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Empire Pool 9-8-73
IP: 63.200.124.16
Posted on March 24, 2005 at 18:01:05 by MTFan

...and I'm breaking out into a feverish sweat.

The mail this morning brought me the new Bad Wizard boot CD "Empire Pool"
which purports to be a previously unreleased audience recording of the first show
at the Empire Pool/Wembley, 8 September 1973.

And it's just stupendous, a shot of the hard stuff.

Maybe others have heard this, but I've never heard this particular
performance before, that's for sure, and it's akin to finding if not the Holy Grail, at
least one of the lesser relics. There's not much out there in the Stones live
performances that I like more than a Fall 1973 show...so to find a new one I
hadn't heard before, _and_ to have it be an _excellent_ audience recording,
_and_ to have it be an excellent performance, too, is almost to much to ask.

F**k me, this is why Mick Taylor is revered in some circles, he is just
ripping that bottleneck slide all over the place. The setlists might not have
varied much on this tour, but the performances varied night to night, mostly
because Taylor would play little notes and phrases here and there that were new on
any given night. I knew right away that this recording was going to be a
ridiculous, evil pleasure when I heard Taylor rip some notes in Brown Sugar that I'd
never heard before that instantly made me break into a big grin and start
laughing out loud.

This recording is perhaps the best audience recording I've heard from that
1972-1973 touring period, I'm hardpressed to think of a better aud from those
years. We likely would not complain if something of this quality turned up from
the Licks tour, although it's not on a par with the Stockholm Cirkus or
Olympia Paris Crystal Cat recordings, sonically. But the performance is light years
beyond anything the Stones did on the Licks tour. It's not a complete recording
, the last 20 seconds or so of Gimme Shelter is missing, and there's an
obvious between-songs edit between Rambler and HTW.

But I'm smiling from ear to ear, this is a real treat.

Pleeeeeeaaaaassssssseeeeeee no comparisons with RW!!!!!!

Who's RW?

Are you perhaps referring to the multi-instrumentalist Roy Wood from the band Wizard?

Aaaaaah, now yer talkin! Was he any good at vibrato? Had a crackin beard though!