Berlin 26. August 1998

Here's what I wrote after the show:
 
I have very mixed feelings about this show. Some magic moments, but also some things that annoyed me. Again we made it into the front section of Ronnie's side, although the Berlin audience was not my kind of audience. 5 hours of pushing and trying to stay alive before the show. When in other cities it always was quite relaxed and easy in the front section, in Berlin you couldn't move at all. The rain was awful and spoilt a lot of the feeling for me. It was starting to rain as soon as we got into the Olympiastadium and never really stopped. Rain shows can be good, but this one wasn't as good as it could have been.

Big Country opened. I had seen them a couple of times opening in 1995, but now they were not as good as they were then. I have a feeling they buy their guitars by colours. Lots of posing, lots of bullshits (in my eyes). The Stones were very late, starting at around 9.50pm. Maybe they wanted to wait for the rain to stop. maybe they didn't like to go out in the bad weather. They finished just a bit after midnight, they had to finish, because there is a curfew there as well. Some songs seemed to be longer than usual (OOC, Miss You), so HTW had to be dropped.
 
Ronnie was somewhere else it seemed, he wasn't really into playing, he was showing his coats and hats around to everybody else on stage but barely really concentrated on the riffs. He had his magic moments though, playing wah wah in OOC and playing some harmoic melodies with Bobby Keys in Miss You. But all in all it wasn't his night. Keith was really magnificent. He wore some strange hat during the second half of the show, but he wore it with taste and dignity. Thief in the Night was abolutely great, everything just right, every hit just with the right timing. Out of Control was another really great tune that night, building up more and more tension in the second half of the song, Mick and Keith just in front of us during the guitar/harmonica solo.
 
The B-stage sound was great, but the songs were a bit disappointing, YGMR as the 2nd tune again. I would like to see some more choice for that slot. Web choice was Street Fighting Men, played with a vengeance, Keith hitting the riffs really hard. It was good to see that tune played again. Paint it Black was also played. I like the version they play this tour, but have seen a stronger rendition in Gelsenkirchen.
 
Mick took Lisa's shoe off during Miss You and sucked her toe, asking her "Is it ALL  wet" a couple of times.  When he put her toe in his mouth, you could really hear her shriek and squeak, seems like she never expected him to do that. He threw the shoe away, so she had to get up and look for it, after Mick was gone.
 
What else: Charlie got his "Charlie, Charlie" shoutings for a couple of times, Saint of Me went on for some time so the Stones had to join the crowd again, which went on for about 1 or 2 minutes. Somebody carried a sign saying "Keith sings better than Pavarotti" which made it not only onto the Jumbotron but also into todays papers. I still like the way Keith puts his guitar pick in his mouth for the first few bars of Flip the Switch and then takes it out to play the chords. I still like to be in front of them, even if the show is not really running smoothly and the feeling is not really right. Can't wait til tomorrow (Leipzig).
 
Biggest news: The Stones play Berlin again in two weeks. The Waldbuehne Concert is confirmed for Sep. 10th, tickets being sold from Friday morning for DM 78,-- and more. 2 tickets per person. Shame is, I most possibly might not be able to be there. :-((
 
Set list:
1) Satisfaction
2) Let's Spend the night together
3) Flip the Switch
4) Gimme Shelter
5) Anybody seen my baby
6) Paint it Black
7) Saint of Me
8) Out of Control
9) Street Fighting Man
10) Miss You
11) Thief in the Night
12) Wanna Hold you
13) Little Queenie
14) You got me rocking
15) Like a Rolling Stone
16) Sympathy for the Devil
17) Tumbling Dice
18) Start Me Up
19) Jumping Jack Flash
20) Brown Sugar


I had high hopes for Berlin, Weissensee 1990 was marvellous, even with the biggest rain I had at a Stones show ever on the second night, and 1995 was a really good show and party afterwards. But this time it did not really click. The weather was really nasty, as you can see on the pics below. OK, at least we had the tour feeling back, with Gary Robertson having arrived from England and Peter Cunningham coming in from Australia. But the mood in the Olympiastaidon was not right. Lots of tourist audience there, behaving really unpleasant, pushing and struggling to get to the front more and more. If it's full, it's full. But today nobody could sit on the ground to take up some space, because it was just too wet. So everybody struggled to get into the front as soon as they were in the separated area. And then we had to wait and wait and wait and struggle to stay alive and wait and wait a bit longer.

The first time you could breathe again was after the show, when we met Bjornulf Vik and some other people, but then Security again got their ropes out to get you out as fast as they could. Shame, a lost opportunity.
 
 

Werner Dwenger, Gary Robertson, Petra Delmere, Helga Dwenger, Silvia Schumacher, Axel Schumacher, Nico Zentgraf
Johannes & Petra Delmere
Johannes Delmere, Petra Zentgraf

Werner Dwenger, Petra & Nico Zentgraf, Silvia Schumacher
Petra & Nico Zentgraf, Gerd van der Zee
Johannes & Petra Delmere

The Berlin stage
Berlin fireworks
Final Bows
 
Here's what other people said about the show.