Nuremberg 13. June, 1998


Here's what I wrote just after the show:


 The european tour IS rolling. :-))It was a fine and sunny day in Nuernberg, although not too warm. No rain at all. As this was a field, there is always the trouble in seeing something, but in europe, local promoters tend to separate the front part of the field from the rest. To get inside the front part, you have to either be there at 6 in the morning, queing and rushing in when the gates open or you have to be patient. We were patient. Arriving by 5 pm inside the gates, we made our way to stage right and then waited. Johnny Lang was support act, forget about him, he doesn't work in these surroundings. Security usually lets some more people into the separated area after the support act, giving them wristbands, so they can get in. Not this time. :-(( We had to wait until Satisfaction was well under way, when we noticed, that one security guy was about 20 m away and handed out bands, attached them to your wrist, slowly, slowly, slowy. My wife and I where in, before "Let's Spend the night together" started, Axel & Nico got in for "Flip the Switch".


So here we were, front row again and the Stones rocking for their first european date. It was a solid gig, not a very good one. Jagger was very hoarse and the sound was not very clear, you couldn't hear much of Ronnie, the bass was too loud and "Little Queenie" got the worst guitar sound I ever heard. It was very cold on the stage, the wind blowing from Stage B right onto the stage, everybody got into coats on stage, even Charlie got a sweater out to keep him warm.


I didn't believe Mick when he told us, he was pleased to open the european tour in Nuernberg. Keith was more with it, he said that everybody fucks up sometime.  "I am glad to be with you, to be here, in fact to be anywhere". His ribs looked marvellous, although his injury must have been very serious, because he not only referred to that in the above mentioned statement, but he did not smoke a SINGLE cigarette on stage. I have never seen him without a cigarette at all for such a long time. He surely did that on doctor's orders and he surly has done some damage to his lung. Hope he will soon recover completely.


Set List:
1) Satisfaction
2) Let's Spend the night together
3) Flip The Switch
4) Gimme Shelter (Lisa has become very "big", to put it nicely)
5) Anybody seen my Baby (Mentioning Nuernberg in the "rap")
6) It's only Rock and Roll
7) Saint of me
8) Out of Control (took up in the middle of the song and was a highlight for me, really tight playing)
9) Under My Thumb (webside)
10) Miss You
11) Thief in the Night (another highlight, although the vocals were drowned in the mix)
12) Wanna Hold You
13) Little Queenie
14) The Last Time
15) Like A Rolling Stone
16) Sympathy For the Devil
17) Tumbling Dice
18)Honky Tonk Woman
19) Start Me Up
20) Jumping Jack Flash
21) Brown Sugar


I believe they have dropped YCAGWYW due to the cold weather up on stage, because it looked like it was mentioned on Charlie's drumset sides. What else? Charlie whistled with his two fingers in his mouth during introductions for several times. Did he do that before?


Merchandise is ridiculous. Very expensive and very useless sometimes. Took us 8 hours to get home again, we did sleep 90 minutes in the car right in the middle of the journey, but the sun got up and we went on. I am tired now, go to bed, still wearing my wristband. :-))))))


See you all in Duesseldorf, maybe Werchter 1, if I can get the time to go there.


Now, three months later I would add that this was the strangest show of the tour. It was good to see the Stones again after three years, it was good that the european tour had started, but the performance was well under par. They felt cold and miserable on stage as the wind was really cold. I can remember even my sore eyes when I turned against the wind for the three songs on the B-stage, so how much worse was it for them? As we all know now, Mick got throat problems during the show and afterwards and they had to cancel more shows and you could feel that coming even during the show. Starting a tour in Nuremberg is also pretty strange. All the old buildings from the war still there, looking huge and enourmous and right in the middle of that all the Stones.


Having had my first look at the actual stage then, it struck me as being not as gigantic as in years before. Ok, the jumbotron WAS big, but Steel Wheels looked dark and evil, Urban Jungle had some kind of exotic flavour to it, with the tower and the dogs and all  (and it always looked different, depending on what flagging they were having in the middle bit or if they were having flagging at all) and  Voodoo Lounge was a stage were you could look at different bits again and again and always find something else that you had not noticed before. And we had the cobra above our heads. Babylon looked empty at certain times and the inflatables left and right did not really work. It also looked futuristic as well, but it needed more colour for my liking. Well, you can't always get what you want.


Here's some pics of the stage, taken in Mannheim.


Here's what other people said about the show.