Did anybody else miss these tracks? It's sad to hear someone butcher a review so badly with so many great writers and critics on here. This is from the Hartford Advocate. Keith's home state:



Watched “Ladies and Gentlemen: the Rolling Stones” -- the concert film, live in Texas, from the Exile tour in 1972, the other night. (It’s just recently available on Netflix, and I’ve heard that it’s been on cable some lately.) Well, it’s no Gimme Shelter, or @#$%& Blues, or Rock and Roll Circus, or even The Stones in Exile. But it’s still got a lot to hold your attention for the Stones fan. It’s not a roc doc/concert film for the ages; there are only a couple cameras at work, there’s no insightful backstage nuggets, and, frankly, the Stones sound not great at times; “Onstage, the band has got problems,” as they say. It’s riveting at times, nonetheless. I found myself transfixed by Mick Taylor. Having read a fair amount about his struggles as the replacement for Brian Jones, and the attitude that Mick and Keith threw his way, and being generally worshipful of his contributions on “Sway” and “Moonlight Mile,” I’ve always been ready to sympathize with Taylor. Imagine the existential surprise: you get to join the biggest band on earth, to play with a bunch of similarly blues-obsessed dudes … and you find you don’t really dig it. Well, it shows a little. Taylor looks like a statue -- an eyeshadow-and-rouge-brushed shadow, but a statue. It’s almost understandable, with Mick Jagger up there jumping around and doing his chicken dance, tsk-tsk-tsking, lip-licking, crotch-thrusting, ass-shaking, pouting, stomping and the rest, one can imagine thinking that the Stones didn’t need any more stage antics, but Taylor made Bill Wyman look like a hopped-up contortionist. He plays some perfect bluesy solos, and does amazing slide work on “No Expectations,” but somehow it feels not right.

Still, seeing and hearing versions of “Happy” “All Down The Line,” “Dead Flowers” and an acoustic “Tumbling Dice” is worth something. What the footage reveals is just how much the Stones, like the Beatles, became a studio band. It’s true that Sticky Fingers and Exile (and Let It Bleed and Beggars Banquet) weren’t necessarily such epic productions that they couldn’t be played live, but much of it is missing some key elements. They’re downright weird and choppy -- not quite sloppy, but just sort of awkwardly incomplete -- in places. More than anything you notice how much the gospel-y female back-up singers on “Gimme Shelter” and “Tumbling Dice” pretty much made the songs. (The band brought Nicky Hopkins on piano, and Bobby Keyes on sax as well as a trumpet player, but no back-up singers). If anyone ever re-posts those isolated tracks with just the vocals, guitars or drums from “Gimme Shelter” you should give a listen and hear for yourself.

If you’ve finished the Keith Richards memoir, it’s a natural digestif.

[www.non-filters.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011-02-09 07:41 by nonfilter.

"No Expectations"..!!! An acoustic "Tumbling Dice"...!!!

The Stones became a studio band...!!! The reporter clearly has no idea.

Jesus! What a hack! That is a ridiculous review and he is clearly an idiot.

You cannot take a review like this seriously with such inaccuracies.

I went on Netflix to see if the movie was available as the dougbag said it was and it isn't yet ;"short wait" they say. That guy got his 5hit totally wrong.
Rock and Roll,
Mops

The Stones a studio band? Huh?

Someone needs to put the special brownies away before writing his reviews.

How about Love In Vain and an acoustic Sweet Virginia? I know, details, details...

What an IDIOT -- I wouldn't use his review for Bun Wipe paper..

MLC