway, I had a great evening and saw a great show. Vredenburg is next.....

News links

Thanks to Iris N�lle-Hornkamp, Ren� Spork, Martijn Jansen, Axel Schumacher, Roberto de Tuoni and Albert Imthorn for news links!

This page will change over the next few days, as you and other fans send reviews, set lists and reports. Please send your e-mail to IORR. Thanks! For details and great photos from the Rolling Stones and their World Tour get the IORR magazines.

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