At 8:10 pm Mick’s voice came out loud through the loudspeakers: ‘If you start me up…’. It was the begining of a 2 hours and 5 minutes show by the Rolling Stones. Maybe their millionth show or so. And although you could see that they all were not quite young anymore and not as energetic as on shows they might have performed when they first started 44 years ago their songs are still great and their performance still vivid.
They started out as you might have guessed with Start me up and continued to sing mostly old songs for more than two hours. The space between songs a little bit longer than in old times – using some Japanese phrases broken with English accent to buy some extra time – and Mick not running much at all. Keith mostly – as usual – motionless in his characteristic poses – how can one play guitarr like that in those poses?
The 2 hours included the following songs:
- Start Me Up
- It’s Only Rock’n Roll
- Oh No Not You Again
- Bitch
- Tumbling Dice
- Worried About You
- Ain’t Too Proud To Beg
- Midnight Rambler
- Gimme Shelter
— Introductions to the band - This Place Is Empty (Keith)
- Happy (Keith)
- Miss You (to B-stage)
- Rough Justice (on B-stage0
- You Got Me Rocking (on B-stage)
- Honky Tonk Women (to main stage)
- Sympathy For The Devil
- Jumping Jack Flash
- Brown Sugar
- You Can’t Always Get What You Want (encore)
- Satisfaction (encore)
At 10:15 pm we went out of Tokyo Dome with the Stones still sounding in our ears. A rare mix of people joined us with happy smiles ont their faces. Young people with Stone t-shirts as well as 60-something men in business suits. All of whom had jumped up and down to Honky Tonk Women and followed Mick’s every little command to raise their arms and sing along, as if indeed it was not Mick himself who sang ‘Please to meet you… hope you guessed my name…’.
The Rolling Stones show kept us awake well into the new day. Talking about the show, reliving some of the greateer moments by listening to their songs at home. It was well past 2 am when we finally got to bed.