The one where The Rolling Stones Rocked

[nothing_less]

So, yesterday was the big day. The Rolling Stones concert in the Amsterdam Arena! I went with my brother and with my dad, who has been a Stones fan since long before I was even born. The first time he saw them in concert, he was a kid of barely 16, in 1967, years before he even met my mother. I asked him how many times he's seen them live now, and he thinks this was the seventh time. He also said that he never could have imagined in his wildest dreams that he'd actually be going to see them with his own kids some day!

Originally, the concert was on Sunday evening, but because the whole tour has been moved around for Keith Richards' injury, our concert was moved to Monday.


Luckily, this didn't interfere with the flights I had already booked, but unfortunately, this did mean that my dad had to work all day, and we wouldn't be able to spend all day together. So instead, my brother and I drove over to where he works at 5, and we drove in my dad's car to Utrecht. We had a bite to eat at the train station there, and then took the train to Amsterdam. We got out at the Amsterdam Arena around 7.30PM. The opening act was meant to start at 7, so I knew we'd missed that. But none of us really cared - it was only some reggae band we'd never heard of it, and reggae isn't exactly my style of music.


We followed the crowds coming off the train to the stadium, and wandered around for a little bit. I spotted a merchandise stand and went over to buy some goodies right away. :alison is also a Stones fan, and because she wasn't here to see them live, I promised I'd buy her a cool T-shirt. I also got the most gorgeous tour book (hard back! With the most gorgeous photos in it!!) and a very excellent T-shirt myself. :D My brother also bought a tour shirt, and my dad got a very nifty key chain.

We had to walk all around the stadium to get to our entrance, but it was a fun walk. The sun was shining, it was warm, and there were people everywhere! It was really busy outside the stadium, with most people wearing some kind of Stones shirt. I was, and still am, amazed at the diversity of the crowds. White and black, young people of my age, kids, 30-somethings, people my dad's age, and I even spotted a couple that looked like they were 60+. I saw preppy students, guys tattooed from top to bottom, bikers, girly girls, business men, women who looked like your typical mom/housewife, and so on. I swear, I have never seen a more varied crowd in my life. There were plenty of older people like my dad, who probably have been fans nearly all their lives, but there were at least as many people of my age, who weren't even born yet for the first 10-20 years of the Stones' career. For some reason, I really loved seeing that.


And I also saw plenty of people who were doing what we were doing, young people going with their parents. :D

Once inside, I was pretty happy with our seats. We were on the right side of the stage. High up on the second level, but still pretty close to the stage. The only downside to our seats was that they were so on the side of the stage that we couldn't see the main video screen. However, they'd put up a smaller screen on the side of the stage so we could still see the same footage, only not as big.


I have only two gripes about the evening. The first one is the temperature inside the Amsterdam Arena. Holland is just through a month-long heatwave with temperatures way over 30 degrees, and it always takes a while for the heat to really leave all buildings. Inside the Arena, the roof was closed, and it felt like it was 28, 29 degrees. It was incredibly hot and humid and uncomfortable, and there was way too much cigarette smoke in the air. I really had to make myself sit down during some songs to cool down a little bit, because I could feel I was getting too hot. I can only imagine what it must have been like down in the pits - I saw at least a couple of people being pulled out by security. I kept wishing for some sort of a breeze, because the heat really wasn't fun.

The second one is that I have five favorite Stones songs. I had checked out the set lists of the concerts they'd played in Germany and France last week, and they played Ruby Tuesday, Paint It Black, and Angie at several of them. I was really hopeful they'd play them in Amsterdam too - but no such luck. However, they did play Sympathy For The Devil and Satisfaction, so that made up for it a bit again.


Now - with that complaint out of the way, the rest of the concert was absolutely fucking amazing. The Rolling Stones are masters on the stage. The show was fantastic!!! Steven, who did not know every song they played, said it didn't even matter if you knew the songs, the show itself was entertaining enough!!! Some of my highlights:

• Fireworks! Lots of fireworks!
• Flame throwers! Absolutely wicked!
• The stage was really massive, and the band made good use of it. Especially Mick was constantly running around, jumping, swaying his hips, and generally looking as energetic as a 20-year-old. Very impressive.
• Mick had also learnt quite a bit of Dutch, to my surprise! In between songs, he said sentences in Dutch the whole time, not just once or twice like bands normally do! Again, very impressive because most people think Dutch is like...double Dutch. :P
• 
  Keith Richards is the awesomest. He did two songs by himself, singing and guitar, while Mick was taking a break, and I just LOVE him. He is sooo cool. The way he walks, the way he dresses, even the way he talks! The way he has a cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth while he is talking and playing and singing! Classic - that guy. :D
• The moving stage was also uber-cool. I thought the walkway was just there for Mick to run up and down, but they actually moved an entire segment of the stage into the center of the Arena, with drum set and all. This way, even the people further back got to be close to the entire band, which I just think is really awesome.
• 
  Sympathy For The Devil was totally awesome. They had smoke machines, and red fireworks, and the whole stadium was on their feet singing along, and it was just fantastic.
• Satisfaction went on for a good 10 minutes, if not longer. The guys kept repeating the chorus and adding bits in, and it was awesome because I was wishing it would never end, and in a way it seemed like it never would. SO COOL.
• Mick Jagger and Keith Richards did a semi-acoustic version of As Tears Go By, and it was really beautiful. Mick's voice sounded great, by the way, and so did Keith's.
• The Amsterdam Arena kind of has a reputation for bad sound quality, but I have to say, it was really fantastic yesterday. I don't know if that was just because we were sitting nearly above the stage, but the sound was perfect. I could every word Mick said and sang. The guitars etc were not too loud so they didn't overpower him, they were just perfect. I was expecting it to be pretty bad, but I was happily surprised.

Here is the full set list of the evening:

1. Jumpin' Jack Flash
2. It's Only Rock 'n' Roll
3. Oh No, Not You Again
4. Bitch
5. Sway
6. As Tears Go By
   
7. Streets Of Love
8. Tumbling Dice
9. Night Time Is The Right Time
10. Slipping Away
11. Before They Make Me Run
12. Miss You
13. Rough Justice
14. Get Off Of My Cloud
15. Honky Tonk Women
16. Sympathy For The Devil
    
17. Start Me Up
18. Brown Sugar
19. Encore: You Can't Always Get What You Want
20. Encore: Satisfaction

All in all, they played about 2 1/2 hours, I think, and really did go out with a BANG - did I mention I loved the fireworks?? ;)

It was 2AM by the time Steven and I were home again, tired but very happy at having seen such legends live. A truly magnificent concert!!

I took a fair amount of photos (although not too many, we were too high up for really good photos), they're on Flickr here. I also took loads of little videos, and am uploading them all to YouTube. See them here in a special playlist I made. The videos are better quality than the photos - so they're better for getting a good idea of what it was like. :D

Sigh. That evening so rocked. One of the most special evenings I have had with my dad. Thank you dad, for the concert and the T-shirts and for passing the Stones love on to me!!

This entry has been cross-posted from Nothing Less. If you want to leave a comment, feel free to do it here at LJ, or at the original NL entry. :)