Bruce and the Stones, my favouite two artists by a considerable margin. Even my IORR name bitusa2012 points to that - Born In The USA.......
....but Bruce on Tumbling Dice was just not a good fit. His voice didn't suit.
BUT what WAS obvious, as someone who has read and heard considerable volumes to the effect that The Stones (and the rest of the British Invasion of the'60s) - along with Elvis - was what MADE Bruce get into music in the first instance, was his LOVE and JOY at just being on stage with them. THAT was priceless.
Let's not dump on Bruce. Something didn't click is all. I thought Jack White should have beeng great on Shine A Light and his vocals just didn't cut it that night. Lady Gaga, John Mayer, and Mick Taylor were the best of the guests last night.
The Stones have a very tight rhythm and sound that is very hard for them to fit any other artists into. I think Bruce was a fun interesting guest, nothing more nothing less. Heres my long winded take on the perceived musical troubles bruce had: I am a guitar player, and can tell you that as simple as tumbling dice sounds, it is actually quite complex chording, many of keith's riffs(TD, BS, SMU, etc) come from adding the 4 and 6 to a regular open chord, which makes it somewhat difficult to find a good scale to solo over. Tumbling dice is even more difficult, because the song has an almost country major scale feel, but with the 4 chord being added and the 4th added to that its a take off the mixolydian thing for solos, just major or minor pentatonic wont cut it. Bruce heavily relies on basic pentatonic structuring for most of his solos(Adam Raised a Cain, Prove it All Night...etc), so I think the confusing keith chording threw him for a bit of a loop. As far as the vocals are concerned, mick may not be a singer with an overly impressive range, but his vocal parts are really quite unorthadox, and can be exceptionally challenging to find the correct notes. In other words, Bruce stepped into the ring with a crazy pissed off giant gorilla in the other corner and came out alright. Cut the man some slack, like someone else said...ITS ONLY ROCK AND ROLL!!!
Quote erbissell This was up on backstreets, the youtube one got taken down, in case anyone missed it
Thank you! I had missed it. Agree that there were better song choices for Bruce, and that he added nothing to the song (nice Keith-style solo though). He also took nothing away from it. Verdict: It's only rock 'n roll.