Category: SIXTY Tour Europe 2022

The Rolling Stones were scheduled to be performing at Johan Cruyff ArenA in Amsterdam The Netherlands on Monday June 13. I arrived the day before, stayed at Holiday Inn Amsterdam Arena Towers, just 400 meters i.e. a five minutes walk from the venue. It was a great location to be at.

I had been in Amsterdam last month, in May, for the pre-tour rehearsals, so I was already ready with a metro/train card, also knew what trams and trains to take. It was a great day on show day June 13. Lunch on Rembrandtplein, a great place, and some walking around in the city, then heading for the show in the afternoon.

I could hear a soundcheck of “She’s A Rainbow” and “Connection” while walking around outside, some time after 4pm. I was inside the stadium at 5:25pm. Doors seemed to open around 5pm, but as I stayed so close, there was no rush in getting inside the venue early. Show start was expected around 8:45pm. Then, at 6pm, there was an announcement saying “The show is cancelled” – “Mick has got Covid” … It took a while until I realized it, it was a fact. We had to leave. Then dinner with friends nearby.

Then at 10pm I changed my plan to take the train from Amsterdam to Bern, a ten hours train ride. I had already booked the ticket at some Euro 200 the day before. Lost money. I booked a direct flight back home next morning, and after some hours on Schiphol Airport, I was back home at around 2pm in the afternoon, the day after the cancelled show.

The show in Bern on Friday June 17 was cancelled while I was at the airport in Amsterdam, like I expected. The Milan show on Tuesday June 21 was still on, in my hopes, so I headed home for nearly a week of rest.

There will be more about the Amsterdam show here next month, as there is a new date for the Amsterdam show on Thursday July 7. Meanwhile, some other shows in Milan and London.

The Rolling Stones arrived back “home” to England on Thursday June 9, 2022, when their SIXTY tour took them to Anfield in Liverpool. They did a rare live version of “I Wanna Be Your Man”, and the fans were singing “You’ll Never Walk Alone” as they waited for the encores.

I had been at home for a short trip, following the Munich Germany show. As it typically takes 8 hours, more or less, to get from door to door from home and to the next location, or the other way around, I basically get one day at home and waste almost two days on travel. That is the price to be paid for getting home between shows on tour. For the next few shows I can’t keep going home, so after Amsterdam I just stay on the tour. It is just so exhausting with all the travel.

To get to Liverpool I was flying from Oslo to Manchester, then train to the Manchester city center, then another train to Liverpool. As I walked out of Liverpool Lime Street Station, I had four images in front of me. First of all my hotel, to my front left, an ugly looking container style building branded Holiday Inn City Center. So it was an easy walk 5 minutes. Great! To my very left, there was an old style pub building named “Crown Hotel”. In front of me, a large shining advertisement board for a large shopping center with parking, and to the right, a beautiful old building which seemed to get sort of lost in all the construction works in front of the train station.

Liverpool is famous for The Beatles, also for football – Liverpool F.C. and Everton F.C. I spent the time in Liverpool walking around in the city. Most of the city in my area seemed to be shopping centers and bars, a bit Dublin style, with drinking and loud music. My favorite area was by River Mersey – the Royal Albert Dock Liverpool. It’s a great and relaxing area, not as busy and high on noise level as the city area around Lime Street Station.

Show day, I had a 45 minutes walk to the show. Most fans took the bus, there were queues, long queues. The show, such a great show! See reports through the links below. The return home? SAS canceled my direct flight home, so it took me all day, 13 hours, to get home from Liverpool, leaving Liverpool by train before 6am, via Manchester nightmare airport, then Copenhagen airport stopover, some hours waiting, then Oslo, then a one and a half hour waiting for trains to run due to a train power problem in Oslo, and finally at home in the evening at around 7pm. The long and winding road back home…

The Rolling Stones
Anfield Stadium
Liverpool UK
Thursday June 9, 2022

Munich is a great and beautiful city south in Germany. The Rolling Stones go to Munich on almost every tour in Europe. Summer time in Munich means packed beer gardens, lots of tourists, and may be some rain at times!

I had ten great days during the tour start in Madrid. Now I was on a much shorter three days stopover in Munich, in fact three nights but just two days, as I was arriving really late, and leaving very early.

Munich was not really very welcoming, as our late afternoon flight from Madrid Spain on Friday June 3 was en route to Munich Airport. Some 10-15 minutes before we were supposed to land, I was following the flight path, and we were going towards Salzburg Austria, not really Munich Airport. Then we were doing circles on a holding area half way between the Munich Airport and Salzburg. After a while the pilot told us the Munich airport was closed due to heavy thunderstorms. After 30-40 minutes doing circles, quite a long holding time, we were cleared for landing, and half an hour later, after still some 10-15 minutes hold before ground control were allowed to work, we were on Munich ground. Some times a flight is not just another flight.

I had booked a hotel near the Olympiastadion, Leonardo Royal Hotel Munich. With great memories from the Leonardo hotel in Hamburg during the tour there in 2017, I thought that hotel chain was a great one. Well may be not… The hotel was large, but ok. The room was ok, the distance from the venue was just 15 minutes walking through the Olympiapark, but the service was just terrible. It was a two hours wait to get food, and I just gave up on the hotel, and went other places for dining.

Munich city center is like a museum, so many great buildings and stunning architecture. I took the U-Bahn to Marienplatz, and walked around in the Old Town. Even if the area was packed with tourists, it was still a pleasure to be there, just to see it all, like on every visit to Munich. Then I needed a meal, no chance for any seating outside, so after a while I studied the map, and found out I had to leave the center for some walking in the park.

The English Garden (Englisher Garten) is a great large park spanning some 6-7 km i.e. more than 4 miles just near the Old Town. It is not really a garden, but a large park, lots of old beautiful chest trees, and other trees, beer gardens, and traffic is so far away you do not hear anything else than the birds, you see people relaxing, enjoying the summer. I spent several hours walking the park, it reminded me a bit about Hyde Park in London, both are large, both give the people a lot of space and relaxing.

Show day, there were forecasts of rain, I was on hold in my hotel, working, until after gates opened late. I did not leave my room until 6:35pm, by then most of the rain had stopped. Then a fast walk 15 minutes, and I was inside the stadium within 5 minutes. Less than two hours later The Rolling Stones were on stage, and gave us another great show. For reports and pictures see the link below.

The Rolling Stones
Olympiastadion
Munich Germany
Sunday June 5, 2022

The Rolling Stones SIXY tour in Europe summer 2022 started in Madrid Spain June 1, 2022. The tour is celebrating their sixty years career, since their very first show on July 12, 1962 in London England. It is an unbelievable long career, spanning three generations. I am so happy and lucky I have been able to enjoy most of their career, so many great memories, many friends met during all these years, travel across the world several times.

I left for Madrid Spain on May 24, for a ten days stay there. The plan was to spend some weeks in Amsterdam The Netherlands ahead of the tour, where they did some three weeks of rehearsals, but there was not much to see or hear there, as they were in a sealed off studio inside the Ziggo Dome. So I changed my travel plans and arrived into Madrid Spain late Tuesday May 24, two days ahead of The Rolling Stones, and four days ahead of my originally planned arrival of May 28.

When in Madrid, The Rolling Stones used to perform at the Vicente Calderón Stadium, in the Arganzuela area, near Puerto de Toledo in Madrid. Then they did their 2014 show in Madrid at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium, home ground of the football team Real Madrid. Athletico Madrid, who used Vicente Calderón Stadium as home ground, recently moved into the former olympic stadium, rebuilt into the new and modern stadium Wanda Metropolitano. With tour start Wednesday June 1, I wanted to be in Madrid early, so that I could enjoy their pre-tour rehearsals at the venue. I booked Hotel Sercotel Alcalá 611, it turned out to be the perfect choice this time, just 2 km i.e. 25 minutes walk to the stadium. Also, the area Canillejas turned out to be a great 2nd home during my ten days stay, with plenty of localø bars and restaurants, a quiet place, still just 20 minutes or so by metro to the city center.

I walked over to the Wanda Metropolitano many times. For reports from the rehearsals please see the separate reports:

The Rolling Stones SIXTY European Tour 2022 rehearsals

With ten days in Madrid, I did get some time to see the city as well, not just rehearsals, and the show. My hotel was at Calle de Alcalá 611. The street Calle de Alcalá is very old and historic, an attraction on it’s own. Old maps are showing the importance of the street, the widest street in the old days, spanning some 11 km across the city of Madrid.

The city center has got many large and impressing old buildings, churches, royal castle and parks. Some of the pictures below is just a bit of what Madrid has got to show the tourists. I would need a lot more than 10 days to see most of the great places in Madrid.

Show day with The Rolling Stones was warm and bright. They waited as long as they could before going on stage, at around 10:15pm in the evening. We got two hours fifteen minutes of a show to remember for a long time. The 19 songs included “Out Of Time” performed for the first time live, a great version, they did even restart it and play most of the song for a 2nd time. What a great show!

For show reports and pictures please see the IORR reports pages:

The Rolling Stones
Wanda Metropolitano
Madrid Spain
Wednesday June 1, 2022

The Rolling Stones are celebrating their sixty years career since their very first live show appearance in London July 12, 1962. The celebration tour is named SIXTY, with a summer tour in Europe through June and July 2022. The tour stage seems to be designed so that it may take them on a worldwide celebration tour during the next months and year to come – only time will tell if that will happen. Meanwhile, this is the first part of the tour reports, from the rehearsals in Amsterdam and Madrid.

The rehearsals started with a three weeks stay in Amsterdam, where they rehearsed at a studio room in the Ziggo Dome. Unavailable to outside fans for anything to bee seen or heard, there is not much to report, except for the posts done by the band themselves, see the IORR rehearsals link at the end of these pages.

Having rehearsed some 70-80 different songs, The Rolling Stones left Amsterdam The Netherlands for Madrid Spain during the afternoon of Thursday May 26. The next day i.e. Friday I was on the last guided tour of the stadium of the opening show, the Wanda Metropolitano. The guided tour was at 1:30pm, and most of the stage was ready by then. It is a new stage design for the SIXTY tour, it looks like it will be easy to fly around the world, for a celebration anywhere they might take their SIXTY shows in the time to come.

Saturday May 28 the band went to the Wanda Metropolitano stadium for rehearsals on their full production stage, and they returned for two more days of rehearsals on Sunday May 29 and Monday May 30. The last of the three days marked a full set of songs, not far from the final show to be performed at the opening show in Madrid on Wednesday June 1.

For details about the rehearsals please see the IORR thread:

Rehearsals for the SIXTY Tour Europe 2022

Tour dates and more details:

The Rolling Stones SIXTY European Tour 2022