I can't stop listening to LA Friday! Having listened extensively to all the three boot releases, it's this one I keep coming back to. I think it's my favorite live Stones since Ya Yas. Sure, there's some mistakes; Jagger screwing up some verses, but the overall sound and energy keeps me coming back over and over. I can't help thinking that if the Stones would've made an official live album from this material, it might be the best live album since Ya Yas. I'm sure Jagger would've overdubbed some of the screwed up vocals, but I could forgive that. The sound of the guitars alone is stellar. Woody - fantastic. I missed the 1975 tour as I was too young but I remember reading reviews from '75 saying what a let down Ron Wood was as the new Stone. Maybe there were some bad shows but he's fantastic on LA Friday. I wish Keith had continued using the sound he had on this tour. An official live album culled from this material would really put Love You Live to shame. Anyone else share these feelings?

I saw the Stones in LA that week, so this release has special meaning for me. But alas, I can't get through it. Brussels is the shit.

I haven't downloaded it yet...yet I know instinctively that I'll prefer Brussels.

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stonesdan60
I can't stop listening to LA Friday! Having listened extensively to all the three boot releases, it's this one I keep coming back to. I think it's my favorite live Stones since Ya Yas. Sure, there's some mistakes; Jagger screwing up some verses, but the overall sound and energy keeps me coming back over and over. I can't help thinking that if the Stones would've made an official live album from this material, it might be the best live album since Ya Yas. I'm sure Jagger would've overdubbed some of the screwed up vocals, but I could forgive that. The sound of the guitars alone is stellar. Woody - fantastic. I missed the 1975 tour as I was too young but I remember reading reviews from '75 saying what a let down Ron Wood was as the new Stone. Maybe there were some bad shows but he's fantastic on LA Friday. I wish Keith had continued using the sound he had on this tour. An official live album culled from this material would really put Love You Live to shame. Anyone else share these feelings?

Yes, I agree. In my opinion the best boot so far. I like most the fantastic guitar sound, the brilliant Ronnie, both in solo and rhythm matters, the sound is the definition of "guitar-sound-in-your-face". The only downside are the vocals by MJ. His howling, barking and growling is a little bit disproportionate and exaggerated sometimes, I think. Sometimes he is completely out of tune (Heartbreaker). On the other side LA presents the best versions of GS, MR and SFTD. In my opinion both latter versions are far above the correspondent versions on GYYYO even. Would like to hear an unedited concert from the '76 European leg, too. E. g. the versions of YCAGWYW are there without sax, but Ronnie alone.

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71Tele
I saw the Stones in LA that week, so this release has special meaning for me. But alas, I can't get through it. Brussels is the shit.

No question - Brussells is great. Don't get me wrong, but there's something about LA Friday that keeps drawing me back. As often mentioned, one's preferences have a lot to do with when you first became a Stones fan. Ya Yas blew me away at age ten and I was hooked for life. I loved Mick Taylor but I was also a huge fan of Faces, and when Taylor left I was thrilled to learn that Woody would be joing the band, so that period has a special appeal to me. If it were an official live album with the inevitable overdubs and lenth-editing they always do, I think it would be great if pared down. The Preston tunes would be left off and it's hard for me to choose which other tunes to leave off,but I would love..perhaps...
HONKYTONK WOMEN
ALL DOWN THE LINE
IF YOU CAN'T ROCK ME / GET OFF OF MY CLOUD
STAR STAR
GIMME SHELTER
AIN'T TOO PROUD TO BEG
YOU CAN'T ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU WANT
HAPPY
TUMBLING DICE
IT'S ONLY ROCK AND ROLL
ANGIE
WILD HORSES
BROWN SUGAR
STREET FIGHTING MAN
JUMPING JACK FLASH
SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL
Hopefully these could be made to fit on a double album...
I think these performances - in general - are much hotter than the ones they used for Love You Live.

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RobertJohnson

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stonesdan60
I can't stop listening to LA Friday! Having listened extensively to all the three boot releases, it's this one I keep coming back to. I think it's my favorite live Stones since Ya Yas. Sure, there's some mistakes; Jagger screwing up some verses, but the overall sound and energy keeps me coming back over and over. I can't help thinking that if the Stones would've made an official live album from this material, it might be the best live album since Ya Yas. I'm sure Jagger would've overdubbed some of the screwed up vocals, but I could forgive that. The sound of the guitars alone is stellar. Woody - fantastic. I missed the 1975 tour as I was too young but I remember reading reviews from '75 saying what a let down Ron Wood was as the new Stone. Maybe there were some bad shows but he's fantastic on LA Friday. I wish Keith had continued using the sound he had on this tour. An official live album culled from this material would really put Love You Live to shame. Anyone else share these feelings?

Yes, I agree. In my opinion the best boot so far. I like most the fantastic guitar sound, the brilliant Ronnie, both in solo and rhythm matters, the sound is the definition of "guitar-sound-in-your-face". The only downside are the vocals by MJ. His howling, barking and growling is a little bit disproportionate and exaggerated sometimes, I think. Sometimes he is completely out of tune (Heartbreaker). On the other side LA presents the best versions of GS, MR and SFTD. In my opinion both latter versions are far above the correspondent versions on GYYYO even. Would like to hear an unedited concert from the '76 European leg, too. E. g. the versions of YCAGWYW are there without sax, but Ronnie alone.

I kind of agree about Jagger's vocal style in '75, but for the most part I can forgive it. The overall hotness of the guitars and band as a whole more than make up for it,in my humble opinion.

Brussels is the better show in my opinion, but the L.A. rendition of Honky Tonk Woman may just be the finest I have ever heard. I love Ronnies raunchy soloing on Gimme Shelter as well.

I've been listening lately to Brussels with headphones while I ride the bus to work. It's got some pretty spectacular, and sometimes very subtle yet excellent, guitar work. Both guitars are generally audible throughout, as are the keyboards. And there's just something kind of magical about how Taylor works his way around the fretboard, mixing in the slide along with his fingers. Keith does a pretty darn good job too. Makes me happy by the time I reach work.

I haven't listened to all of LA Friday yet, but I can say I've been pleasantly surprised by what I've heard. Not sure yet if it'll keep my interest as long as Brussels...

LA Friday is a hard listen, for me. Guitars are thin (like Hampton) and Jagger screams his way through most of the show. I still enjoyed it, but I can't say I'll be going back to it often.

Hampton 81, on the other hand, is just plain fun, regardless of the thin guitars.

Brussels is great too.

Handsome Girls, although not in this series, wipes the floor with them.

LA Friday is not on the same par as Brussels, but it definitely has its moments. If You Can't Rock Me is incredible, and there is no sleazier Star Star (I know not to write the real title now). And Hampton is better overall, with Bill kicking everyone's ass. But Brussels, with Keith doing his funky turn and then Mick Taylor soaring off into the sky is the tits.

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flacnvinyl
LA Friday is a hard listen, for me. Guitars are thin (like Hampton) and Jagger screams his way through most of the show. I still enjoyed it, but I can't say I'll be going back to it often.

Hampton 81, on the other hand, is just plain fun, regardless of the thin guitars.

Brussels is great too.

Handsome Girls, although not in this series, wipes the floor with them.

I recommend to you to visit an ear, nose and throat specialist next time ...

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stonesdan60
Anyone else share these feelings?

I do. It's fun and rewarding to listen to LA Friday. It's cool, fun, hard rocking, swinging, sad and beautiful music in one show. Brussels is boring and Hampton has too many simple songs.

LA first listen - great !!! had i been there i would have been ecstatic and come away raving about it . as i did about a year later in the hague.

second listen - jaggers vocals . . as discussed before , also many fluffed lines , verses and repeated lyrics ach , never mind
HTW nothing wrong with it
ADTL same , great effort
DLS / GOOMC ronnies great couldnt ask for more , then keith steals the show in cloud !
STAR as good as before ! love keith single string solo
GIMME love keiths intro and him using taylors line leading to the verse
ATPTB great song , miss keiths distinct solo tho
YGM nice work from keith , first time i realy miss talors guitar
YCAGWYW oh dear , not very good going downhill
HAPPY keith a half bar out
TD no proper "break" to coda
IORR ok
HEARTBREAKER surprisingly good
FF new songs are all good , here though i miss the bassline theme of the original, it only crops up a few times ,jaggers guitar - VERY nice!
ANGIE see jaggers vocals , ronnies solo wholy unapropriate ( heard him do it better)
WILD HORSES thats a mess , shows you how great a song it is that even this version is good!
the rest is a mess really.

third listen - a gave up after you gottamove



conclusion : la friday - great show , not a great record to listen to again and again,

i must have listened to brussels a hundred times . . .

I mean, LA Friay is great and the sound is great and the energy level is just amazing. Charlie was at his very very best, IMO, during this tour and the 78-tour. Now, If You Can't Rock Me is in the top five, or maybe top three of Rolling Stones live moments for me. Never heard Ronnie better; vey melodic and rythmically great great solo(s). I agree with som of what's been said about Jagger's vocals during this tou, but on IYCRM he is simply fantastic. Spitting, growling, screaming, singing (even) and rapping out the lyrics! Stunning!
I am really hoping for a 72-show in this sound quality.

See ya!

"Star Star (I know not to write the real title now)."

erm, that IS the "real" title...

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RobertJohnson

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flacnvinyl
LA Friday is a hard listen, for me. Guitars are thin (like Hampton) and Jagger screams his way through most of the show. I still enjoyed it, but I can't say I'll be going back to it often.

Hampton 81, on the other hand, is just plain fun, regardless of the thin guitars.

Brussels is great too.

Handsome Girls, although not in this series, wipes the floor with them.

I recommend to you to visit an ear, nose and throat specialist next time ...

I am a sound engineer and video producer by trade. My HS80M monitors do not lie, nor do my ears. I love Hampton, but the guitars are indeed thinner than I would like. Not to mention Hampton and LA Friday are both way too compressed from mastering. I am not the only one who voiced these concerns either.... A buddy of mine mentioned his original recording of Hampton's broadcast being superior and 'full sounding' compared to the official release.

Don't get me wrong, they sound great overall, and most people would never complain about these issues. For me LA Friday's sound quality isn't the main issue... its the performance. Fun to see in person and on video, just not my favorite tour on record. 75/76 does not make any difference either, to me, although many have encouraged me to revisit 76 again...

1) Hampton
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4) Brussells

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n) The best live recording by any other r'n'r band


C

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stonesdan60


No question - Brussells is great. Don't get me wrong, but there's something about LA Friday that keeps drawing me back. As often mentioned, one's preferences have a lot to do with when you first became a Stones fan. Ya Yas blew me away at age ten and I was hooked for life. I loved Mick Taylor but I was also a huge fan of Faces, and when Taylor left I was thrilled to learn that Woody would be joing the band, so that period has a special appeal to me. If it were an official live album with the inevitable overdubs and lenth-editing they always do, I think it would be great if pared down. The Preston tunes would be left off and it's hard for me to choose which other tunes to leave off,but I would love..perhaps...
HONKYTONK WOMEN
ALL DOWN THE LINE
IF YOU CAN'T ROCK ME / GET OFF OF MY CLOUD
STAR STAR
GIMME SHELTER
AIN'T TOO PROUD TO BEG
YOU CAN'T ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU WANT
HAPPY
TUMBLING DICE
IT'S ONLY ROCK AND ROLL
ANGIE
WILD HORSES
BROWN SUGAR
STREET FIGHTING MAN
JUMPING JACK FLASH
SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL
Hopefully these could be made to fit on a double album...
I think these performances - in general - are much hotter than the ones they used for Love You Live.

You'd use "Happy" from L.A. Friday on a live album? Seriously? Have you listened to it? It's a complete train wreck.

I've gone back and listened to the official Brussels Affair again. I was listening to all my '73 European tour recordings in chronological order anyway and I just finished with Berlin yesterday. Some blistering performances on that tour but it was more un-even than the '72 North American Tour. I think the good nights in Europe in '73 were probably the band's greatest shows. Were they ever better? I doubt it. They had other great shows, many just as great as those hot nights in London and Berne and Copenhagen and Brussels and Berlin (to name a few) but I don't know that they were ever better.

Anyway, I listened to the bootleg of the first Brussels show and then the official release consisting mostly of the second show. I'm really glad they gave us the second show as an official release, but I still agree with my original assessment that the first show was the better performance. I honestly don't understand why they released the second one. It makes me wonder if they even listened to both shows or if they just assumed the second one would be the hotter one. I'm really glad we didn't get just another version of the first show but if I were in the band, I would want the best performances from those two shows released so I don't quite understand why we got what we got. But as a fan, I'm really glad they decided to do that.

That being said, Brussels Affair is probably my favorite release so far. I liked L.A. Friday, but I prefer the Mick Taylor line-up personally and I love the '73 European tour.

I will have to give it another listen. I listened to it five times and kept being distracted by how bad Jagger is on it. Brussels is sublime. The best.

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flacnvinyl

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RobertJohnson

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flacnvinyl
LA Friday is a hard listen, for me. Guitars are thin (like Hampton) and Jagger screams his way through most of the show. I still enjoyed it, but I can't say I'll be going back to it often.

Hampton 81, on the other hand, is just plain fun, regardless of the thin guitars.

Brussels is great too.

Handsome Girls, although not in this series, wipes the floor with them.

I recommend to you to visit an ear, nose and throat specialist next time ...

I am a sound engineer and video producer by trade. My HS80M monitors do not lie, nor do my ears. I love Hampton, but the guitars are indeed thinner than I would like. Not to mention Hampton and LA Friday are both way too compressed from mastering. I am not the only one who voiced these concerns either.... A buddy of mine mentioned his original recording of Hampton's broadcast being superior and 'full sounding' compared to the official release.

Don't get me wrong, they sound great overall, and most people would never complain about these issues. For me LA Friday's sound quality isn't the main issue... its the performance. Fun to see in person and on video, just not my favorite tour on record. 75/76 does not make any difference either, to me, although many have encouraged me to revisit 76 again...

I'm not able to relate to your impressions concerning LA. The guitars on LA Friday are full of power and energy, the channels are separated, fortunately Ronnie is prominent in the mix, Keith , too. Where do you find a guitar battle like on SFTD on LA Friday? Far better than on LYL, also soundwise. In contrary you're right that Hampton is partly not as good as e. g. the VGP boot version. Yes, I'm a little bit disappointed, too.

I think the band as a whole sounds great, it is just Jagger that really brings it down. Missing cues, out of tune, over dramatizing, and singing too fast. He is a mess. But Keith and Ronnie sound fantastic.

I revisited last night and it really is a tremendous show!

As some has said above, 'If You Can't Rock Me' is wonderful, and 'GOOMC' following it; the guitar weaving on both is sublime; Charlie and Bill are on top form; THIS is Rock'n'Roll

'Synpathy' was amazing, 10 minutes of pure perfection if my opinion, what a truly wonderful version

Not all songs are up to the high quality, 'Happy' is a mess, but there is so much Stones gold on there, a joy to listen. Changing tempos, extended jams (Sympathy, Fingerprint File, Heartbreaker), it's like a jazz band.

Ronnie was the star of the show, rhythmically amazing and his solos and fills absolutely perfect

Incredible show!

Ok, well like everything I guess it is what really hits you that counts. I don't think it is terrible, and has some great moments. But Mick seems off. Misses a lot of cues and his singing is pretty sloppy. So far my fav is Brussels, but I like the boot version, evening show, better. But out of the Official releases Brussels still wins for me. More grit. Band is road tested and firing full on. Keith is arguably at his peek as a guitarist on it. And then, of course, there is Taylor. Amazing.

this concert, and so the bootleg, has got something special.
I prefer LA Friday to Brussels' concert of 1973.
Ronnie Wood was fantastic in the entire tour of 1975.

A good one, but nothing compare to the magic Brussel's 1973 concert.

I like LA Friday very much indeed. Angie and Wild Horses are superb on this and when it rocks it rocks. It's rough and loose, Brussels is a lot more refined but I love both in their different ways. I'll always be a Taylorite but Woody is fantastic on LA Friday.

IMO Brussels is the best. But, LA Friday may be my favorite because it allowed me to rediscover the '75 tour, which had kind of slipped through the cracks due to the lack of soundboard boots.

I was at the Memphis '75 show and remember being quite amazed by Ronnie's performance, but when I listened to LYL I was so disappointed with his playing and just assumed I was caught up in the moment at that Memphis show. I eventually got a couple of aud boots from '75 but rarely listened to them and just sort of forgot all about TOTA '75.

Now I listen to LA Friday and again I am blown away by Ronnie. He really was good on that first tour. Jagger lets his professionalism slip a bit, perhaps due to cocaine and the drink, but Keith and Ronnie interplay nicely, more similar to the way Keith and MT worked together that the way Keith and Ronnie played on subsequent tours.

Actually, I think 'Dancing with Mr. D" is the only song that is not on both LA Friday AND Brussels. It would be easy to do an A/B comparison by matching the sequences in playlists or on CD. I might do that!

Ross

Any bootleg that contains AIN'T TOO PROUD TO BEG is automatically disqualifed from any "Best of" list.

In my opinion Hampton 81 is the best, LA Friday Mick's vocals are just so bad, not even bad but he misses so many verses, doesn't even sing some of the choruses. So that sorta ruins some songs all together for me.

But I am bias cause that Hampton show for me is one of my all time favorites even though they didn't play my favorite Midnight Rambler. It shows how they can do a great show without playing warhorses like Sympathy, Paint it Black, IORR and others. They have enough hits to not play the same ones over and over.