Bootleg Review: Rogers Centre, Toronto, September 25, 2005

I have been looking for this for a year and a half. Its the last Rolling Stones show I was at and I have been dying to hear it again through fresh ears, without the crowd noise, without the massive Bigger Bang spectacle. Getting this made me happier than any other download and my sincere thanks go out to whoever took the steps to get this from the soundboard to my computer. I have no idea what is actually involved, but now I am in my apartment listening to this very high quality soundboard recording. The crowd noise is minimal but present, otherwise the sound quality is amazing. The mix is intact with backing vocals and horn sections totally audible. The only oddity is that sometimes Keith's guitar drops out and Ronnie is more audible, but not by much. The vocals are clear and upfront. I have to say that I don't remember the show sounding so clear, but this is the cavernous Rogers Centre (nee Skydome) and you can only hope for the best.

Start Me Up and then You Got Me Rocking. I have seen You Got Me Rocking as the second song at EVERY single Stones show I have been at. It feels like the perfect one-two punch to me. Both are great energy, but I always wonder why it seems like Keith fucks up the first riff to Start Me Up when they open with it? It only finds its feet when Ronnie doubles the riff (I noticed the same thing at the Superbowl...) In person the band seemed loose and happy and the memory I have of this image probably colours how I hear the bootleg. This isn't a luxury I have with other bootlegs I hear, but I don't mind. I can still see Mick in that ridiculous half-jacket he wore throughout the tour, silver if I remember properly. Songs one and two are flawed but fantastic.


Third spot goes to She's So Cold and I had forgotten they even played it. Of course it sounds great and moves along at a good clip as it should. After this is a great Tumblin' Dice and then Rough Justice and it sounds like it did at the Superbowl - tough and meaty. I wonder why the guitar mix sounds so much better on some songs rather than others? We were too far away to really note the guitar changes, but I assume this has something to do with it. I still like Rough Justice live and wouldn't mind seeing it again next tour, but its hard to say I'd rather this than something else, probably anything else! I guess this is a nice luxury to have for the Stones and the reason that the set-list whiners are never happy!

Here is where the show went off script and some unique picks popped up in relation to the rest of the tour. I remember seeing Mick come to the front with an acoustic guitar and hoping that they were about to bust out the rarities and he didn't disappoint. Ruby Tuesday sounds better than it does on Flashpoint where it was a bit cartoony. Here its not bombastic and feels the size of song it should be. Hearing Keith's vocals backing Mick on this makes the song and its a treat to hear. And then it gets better! Dead Flowers was played at a rollicking pace. The band sounds damn good playing this style of music in their current lineup and Mick totally nails the mid-range vocals. I think Ronnie is doing the majority off the guitar work here with Keith doing the fills. Again, Keith's backups are killer in his "I'm dying, but singing" sort of way. Ditto for the off-key guitar solo.

And then, Bitch! I'm not sure it was played many more times on the tour. Its so damn good, I don't know why they don't play it at every show. Too hard on the horn section? You hear them do this on the 1972 tour and think "it would never work now," but it really does. With the Stones horn section its a crying shame they don't play this more. Mind you, the horns do much of the heavy lifting and here you can only hear the guitars on the solo. But still, this is a gem. I wouldn't trade it for Sway which is what everyone was losing their shit over all tour.

Nighttime is the Right Time is a timely Ray Charles tribute and almost makes up for not hearing Lisa Fischer sing Gimme Shelter. She does an incredible solo here and I remember it being a total show stopper. You hear the Stones do this type of thing and realize they could be the best rock n' roll revival tour of all time if they didn't have 400 hits of their own. Chalk this one up to Mick, Lisa and the horns. This is up there with the 2003 cover of I Can't Turn You Loose as an absolutely classic Stones moment. I know I'm raving a lot about this show, but the evidence is on this recording.


Ok - here is where I'll get critical. I didn't like Keith's set. I like The Worst, but I didn't like it at the show and it doesn't sound good on this recording. Too stretched out, too off-key and really not that interesting in a huge setting like this. Even on CD it feels like a song to go grab another beer. And I'll just leave Infamy alone. I never liked it. And who among Stones fans wants to hear Infamy instead of Happy/Little T&A/Slipping Away? I'll give Keith props for doing what he wants, but that's it.

A standard Miss You takes the show down to the B-stage and then we hit some more road bumps. Oh No Not You Again is in the same category as Infamy for me. I can't get on board with it. Next was Satisfaction, and I have some issues to work out. Although I know nobody is really reading (except for some kind faithful people in Korea and Australia...) I wonder if I might get some feedback on this issue. I'm certain that Mick was lip-syncing Satisfaction. The person I was with noticed it too. He just wasn't singing it, and I can't explain why. The song sounds quite off on the cd too and I still don't know what was going on. If he wasn't singing, what recording was he singing to? It certainly wasn't the studio version, but it didn't sound live and it didn't look live. Was this some sort of issue with the sound at the Rogers Centre? Delay on the b-stage? It was disappointing, but you can't tell as much on the bootleg version. A possibly lip-synced version of Honky Tonk Woman took the stage back home and the rest of the show proceeded without disturbing sound incidents.

Out of Control is the other surprise, though probably not a welcome one for most. I don't really like this song, but I love the version they did at this show. It was creepy, and that was enough.

The rest of the show was standard for the Bigger Bang set list with the exception of Its Only Rock n Roll as the last encore. It sounds great on the cd, much like the Live Licks version but with Mick saying "goodnight" as the song was still going. Brilliant version of Brown Sugar and Jumping Jack Flash help to end the show on a super-hits bang. I don't know how you can argue with the last five songs, even if you do crave the rarities!

Compared to the other Bigger Bang shows I have heard, Toronto stands up despite its weaknesses in the Keith set. Its amazing to have a live album of the last show I was at. Its less of a memory now that I can document every last note!

Setlist
Intro / Start Me Up / You Got Me Rocking / She's So Cold / Tumblin' Dice / Rough Justice / Ruby Tuesday / Dead Flowers / Bitch / Night Time is the Right Time / Band Intros / The Worst / Infamy / Miss You / Oh No Not You Again / Satisfaction / Honky Tonk Woman / Out of Control / Sympathy For the Devil / Brown Sugar / Jumping Jack Flash / You Can't Always Get What You Want / It's Only Rock n' Roll

Love?

In university I took a history of rock n' roll class. It was taught by musicologist Victor Coelho. He was one of the few really interesting teachers at the University of Calgary and his rock history class was a riot. But it was also maddening because Coelho would sometimes profess with certainty (as professors tend to do) on topics in rock n' roll that I thought were open to extremely broad interpretation. While he seemed to know his stuff when it came to the Rolling Stones, he made one claim that still strikes me as wrong.

When the topic of love and the Rolling Stones came up, Coelho said he believed that with only two exceptions, the Rolling Stones never used the word 'love' in their songwriting. I'm not bringing this up merely to be a stickler for details, but my immediate reaction would have to be that on this detail he was wrong. The Rolling Stones make constant reference to love in their writing. A cursory glance at song titles indicates that the word drops in from one album to the next: Love In Vain, Love is Strong, Blinded by Love, Hide Your Love, etc. It is littered throughout the songwriting too.

What Professor Coelho may have been getting at, however, was that he believed the Rolling Stones to be generally ambivalent about the concept of love. When compared to the Beatles, as he may have pointed out, the Rolling Stones do seem to be on the cynical side of the fence. I remember that Coelho played Can't You Hear Me Knocking in the lecture on the day he made the argument as a way of pointing out this ambivalence - a void that was filled with urgency, impatience, lust and driving need. If the song is indeed about unrequited love as a metaphor for cocaine addiction, then the sentiments of Can't You Hear Me Knocking fit the anti-love motif.

However, if we look elsewhere in the same era for another example a totally different picture emerges. Consider Gimme Shelter. It is a song considered to epitomize the marriage of the Rolling Stones with late '60s violence and mayhem. It truly does sweep away the last vestiges of Beatles inspired love-imagery. Tie in the association of the song in the Scorcese film about Altamont and line up the ultra-violent images that ended the film and a rather dark picture of the Rolling Stone is created.


But it is in this very place that I think the Rolling Stones make their ultimate statement about love - and what they have to say is anything but ambivalent or cynical. Mary Clayton's earth-shattering solo on the track sounds the twin warnings rape/murder...it's just a shot away. It's a dark and emotional summit for the song and the threatening storm that Jagger's vocal was building. But what is Mick's response to Clayton's section? The entire refrain of the track rests on a sentiment about love which is redemptive. Because the song does not return to violent imagery, love would seem to transcend these threatening themes. I can't imagine that this was an accident on the part of Jagger/Richards in such a sparing lyrical track.

At least at one time, in 1969, I think the Stones did care about love and took a view of it that allowed it to outshine the chaos, violence and misery that followed the band through much of the 1960s. As their career stretched out over the following thirty years they made a lot of subsequent statements about love, but none so forceful.

And here is a treat I found today on You Tube: Gimme Shelter live from Twickenham Stadium last year. An amazing version.

How Much Bigger?

It's now well into 2007 and I am still waiting on concrete news about further Rolling Stone shows this year. It seems clear that the band will return to Europe this summer. However, being essentially selfish, all I care about is the possibility of more North American shows.

It is true that I enjoy the fact that the band is playing anywhere. It became my ritual to log into rollingstones.com in the mornings and check the setlist if they had been onstage the night before. It also provides the opportunity to find fresh bootlegs and the exciting prospect of adding a 2007 section to my collection.


Popular opinion seems to be that there won't be more American shows this year. This leaves me with the morose and uncomfortable prospect of waiting for the next tour and counting on my fingers the possibility that this won't happen until 2008 or 2009. This is utterly depressing. The few things that brighten the prospect are possible Mick Jagger solo projects, the requisite live album from the Bigger Bang tour, and the upcoming Martin Scorsese concert film.

All of it is exciting, but it pales in comparison to having a ticket in hand for an upcoming show. If only my bank account could absorb the cost of a trip to Europe this summer....

Until then, I'm listening to a tape of the Rolling Stones in Atlanta in 2003. Oh to go back in time...

Start Me Up

The first three seconds of this video seem like a skit on Saturday Night Live. I'm quite sure it wasn't any different in 1981 when this was released. Mick's outfit is totally ridiculous and the dance moves are worse. But as soon as the vocals start it all works, and I'm at a loss to really explain why.

Part of it is probably the pure theatrics of Mick's facial expression. He takes the piss by acting like an ass, but then committs to it so completely that the performance becomes bullet proof.

The rest of the band is basically along for the ride on this one. Keith and Ronnie are strangely affable on the backup vocals and actually contribute to a satisfying esprits de corps through their enthusiasm. The video cuts to the requisite shot of Charlie smirking and retiring on drums, and the whole surreal experience is completed by a bizarrely attired Bill in the background looking like he showed up for a court date. Seriously, this has to be the worst Rolling Stones outfit of all time - the pale blue business suit. I guess there is a reason that he gets so many head shots.

In all, one of the great Stones music videos. Marks for simplicity and a daring fashion risk taken by Mick. Not exactly representative of a gang of dudes who would scare you in a dark alley, but somehow still cool.

Considering Voodoo Lounge

Voodoo Lounge was released when I was 14 years old. It was the first Rolling Stones album I heard in its entirety. It even had a video that made the band look cool (if not larger than life.) Because it loomed so largely over my early days listening to the band I wanted to start a series of album reflections here.

The band had been inactive enough in the early nineties for the release of a new album to be considered major news. Released to radio on July 12, the lead single Love is Strong was considered such an event that CBC radio played the song following its regular morning news. So I heard the new single sitting in the kitchen with my mom.

My mother was intuitive enough to give me the new disc a week later for my birthday. At the time my Stones catalogue contained only the strange Made In the Shade compilation from the seventies and in my idiocy I had no way to contextualize the new material.

At the time, Rolling Stone magazine upheld their long tradition of bestowing the a new Stones record with a four star review and the suggestion that the new album was the best thing since Some Girls if not Tattoo You (sound familiar *cough* - A Bigger Bang!) It certainly has some game where Steel Wheels and Dirty Work didn't, but does it hold up nearly fifteen years later?

Yes, but not in every way. I still think that Love Is Strong into You Got Me Rocking is a fantastic one-two punch for the Stones. These along with Out of Tears and I Go Wild can be classified as the best among Voodoo's thirteen tracks. You Got Me Rocking stands out as the best rock song among these and the lyrics are hilarious. I remember that Maclean's magazine ran an interview with Jagger where they asked him if the lyric "I was a hooker losing her looks" was about his own noticeable aging. Jagger's response was "what kind of magazine is this anyways?"

Standing above all of these tracks, however, is Keith's Thru and Thru. This has got to be one of the toughest, most heartbreaking and dynamic songs ever recorded (by Keith or anyone else.) When it picks up the riff is outright menacing, but the lyric is still quite tender. There is an interesting live version of this on No Security but I'm afraid it doesn't stand up to the studio version. Keith's second contribution The Worst is a charming acoustic that I appreciated even at 14 for its sleepy sheepishness. Who else could have written this song?

Because of where it falls in my life, Voodoo Lounge stands out in the total Stones catalogue. It was a time when the Stones were particularly iconic in my imagination. I hadn't even started to explore their catalogue or history, but from where I am now it seems that starting at the present and working my way backwards was not such a bad way to get to know them.

Photo Credits For Mick and Keith Photos from 1994: Mark Seliger

Bootleg Review: Tokyodome 2006!

When the Rolling Stones played the Tokyodome in March 2006, somewhere in the audience was the one millionth fan to see the band at this particular venue. This is the type of statistic that seems relatively meaningless except for its pure abstract shock value and in driving home the point that the Stones have played Tokyo an awful lot.

This recording is the first of two shows and unfortunately, is the less interesting setlist. But! It's still a good quality recording and a few things stand out. After a rousing Jumpin' Jack Flash, in the second slot, rarely played since the Bridges to Babylon tour, is Let's Spend the Night Together.

Chuck's piano drove earlier live versions of this but the 2006 version is more ragged and gritty due to the somewhat inconsistent anchoring guitar on the familiar riff. It really works in all this ragged glory.

The band sounds loose and upbeat and the recording suffers only from the fact that the backup vocals are nearly lost. Lisa gets a bit of help from the soundboard during her solo on Night Time is the Right Time but the backing parts in obvious vocal fills throughout the rest of the show are missing. This presents an interesting sort of sparseness and allows the marvel of open spaces amidst fifteen musicians to be revealed.

The only place this seems to hurt the band is when Keith sings Happy. Maybe somebody can help out with this, but on which tour did Mick stop singing the choruses on Happy? When I hear him singing behind Keith in the early seventies on Happy it sounds amazing. Now it sounds like Keef could use a little help on the vox. Not that he didn't sound almost identical thirty years ago when he took his turn on the mic, but I hear those recordings and can at least picture Mick caterwauling on stage behind him until the choruses.

The jewel of the entire performance is the inclusion of Sway. It was performed for the first time this tour and appeared on only a handful of setlists. It was not what I thought it would be because both guitars are considerably less distorted than on the Sticky Fingers recording. But isn't this what we all want? Versions of songs and not reproductions. Hearing it performed live is certainly a treat and Ronnie's solos put the definitive late-era stamp on this as a live number. I'd kill to hear Mick shoot for the high notes on this. Perhaps he's only willing to sing it now because he expects different things from himself as a singer? Who knows what sort of alchemy goes into choosing these setlists. A few minutes on the rollingstones.com message boards will confirm that it is a full time obsession for some to complain about inclusions and exclusions. For me the answer is simple: get an internet connection and you can hear the Stones do nearly any set from any era....

On a final note, I really like She's So Cold live. I know its not considered the coolest Stones song of all time, but it sounds like one riff where Keith and Ronnie have to communicate (telepathically or otherwise) to not totally lose track of the song. I wish they would play it more.

The setlist:

JJ Flash / Let's Spend The Night Together / She's So Cold / Oh No Not You Again / Sway / As Tears Go By / Tumblin' Dice / Rain Fall Down / Night Time Is The Right Time / This Place Is Empty / Happy / Miss You / Rough Justice / Get Off My Cloud / Honky Tonk Woman / Sympathy For the Devil / Paint It Black / Start Me Up / Brown Sugar / Can't Always Get What You Want / Satisfaction