How the fan site 'Time Is On Our Side' became the definitive Rolling Stones setlist archive—and the fight over whether its data could be trusted

Started in the late 1990s by German fan Nico Zentgraf and a small team of obsessive collectors, “Time Is On Our Side” (TIOS) quickly became the go-to database for Rolling Stones setlists. They cross-referenced ticket stubs, amateur recordings, tour programs, and even newspaper reviews to reconstruct shows dating back to 1962. By the early 2000s, journalists, biographers, and even the Stones’ own management were quietly using TIOS as a reference—turning a fan project into a de facto primary source.

But accuracy became a battleground. A rival collector named Iain Purdon (who ran the site “Stones Setlists”) publicly challenged TIOS on several early-1960s dates, pointing out that some listings relied on a single handwritten note or a fuzzy memory from a retired roadie. Zentgraf pushed back hard, arguing that Purdon’s own corrections were equally unverifiable. The feud spilled into online forums, with each side accusing the other of “mythologizing” the band’s history. The controversy never fully resolved—but TIOS’s sheer volume and the trust it earned from major publications (the book Rolling Stones: Some Girls even credited it) gave it the last word in most setlist debates.