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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.
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.
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). |
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