Here's what I wrote after the show:

It was really a night to remember! We got there very late ( around 4 pm), but we knew the name and the password, so we made it into the Keith side this time.

 

The concert started early (7.35 pm), as there is a curfew in Hamburg, meaning they had to stop at 22.00 pm, which they did. Big Country opened again, still some sort of feud going on betweend Stuart Adamson and his guitar roadie, this time about the length of a cable. Set was ok, nothing special.

the mayor of Hamburg decided that you should go to bed early tonight, so we started earlier as well."

Satisafction was strong, so was Let's spend the Night together. There were little problems with the monitors, as first Mick and then later Ronnie turned to the right side, signalling the monitor control guy to turn it up. Ronnie had some problems with his guitar as well at some stage, but all in all he played very well and loud.

Before they came out you could see Jo Wood just next to the drums, giving him a kiss before he came on. Geogia Mae was also there for the first 8 or 9 songs, right by the keybords. She did some dance routines during Gimme Shelter and Anybody seen my baby. I coulnd't see with whom she was, but it looked a bit like Patti Hansen. It all seemed like a family trip on stage, Mick and Ronnie bringing their daughters (Leah did Thief in the Night on bv's again) and maybe that made them try a little harder so they could impress their kids.

For introductions Ronnie brought out a little old man and introduced him as Scotty Moore. I wondered if he would play something with them, but he didn't. Ronnie was asked out to the catwalk on Keith' side during IORR and he gladly took the turn over there with Mick. Ronnie was running around quite a lot in Hamburg, being more on the Keith side than on his side. Lots of interplay with the guitars, lots of strange noises during solos, Ronnie's solo for Miss you was great! Never heard him play these noises on this tour, going bang, twang, scrrrrrchhhhhh etc. 

And then we caught them cheating! As this was Hamburg, the biggest Harbour in Europe, they wanted to play some kind of country song, so they did "Dead Flowers" (which was great and good to see and hear again). But: They wanted us to believe it was a webchoice and showed the homepage for the Trabrennbahn. The page they showed had Dead Flowers with 22% and Time is on my side with 19%, Street Fighting Men being third. Memory Motel was nowhere to be seen at all, not in the Top 5 at least. Before we left Berlin around 12, we checked the webside and it had Time is on My side with 22% followed by Memory Motel with 19.5%. Dead Flowers was not  even in there at all. So how did they do this then? Do they make their own html-code to show something on the screen? Why declare this a webchoice, when it isn't? Why not just say: no webchoice today? Arrgh. I don't like this, though I did not mind hearing Dead Flowers. But it's a bit disappointing that you not only have to make your song gets to No. 1, but you also have to make sure it's the right song in the right place.

During Miss You the rain set in again, quite heavily at times but still alright. Keith: "Lousy summer, but at least we can live with it". Thief in the night was good, but not as excellent as in Berlin.

On the b-stage Mick asked Ronnie, what the next song was, but Ronnie didn't listen, because he was talking to someone in the audience, so Mick shouted "Ronnie" a couple of times. Ronnie came to him and grabbed his mic and told him: "Mick, I was talking to the audience" and Mick laughed. Keith fell on his behind after You got me rocking, Ronnie helped him back on his feet again and everyone smiled and laughed, Keith couldn't believe that it happened at all. On the catwalk back to the stage Ronnie and Keith signed a few posters, the others only shook hands, but did not sign anything.

The end section was marvellous, very loud and played very well. During Brown Sugar Keith and Lisa went out left and Keith right. Keith ran over to the left side then, met Mick and Linda on stage, shook hands and made his way to the other side. Looked nice, Lisa was trying to catch her breath but followed Mick around.

After 25 years of not having played in Hamburg, the audience just loved it.On our way home, we had 3 hours of NDR reports on the concert with lots of good Stones music, interviews with audience and even bits and pieces from Keith (I wonder which interview that was) about being on tour and what the Stones are all about. As I said, a night to remember, look forward to the tapes of the show.

Hamburg was quite a relief after Leipzig. I had this quarrel with my wife before about how we should get down to Hamburg. The original plan was to go with Nico, but Nico was still in shock after Leipzig's traffic jams and he did not want to go. So we decided to go with Axel, but that was too early for Petra. We also would have to go home to our place with the train, but she declarde the Hamburg station "unsafe", so she did not want to go there. OK, we hired a car and drove all the way down. which turned out alright. There was not much traffic going on. But after all this we arrived late and parked on the other side of the Volkspark to get to the motorway quickly after coming back to the car. As the show was going to be early, they let in people by 2 pm, but we only arrived there at 4 pm.


We had made appointments for Keith's side this time, but Axel, Gary and Peter were in at Ronnie's side, as their entrance let to that side. We did not know that by the time. So we stood there for an hour, until we  saw Alvin Hansen, whom I had met the day before in Berlin at the Cafe Chaos. He told us what to say to get in, we said the magic words and got in. :-))) Inside the separated area it was pretty calm, except for two guys from Berlin, whostarted a fight every five minutes. After some people of the audience complained to them, one of them was taken out.Which was a relief, as he was REALLY drunk and did hassle every girl around him. Werner Dwenger was in there as well, again with his wife Helga and his son. So we all had a real good time.

Getting out of it was easy, we just walked half an hour to the car and then drove onto the motorway towards Bremen and then back home. We were in bed  by 3 o'clock in the morning, ending 96 beautiful hours with three Stones shows in them.