Johannes Delmere
Keziah Jones was support, interesting guitar work, but I didn't like the
music too much. I watched his guitar roadie, who sat behind him on stage and
looked at us, bored but moving around a bit. Keziah played some strange kind
of guitars, one with only two strings, lots of effects, interesting way of
handling the strings and even more interesting funk strumming without a
plectrum. He went on and on and the roadie had to remind him that his time
was up, so it was a bit of an abrupt stop to his show. He was ok, but, as I
said, not my kind of music. He was said to be a blues artist, but that
wasn't any kind of blues, it was funk and jazz fusion or something like
that, at least to my ears.
Then it was another waiting bit, as the stage was cleared for the Stones.
The hal empty Zirkus started to fill, you could see people that thought of
themselves to be prominent, walking to their seats. I saw lots of faces I
only knew from TV or magazines and hoped for an absolute obscure setlist, so
these people wouldn't like it. I wish they wouldn't invite those types of
people that want to be seen, just have a show for fans only, but I guess
that's the way it is done these days.
Mayumi told you that from the keyboard roadie's checks one could tell that
one of the keyboards was tuned to "Worried about you" and the guitar chords
some minutes before showtime rang like JJF. But did that mean anything?
Then the lights went out and the show started and the sound was ........
piss poor, lots of bass, the guitars all muddy, the voice barely to be
heard. It took me some seconds to recognize that they were playing JJF, but
I didn't worry too much, as there they were, right in front of me, working
hard from the first song.
Tumbling Dice was a bit better soundwise, but not perfect. But the band was
in the right mood and really going for it, you could feel it that there was
something really good going on. I was a bit afraid they would be doing a
greatest hits setlist, but when ADTL came up, I felt relieved. The sound got
much better.
Someone started a Charlie, Charlie rant and that went on a bit, Charlie
looked not amused and Mick said that Charlie was going to sing later on in
the show to stop it.
When they brought out the acoustic guitar for Mick, I hoped for something
rather cool, but Sweet Virgina was ok as well, although I had that song on
othr shows as well.
Mick came to that special spot right in front of us a couple of times during
the show, maybe 10 times, then everybody got even closer to the stage, going
back a step when he got away from that space. As we were not allowed to
touch him, we just held our hands into the air just next to him, hoping he
would touch us, which he sometimes did. I wasn't as lucky this time, but
Birgit J. got touched and she vowed never to wash her hands again.
WAY was awesome, falsetto voice and that scream "Baby", waiting a
millisecond longer than needed to then really shout it out.
Stray Cat Blues I never heard live before, this time the girl was 19 years
old. Jagger spat the vocals into the crowd, this definitely was his show.
Daryll did a quite long solo on it, Charlie just went bang bang bang and
Ronnie was having fun.
Then Jagger told us that the Stones had played the place before a long time
ago, longer than he has been born and that they might have started the show
with the next song, ENSTLove. Off they went with their Blues Brothers
version of the song, another first for me and really rocking hard.
Dance Pt. 1 was introduced as "a rather obscure song". Well, I know if, I
like it and I thought, come on, it's only obscure because Ronnie wrote it.
Jagger played some kind of drum with a strip inside he had to push during
the song. It just sounded faulous and I wuld have loved to have this going
on forever. It was much more structured than the original, I thought. They
could play more of these tunes, even on bigger shows, at least I wouldn't
mind, as you could dance to it.
By that time the sweat was dripping off all of us, everything was just
wet....
THSMLI was introduced as a song by Otis Redding and I thought it would be
Can'T turn you loose, but THSMLI was an even better choice. The momentum of
the song was built up from singing to shouting and Jagger was everywhere on
the stage. It really was HIS show at this time.
Going to a gogo followed and brought back nice memories of the 82 tour, but
much better this time, played, not shouted and juste great to sing to.
During the introductions everybody got their applause, the house was on its
feet for some time now. Lots of "Oooo Oooo" chants by the audience. When
Charlie was introduced, we were so loud with our "Charlie,Charlie" chant,
that Jagger went up to the drums and insisted that Charlie take the
microphone. He got up and mumbled "Thank you Munich, thanks very Munich" and
gave the mike back to Mick.When Keith was introduced, we went into a "Keith,
Keith, Keith"-rant, that went on for a minute or so, Keith looking
overwhelmed by it, next to the drums and then stepping up to the mike to
interrupt it and tell us that he has got a show to do. We could have gone on
forever. He introduced "Nearness" as a song written in 1941, which we might
only know from the bootlegs and that we did.
NEarness was sending shivers down my spine, beautifully played with the
band, but a bit spoiled for me, as security grabbed the guy next to me for
taking pictures. They even wanted to search us, as he had taken out the card
of the camera. It wasn't even his camera, but his friends' one, who was
standing in front of us. Eventually that guy gave up the card and the guy
who carried the camera was taken out of the front row and brought o the
police or security. We met him later and he told us, his details were taken
and the card was formatted.
When they went into BTMMR, I knew that it was back to normal this time. But
even that warhorse was greatly appreciated by the fans. Everyone was singing
by that time. Mick came over a couple of times to have us singing the chorus
and I shouted as loud as possible. Birgit was shouting as well, until one
security guy came up to her and held his hand before her mouth, closing it,
she was shrieking much too loud for him.
CYHMK was much better than on wednesday, although Charlie made some funny
and not so funny faces during the sax solo bit. He seemed to be annoyed by
Bobby's playing. I had a feeling the song was longer than usual, as the
harmonica and the guitar solo seemed to be much longer. Ronnie went on and
on and build it up. He was so good that even Daryll appreciated it, s he
came over after the song and congratulated Ronnie.
HTW was the signal that the show was coming to an end, nice song, Keith'
song, he even did bvox, if I remember correctly.
SMU and BS were great, but the tension of the other songs was much higher.
Mick stole a fag from Ronnie, ran away with it and did some faked puffs on
it before throwing it away, Ronnie was laughing and followed him.
And then the set was over.....
We were exhausted by that time. I thought they would come back with
Satisfaction, you could see them standing behind the drum kit, having a
really large sip out of their cups. Guitars were handed out, but it wasn't
the silvery-purple one. Everybody came back on stage silent, took their
positions, not a note was played. THEn they went into Can't turn you loose,
which was another nice surprise and a great encore song, started again by
Charlie when everybody thought it was finished.
Final bows then, Jagger and Richards arm in arm and then it was really over.
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It's only rock 'n roll, but we like it. Yes we do.
After all the waiting, the day finally arrived. We had breakfast a bit later
than usual, as this was a sunday and we had a wristband. Thierry & son
wanted to do some sightseeing in Dachau and off they went. We stayed around
the hotel lobby for some time, the Berlin folks checked out and got their
gear into the car, as they wanted to leave after the show to avoid any
traffic jams. Time passed slowly. I talked a bit to highwaychild from
iorr.org, who was also pretty exited about having tickets for the show.
Around 1.30 we walked up to the Zirkus again. They were still (or again)
selling tickets. Some people had been in the queue, around 10 or so, but no
need to worry, as there was only about 200 to be let in to the standing
area. I would have queued there and then, though, but my wife insisted that
would be daft. So off we went to the Biergarten again.
The Stones crew was there in a sheltered place, we could see people arrive
and leave, seems like they had their meal there. The Onos were there,
showing people how to get tickets. Bjornulf passed by and said hello. More
and more people with a wristband arrived. It got cloudy and it looked like
rain, it also started to rain a bit, but nothing serious. Then we found out
that there were t-shirts sold outside, so up we went the 100 m to the
Zirkus, onto the other side of the road and got some. they also sold the
small programs there, which I got as well. Birgit J., sister of Dirk arrived
as well. She made the journey from Karlsruhe to Munich and back 3 times in 5
days, she didn't have a ticket for Krone but as soon as we told her she
could be Nico's partner, she was back in the mood. Nico got his tickets an
wristbands on the day, standing inside as well. What luck :-) So that was
four of us.
Doors should have been opened by 6 pm, the ticket said, so we went ot queue
at 5.30, about 50 people in front of us. We could see Werner Dwenger and his
wife a couple of meters in front of us, so we believed they had inside
tickets as well. 6 of us in there out of 200 tickets. Even more luck.
Lots of cameras around, TV-stations wanted interviews. Tickets were checked
a couple of times, security even checked them when you wanted to queue,
rubbed them to see if they were forged. Some guy with a guitar started to
sing Dylan songs, another guy did some kind of Stones-rap, which I couldn't
see but hear.
We could see Thomas and Mayumi on the other side of the street, friends came
by the queue to talk a bit, time passed slowly. At 7 pm, the dorrs were
finally opened. We got in quite well, I only had one little bag on my belt
which was searched, other people got problems with their umbrellas, people
were let in one by one, so no need to run etc., as the front of stage was
only 30 m away from the main entrance. The ticket was taken away from us as
we entered the inner area, so we couldn't smuggle people in that didn't have
any inside standing tickets, although one or two tickets got inside. Shame I
had to give up my ticket, but I couldn't care about that at the moment, as
my wife and I were right in front of the Jagger spot in 4th row on the
floor. There was a small bit of the stage that went out for a meter or so,
just enough for Jagger to stand on and dance, when he wanted to be real
close to the audience. And we were just in front of that, 4th row. Birgit
even got to the front of stage, as Dieter Hoffmann had made it to his pool
position again, just left of where Jagger would be standing.
Security told us that we shouldn't dare to touch Jagger. If one of us would
touch him, he/she would be thrown out.
The place began to fill slowly, but even then it was just hot, you could
barely breathe. A bit of cold air came through from time to time, but not
enough. We were getting wet all over from just standing without moving.
We could see were our other people were sitting, we waved to each other. So
close to the show......
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It's only rock 'n roll, but we like it. Yes we do.