The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus



This movie isn't mine favorite performance of the Stones. And I know... it's famous because of the whole thing between The Who and the Stones. The Who had a great show and the Stones weren't fit to give an excellent show unfortunately.

I want to talk about other things that came up while I was thinking about the whole show. The R&R circus is an important document because of lots of things. Many things were happening during this show...


Jethro Tull



Tommy Iommi (Black Sabbath) played with Jethro Tull during their performance!


The Who



They've rocked the show! But it was also the period that Pete was busy writing the rock opera TOMMY. They've played many gigs to pay the studio costs to record TOMMY.

Dirrrrrrrrrrrrrrty Mac



Nice combination of good musicians! But there were upcoming changes in their lives. Eric Clapton wasn't very happy with Cream. He was fed up with all those fights between Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker.
John Lennon just recorded the White Album with the Beatles. The recording of this album went very hard. He became astranged from the Beatles and wasn't very happy with the fab four.
Mitch Mitchell just recorded Electric Ladyland with Jimi Hendrix. It wasn't a smooth recording sessions. Noel Redding was fighting with Jimi and his management. Jimi was experimenting a lot. I don't know if Mitch was happy with the whole thing happening with Jimi and his entourage.
Keith just finished recording Beggars Banquet. He played (almost) all guitar parts. He pulled the strings there. Brian wasn't capable anymore to do stuff with the band.
Dirty Mac was a combination of people who were searching with their own band, but they got their satisfaction by working with other people on this occasion.


Brian's blues



Brian...
We all could see how Brian was falling down. Sad to see how he wasn't plugged during a couple of songs. No Expectations was a beautiful last live performance of Brian. His announcement of Julius Katchen wasn't in the offical movie. Pretty sad. He was crying all the time, according to Pete Towshend and Roger Daltrey. It was cool to see Brian participate with the band during this rockin' times, but it was very sad to see him fall apart during the R&R circus.

Tony Visconti??
I've read somewhere that Tony Visconti (producer of some of the David Bowie albums) was also there and he played an important part.


RIP

So many names are not among us anymore. Quit sad to see the list.

[*] Keith Moon
[*] John Entwhistle
[*] Jesse Ed Davis
[*] John Lennon
[*] Mitch Mitchell
[*] Brian Jones
[*] Nicky Hopkins

Maybe I've missed a few things, but those are the things that came up.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2011-02-12 12:04 by DiamondDog7.

Clapton had already left Cream, Jethro Tull was live vocals over studio version backing track, Brian was plugged in for the whole of stones section, but they for whatever reason decided to mix him very low for 3 tracks on the CD/DVD.

The Stones were great in this show. Bill is great, especially in No Expectations. Charlie rocks the whole gig. Rocky Dijon & Nicky Hopkins are fantastic. I'd love to hear some bootleg with Brian higher on the mix. I think besides some 2002 performances this is the only time they played Parachute Woman live.

I wonder if that Fender Bassman below Eric Clapton is actually George Harrison's amp. That amp does pop up in a Blind Faith promo picture, but it's not an amp associated with Clapton. It's possible Clapton could have had one, too, but I have a feeling it doesn't seem likely.

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tomk
I wonder if that Fender Bassman below Eric Clapton is actually George Harrison's amp. That amp does pop up in a Blind Faith promo picture, but it's not an amp associated with Clapton. It's possible Clapton could have had one, too, but I have a feeling it doesn't seem likely.

It's Eric's Fender Tremolux. You can see him use this amp during Blind Faith rehearsals at his home in Surrey.

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His Majesty

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tomk
I wonder if that Fender Bassman below Eric Clapton is actually George Harrison's amp. That amp does pop up in a Blind Faith promo picture, but it's not an amp associated with Clapton. It's possible Clapton could have had one, too, but I have a feeling it doesn't seem likely.

It's Eric's Fender Tremolux. You can see him use this amp during Blind Faith rehearsals at his home in Surrey.

Yeah, it is. I blew up the photo. From a distance, it looks like George's Bassman
but the head is different. I wonder if it's on the Blind Faith album. He didn't use it at Hyde Park.

They only put out about 15 - 20 watts so it would have been pretty useless at Hyde Park.

It was nice to see footage of Brian, specially right there at the end of his career with the Stones. The puffy eyes told the story very well. I would really like to see more footage of Brian, if anyone can direct me to old footage.

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His Majesty
They only put out about 15 - 20 watts so it would have been pretty useless at Hyde Park.

I thought they were 30 watts, but oh, well. And speaking useless amps at Hyde Park, do we know why there was an AC-30 on Mick Taylor's side of the stage?

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tomk

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His Majesty
They only put out about 15 - 20 watts so it would have been pretty useless at Hyde Park.

I thought they were 30 watts, but oh, well. And speaking useless amps at Hyde Park, do we know why there was an AC-30 on Mick Taylor's side of the stage?

Neither Taylor or Keith was plugged in to it, they are both plugged straight in to the Hiwatt 200 watt heads feeding 4 4x12's each. Maybe the Vox is left over by another band, or acting as some kind of monitor or harmonica amp for Jagger?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011-02-10 10:01 by His Majesty.

Are there some good p[hotos of the amp situation HM and tomk are talking about in Hyde Park?
I wouldn't put TOO much weight to the story about Brian crying all the time. First off you see him a good bit in the film not crying, and I have known people to drop acid and just...cry a lot for a while. But not because they were sad.

Good post DiamondDog!

Wasn't the riff of Jumpin' Jack Flash played slightly different than we are used to
at the Rock 'n Roll Circus?

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Palace Revolution 2000
Are there some good p[hotos of the amp situation HM and tomk are talking about in Hyde Park?

Yes I have lota, but my photobucket was emptied recently. I think because I forgot to log out of a pubic computer.

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Palace Revolution 2000
I wouldn't put TOO much weight to the story about Brian crying all the time. First off you see him a good bit in the film not crying, and I have known people to drop acid and just...cry a lot for a while. But not because they were sad.

True. I have read though that Brian didn't do drugs at the R&RC. At this time his depression and paranoia was a bigger problem for him than drugs and he is even supposed to have been worried for Keith's use of drugs at the show. It's easy to understand since Keith's skin was yellow(!).
Drugs or not, all of the Stones were very tired after filming the other acts during the evening and night. They were the last ones to play early in the morning. Mick is doing an an amazing performance IMHO with that in mind.

The pictures of Brian are pretty sad. Up close he looks so tired and depressed and when he perform with the Stones he stands isolated from the band for most of the time. It's so strange that they decided to have his guitar almost inaudibe in the mix. I guess it's easy to assume that it had to do with him not playing so good anymore. But they still gave him full trust to play No Expectations - a song in wich Brian has a very prominent part.

It's odd that the Stones view their performance as not up to par. But they were in the thick of it, actually doing it, so it is easy for us to double guess it. For starters any kind of rush of performing a song will quickly evaporate by having to do it once over, and once over again. Add that to being exhausted. Once again I am impressed by Jagger's professionalism.

HM, I know you mentioned a while back about your photos being wiped out. So sorry; what a double-drag.

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Palace Revolution 2000
Are there some good p[hotos of the amp situation HM and tomk are talking about in Hyde Park?
I wouldn't put TOO much weight to the story about Brian crying all the time. First off you see him a good bit in the film not crying, and I have known people to drop acid and just...cry a lot for a while. But not because they were sad.

You can see the AC-30 next to Charlie's bass drum, Taylor's side, in this clip
(and even in the freeze-frame here).

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marcovandereijk
Good post DiamondDog!

Wasn't the riff of Jumpin' Jack Flash played slightly different than we are used to
at the Rock 'n Roll Circus?

Yes, it was played in standard tuning for the only time ever (as was YCAGWYW).

Sad picture... No one is alive!How about Rocky?

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DiamondDog7
Sad picture... No one is alive!How about Rocky?

I do believe he is

"Doctor please, some more men please,
To Cotchford Farm, out by the pool...

What a drag it is they couldn't revive him"

Brian Jones 2/28/42 - 7/2/69

not too sure about the "importance" of some of these incidents. Tony Iommi playing with Tull is perhaps interesting because it was a very temporary thing, but by the same token it doesn't seem at all important. Likewise "the Dirty Mac." Just a one-off, though Diamond Dog does find some interesting connections among the players. Still, I doubt they found any resolution to their various issues in the few hours (minutes?) they played together.

the "professionalism" question is another interesting one, like Palace's recent thread. It's "professional" of the Stones to give it a college try at the end of a long day's filming. But wouldn't it have been more professional to ensure that they would be in good shape to play their set, either by breaking the event up into 2 days or by, for example, not doing extraneous things like playing with John Lennon and Eric Clapton?

To CC: hell, they didn't even know yet that drugs were bad for you. They didn't realize what trouble Brian was in, above and beyond his problems with the band. They were in the mid-20s and I think they thought they could do anything. Maybe this was the first time they ran into a wall energy wise. (Although they repeated the same mistake on Saturday Night Live in 1978 by partying all week and were too fagged out by airtime.)

I'm sure they learned a lot from Rock and Roll Circus. They were smart enough not to release it at the time and get shown up by the Who. I believe John Popper, the harmonica whiz of Blues Traveler wanted to join them on stage on a recent tour and Jagger nixed that idea. I disagree that Dirty Mac wasn't important. We didn't get to see much of John playing outside of his Beatle setting. Or Mitch Mitchell without Hendrix. I commend the Stones for creating an atmosphere where a group of superstars got together to play. Unlike jazz, where artists sat in with each other's groups, we didn't get a lot of the major stars playing music with each other in the 60s.

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Palace Revolution 2000
Are there some good p[hotos of the amp situation HM and tomk are talking about in Hyde Park?
I wouldn't put TOO much weight to the story about Brian crying all the time. First off you see him a good bit in the film not crying, and I have known people to drop acid and just...cry a lot for a while. But not because they were sad.

I was told by the director, Michael Lyndsay-Hogg that Brian was indeed crying the whole time, and the others were completely ignoring. Brian called Michael in tears the night before saying he wasn't going to turn up because the others hated him.