The Stones before they retired for the fifth time.
Sound quality is always an issue with bootlegs. We’re not dealing with official studio recordings here. The music isn’t mixed separately, on to individual tracks. A record producer isn’t standing over a mix board going through the music note by note painstakingly manipulating the sound to produce the optimal sound.…
Article comments
26 - Peter Richard
The most amazing thing to me is there never has been a Rolling Stones live album from 1972-73 tour. Brussels Affair is the closest in sound quality to a true live release.
Every other tour has had an official live release (okay, the Sucking In The Seventies live version of "When The Whip Comes Down" is only one song but at least the '78 tour is represented).
The 1972 tour, albeit a coke-fuelled hard rock orgy of sped up rock 'n' roll but still a gem featuring Taylor's virtuoso solos and the overall tightness of the band that no other Stones tour had.
The 1975-76 tour featured on Love You Live had a cool campy raunch that highlighted Jagger's singing style of the day - southern slurring and some of the Paris shows feature some of Richards' fiercest playing (he insisted the "show go on" after his infant son Tara died of SIDS in the middle of the France shows).
What I'd really like is better representation of the 1981-82 tour (why not expand the Still Life album into a double CD edition?) That was the last true Stones tour where the core band wasn't augmented by the several backup singers, horn sections and multi-keyboardists. It was also the last tour to feature Stu.
27 - Mike Cormany
I'm with the Taylor people on this. I've got everything I know that's out there that he's on -live, studio outtakes -- some of his best work was done on songs they never released. I enjoy the Brian era a lot too although that band was a basic raw blues band that were very good at making 2 and a half minute singles but the live stuff I've got isn't too good -- didn't help that that was the screaming teens era. The Wood years, I honestly haven't even listened to them much since the late 70s. But anything from 72 or 73 is worth hearing just to hear Taylor. And I agree with the other Mike earlier, they should but they never will release any of those shows because it would just blow the current band away. I hate old farts who sit around and bemoan today's rock as compared to when we were youths, but with the Stones I can't help it -- they were killer. If any of you haven't heard Taylor doing Sway with Carla Olson, I highly recommend that. It's an official release from the early 90s, recently re-released, a live show at the Roxy and Taylor is on another planet. I've listened to it 500 times and the hair on the back of my neck still stands up listening to it. Totally sucks he's so little known -- the man is still incredible even though he's had a pretty rough life.
28 - ken
I bought a bootleg of the stones called stoned alive by headway productions in a head shop in Tampa FL circa 1970
has anyone else come across this gem or know anything about headway productions