Review: Rolling Stones in Berlin

At the end of their tour, the Rolling Stones performed in the Berlin Waldbühne. It could have been the last time – but it doesn’t feel like it. / Review: Rolling Stones in Berlin

Mick Jagger has prepared well for the guest appearance in Berlin. “Yesterday I arrived at Berlin Airport,” he says in the middle of the concert in the best German he has learned by heart.

“A bargain for 7 billion euros!” he dismisses and means BER. He immediately went out to eat, because Berlin has the best “food” in Germany.

“A currywurst and minced meat,” he lists his food. Still in German. No wonder: “After five schnapps my German was perfect.”

It’s not just his language skills that are sitting in the sold-out Waldbühne that evening. At 7:45 p.m., it is just getting dark, the oldest rock band in the world begins a concert with the song “Street Fighting Man”, which does not reflect the band’s 60-year history.

Keith Richard’s riffs are precise and bite through the hot summer air. Ron Wood continues to perfect the mix of lead guitar and support for Richards.

And there’s no need to say another word about Mick Jagger’s fitness.

The show, says Jagger after a few songs, is dedicated to Charlie Watts. The drummer and founding member who passed away last year. In fact, Richards sometimes seems a bit lost without his buddy in the center of the stage. Especially when Ron Wood explores the vastness of the stage during his solos, as if the youngster wanted to show the band that it’s far from time to stop. Wood is 75 years old, Richards, 78, Jagger 79.

The audience pulls along. It hardly needs any encouragement from Jagger to sing along; it does it all by itself.

Even the song “Ghost Town”, which was released in 2020 and was number 1 in the charts in Germany, but will probably never catch up with the classics, was well received by the audience.

Even after it’s over, the fans keep singing the song until Richards interrupts them with “Honky Tonk Woman”. The next highlight. Hit follows hit.

Remarkable: With “Fool to Cry” they play a song that they saved for this last concert on the tour. And: On “Miss You” bassist Darryl Jones is allowed to play what is probably the longest solo since he played for the Stones on the bean stands. And he’s been doing it since 1994.

Then Keith Richards puts the riff of “Start Me Up” on stage. Other guitar virtuosos can solo over the fretboard so quickly. “Solos pass, riffs stay,” Richards likes to say.

At each concert, Keith Richards sings two songs in the middle while Jagger takes a breather. This is often wrongly used by many fans as an opportunity to get a beer.

But this time these will be the most intimate moments of the evening. “It’s good to be here,” Richards greets the audience, as he does at almost every concert.

Then the audience is usually happy about the praise for their city, only to hear Richards immediately put it into perspective “But it’s good to be anywhere”. So far so routine.

But this time there is one: “It’s good to be here, especially in Berlin!” After all, it’s bad times, he adds. “Who knows what else will happen.”

Next he plays the quiet “You Got the Silver”. It must be a bad time when bon vivant Keith Richards loses his optimism. But only briefly. His second song is “Happy”. The title says it all. Richards ends his singing interlude with the comment “It’s good to be anywhere”.

The concert became difficult again later on, when photos of bombed-out houses from the Ukraine appeared on the screens during “Gimme Shelter”. “It’s just a shot away.”

The concert, and with it the Stones’ current tour, ends with the encores “Sympathy for the Devil” and “Satisfaction”. It could have been the last concert in Berlin. Maybe also the last one in Germany. Or even the last ever? It doesn’t feel like it.

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