In
the early sixties I heard the Stones for the first time (must have been
1964). It was on a holiday at the seaside when I heard that now well-known
sound of the Stones, if I'm correct it was: "Off the hook" and "Little Red
Rooster" coming out a jukebox in a snack bar. Yes I immediately was struck
with the great groovy sound of that band. In those days we had no radio
stations which played rock 'n roll, yes some pirate stations for the coast
of England (Radio London, Radio Caroline, a Dutch station called Veronica
and that was it, thanks to all those pirate stations), however the quality
of their broadcast was very poor, they all broadcasted in the medium wave
band. Of course television was (absolutely) out of the question, no clips
nothing.
Just liking the sound of the Stones wasn't enough in those days, we let
our hair grow just like them which was very uncommon then. People thought
we were strange and extraordinary and they really didn't appreciate it.
Of course there was the everlasting discussion Beatles-Stones. If you
liked the Stones in the Sixties, you had to hate the Beatles, liking both
bands was not done.
One of my first singles was
"Paint if Black" and the first album I bought was certainly "Aftermath"
in 1966. Too bad that on the CD "Aftermath" aren't the original tracks,
because "Aftermath is one of their best albums in the orignal version.
I remember when I bought "Aftermath" that the price of the album was 17
guilders and fifty cents for the Mono version (Stereo was on the pricey
side, it costed 18 guilders and fifty cents and we didn't have a stereo
record player). Through the years I bought a lot of Stones singles, some
EP's and all the albums and later the CD's. I also bought some rare so-called
white albums or bootlegs as they call them now, with live concerts, usually
the sound of those albums isn't very good. A bit of a disappointment was
the fact that the Stones also took part in the craze of "flower power"
by releasing their album "Their Satanic Majesties' Request" although songs
like "She's a Rainbow" and "2000 Light Years from Home" are classics now.
In my opinion the best albums they released are: Aftermath, The Rolling
Stones Greatest Hits 1965, Let it Bleed, Flashpoint, Stripped and last
but not least Bridges To Babylon.
In those days there were a lot
of bands I liked, Them with the fantastic Van Morrison, the Animals featuring
Eric Burdon (the House of the Rising Sun), the Who (My Generation, Rockopera
Tommy) with Pete Townsend, Roger Daltrey, the Yardbirds - with the great
Eric Clapton, Eric is still going strong, the Doors, the Small Faces,
the Byrds, the Kinks, guys like Bob Dylan and so on and so forth... But
the Rolling Stones always were the best as far as I'm concerned
and they still are the greatest Rock and Roll band on earth.
I was very touched by the death of Brian Jones one of the first original Stones members. There have been lot of pop musicians who passed away; just think of Jimmy Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Mama Cash, John Lennon, Roy Orbison, Sonny Bono, Keith Moon the drummer of the Who, Jim
Morrison of the Doors and many many others. Brian's substitute in the Stones was Mick Taylor, a good guitar player but in my opinion no real Stone, in his turn Mick Taylor was replaced by Ron Wood, Ronnie is indeed a true Stone.
The first concert I ever saw of the Stones was in Amsterdam - 1970. For an audience of 20.000 people they performed a fantastic gig and I was in the front row. Before 1970 they've been three times in the Netherlands, the first time in the Hague (1964), the famous Kurhaus gig, which lasted ten or fifteen minutes and then the show was over, the place was demolished. There's more of that Kurhaus concert on my "Stones in the Sixties" page. In 1966 (26 march) the Stones played in Den Bosch - Brabanthallen, supporting act Wally Tax and the Outsiders, a great Dutch band. Part of the Stones setlist: Play with Fire, The Last Time, Get off of my Cloud, Satisfaction and I'm Free and they played in The Hague in 1967 (15 april, Houtrusthallen).
Stones shows I've attended:
