Listening to the 1/18/73 Nicaragua Benefit show and Dead Flowers just started. From every boot I've heard, this song always sounds so limp-dicked and ramshackle live, which is too bad because I love the studio version. What do you all think?

sounds great in Ladies & Gents

Ha---Sounds great to me too....Its not a hard hitting rocker....Its country...

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Rollin' Stoner
sounds great in Ladies & Gents

That's one of my least favorite versions!

Maybe I need to give it another shot, but I dunno...I know it's country but it always sounds so weak and sloppy, and it's such a simple song...

X



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2018-08-19 19:56 by UrbanSteel.

You may just not like it live! I like the live version a little better because its a little shorter then the studio version....AND I LOVE the studio version. Its like i like the 1969 Live version of LIVE WITH ME better then the studio version.. But i like the studio version better then any other version of it live!

almost always great for me, and absolutely outstanding on the versions I heard on the last tour. (check out the version from Houston 1/12/05 as an example)

Its one of the few songs thats actually got better live down the years. They still play that style of country music REALLY well for the most part, and should do it more often.

I have the Marquee and L&G vids and the song is just "meh" for me...love the studio version on SF, though...

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StonesFanatic
I have the Marquee and L&G vids and the song is just "meh" for me...love the studio version on SF, though...

can't beat the studio version imo

To be clear, I don't *hate* the live versions...I listen to them and enjoy them, but I just feel it doesn't work so well live...but that's just me opinion...

Limiting my response to Taylor performances....great. Always a treat for me. Thinking about the Marquee, Leeds, L&G and Nic Ben Con performances, Jagger could be proud of those performances and thumb his nose at just about any band of pickers in the world. It's CW played straight without an ounce of parody.

Not much comes to mind for '70-'71 era other than a Berlin performance where Jagger's mic blows and the song is played as an enjoyable instrumental.

I wouldn't totally agree that it's country music played straight without a hint of parody. I think there's certainly a hint of parody there, but only a hint. I've seen some people put it in the same category as "Far Away Eyes" and "Dear Doctor" but I wouldn't go that far because those songs are obvious parodies. For me, "Dead Flowers" and "Let It Bleed" fall between the straighter country of "Wild Horses" and "Torn And Frayed" and the sarcastic parodies of "Far Away Eyes" and "Dear Doctor".

As for the live vs. studio argument, while I love the studio version, I like the live version's even more. Most any live version of the song that I've ever heard from the Taylor era is better than the studio version, and I even like alot of their modern era versions. It's just one of my favorite songs and I think their performances of this song have held up better over time than any of their other country songs, except maybe "Sweet Virginia", which I think is still pretty good live.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2009-06-23 22:22 by Tumblin_Dice_07.

Hey, I was at that benefit show in 1973, both of thoe songs came off GREAT live
that night!!!!!

MLC

Keith Richards~Willie Nelson and Friends 2002 version - straight from the Heart!!

I think Dead Flowers was great live in the early seventies - i think i like those performances even more than the studio version. The later live versions do little for me - i find them too slick and polished and lacking in the raw energy of the versions from the seventies.

The Nicarguan Benefit Concert: That is nice stretch of the show: YCAGWYW, DF, SCB and a wicked LWM. Would love to hear a soundboard of that show.

On Ladies and gentel, love the complicity beetween Mick and Keith at the microphone, during DF, "guitars boys" ... MT solo ...etc, really great instant of the video.
also like the stripped video one

Great in 1972. The song got weaker as Jagger started to sing a different harmony on the bridges and choruses ever since, imo.

I particularly like the Leeds version though almost all live versions '70 through '73 sound great. I find the Nicaraguan Benefit version a little too under-rehearsed. That all those versions were played with conviction and lit a fire under the studio version makes the recordings of those shows so much fun to listen to. In comparison, the version Rollin Stoner linked to sounds like a gentle homage to the studio version.

should be a warhorse IMO

.............country is the heart of this band and the blues it's soul.

Don't forget the "Stripped" version. "I felt like a hillbilly...just for a minute"

Stones Fanatic, maybe DF is htting you this way (limp dicked) because you are getting it in this pretty tough context. The 72, 73 shows were some hot sets. And the only way for DF to really work is for the groove to be relaxed.

nevermind....



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2009-06-24 04:46 by Erik_Snow.

Album original is best.

Some varying tempos in live versions. I am sure Charlie is once on the bass drum between snare shots in the studio version. Other vary from 2 every time to 1 then 2 then 1 then 2. Changes the feel of it. Like slower, country tempo.

Is one of the great Stone's sing-a-longs ever!!!

when i saw the stones in 2005 at the rogers center in toronto, it was the first song of the night that the band really jelled on... it stuck out to me as a highlight.

im sure there are less than stellar performances out there though.

always a highlight and one of my alltime favourites

also like the Stripped version a lot

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Palace Revolution 2000
Don't forget the "Stripped" version. "I felt like a hillbilly...just for a minute"

Stones Fanatic, maybe DF is htting you this way (limp dicked) because you are getting it in this pretty tough context. The 72, 73 shows were some hot sets. And the only way for DF to really work is for the groove to be relaxed.

Good point...

I loved it at Churchill Downs. Thought it was one of the highlights of the show.

Slightly OT, but do any of the guitarists here know what model Takamine Jagger is playing in the Toronto 1989 video?