By Donna Beth Weilenman
Staff Reporter

Bruce and Debbie Hanninen came from Seattle to Oakland to see their first Rolling Stones concert Sunday night at the Oracle Arena.

By the time the band wrapped up its two and a half hour set, Debbie Hanninen said, “I would have come from China for this!”

Thousands in the arena agreed, giving the Rolling Stones a standing ovation before Keith Richards or Ronnie Wood played a single note. Most stayed on their feet, even danced in front of their seats, for the entire event.

And they mimicked Mick Jagger’s frenetic hand motions as he sang the opening number, “Get Off of My Cloud,” written by Jagger and Richards in 1965, the year the band first played in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The legendary rockers just launched their “50 and Counting” tour Friday night in Los Angeles. Oakland was the second concert. the Rolling Stones play in San Jose Wednesday before heading off to other parts of the country as well as Canada as additional dates and sites are added.

While the Stones played two recently released singles, “Doom and Gloom” and “One More Shot,” most of Sunday’s 23-song set was designed to turn the Oracle into a sing-along party.

The crowd happily obliged, becoming a massive chorus for such classics as “It’s Only Rock & Roll,” “Live With Me,” “Paint It Black” and “Gimme Shelter.”

The latter featuring Lisa Fisher, the powerful vocalist who has joined the Stones on the past several tours. She and Jagger turned the intense song, released in 1969 during the Vietnam War, into a contemporary warning that war “is just a shot away.”

Tom Waits, a Sonoma County resident and legendary musician in his own right, joined Jagger on the blues classic, “Little Red Rooster.” His appearance was the Stones’ surprise to the Oakland audience.

Two other musical guests were expected. Mick Taylor, a member John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers before joining the Rolling Stones from 1969 to 1974, returned to the stage with his former bandmates to share his searing guitar work on “Midnight Rambler.”

And the San Jose State University’s Choraliers were invited to sing on one of three encore songs, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” They’ll be appearing at the HP Pavilion show in San Jose, too.

There was no opening act — there was no need.

Most of the songs belonged to the Stones alone, from deep cuts to album headliners like “Dead Flowers” — appropriate since it mentions the Kentucky Derby, which was the previous day — “Emotional Rescue,” “All Down the Line,” “Honky Tonk Women,” “Miss You” and “Start Me Up.”

Keith Richards, who with Jagger has penned most of the band’s songs, had two solo songs, “Before They Make Me Run” and “Happy,” and Jagger took the lead for the rest, including “Tumbling Dice,” “Brown Sugar,” “Sympathy for the Devil” and two other encore songs, “Jumping Jack Flash” and “Satisfaction.”

Internet chatter continues to criticize the shows’ ticket prices, starting at nearly $200 and rising into the thousands for VIP seats.

But Jagger, performing in Oakland Sunday, soon realized many of the “inner circle” VIPs in the center of a circular opening in the stage around which the singer pranced and danced throughout the show, weren’t watching the show directly. Instead, they were busy capturing it on iPads and smart phones.

He responded by turning his attention to enthusiastic fans in the less expensive, if not much cheaper, seats.

And Jagger and his colleagues showed no signs of slowing down, dismissing speculation that “50 and Counting” is a farewell tour.

It was the fourth Stones concert for Claudine Velluet, a Marin resident, and Peter LaDeau of Sonoma.

But Velluet came close to having a more interesting story than most about the band. “I met Mick Jagger in 1966,” she said.

She was 16, having dinner at a restaurant in the hotel where the band was staying when they played Candlestick Park that year. Jagger asked her if she wanted to ride in the band’s helicopter.

It never happened, however. “My dad wouldn’t let me go!” she said.