Hi All,

I am curious about your opinion regarding the appointment subject.
There have been several threads before about the best tour of the Stones. But I want to address this now from a different perspective.
In this regard, I am not only looking at the setlist but especially at the way certain songs are unnecessarily prolonged. Such as; Miss you, Brown sugar, Jumping Jack flash, and Satisfaction.
Personally, I am not a fan of this, in what I refer to as "audience participation time".
I am curious how you look at this as Stones fans. Does this affect your choice for 'best Stones tour', aside from your opinion regarding the setlist, and the quality of precise or sloppy playing.

Racca1962

Not Fade Away on the VL. I thought it was great.

Satisfaction was great on the Bridges to Babylon tour. Start me up was prolonged during the Tattoo You, sounds great but we didnt great tired of it because they didn't do it that way on the following tours.

I like audience participation time. All Down The Line gets prolonged quite often

I guess those warhorses weren't prolonged that much before they rendered warhorse status. If they are encore songs they tend to be prolonged.
Not so much if they are in the first part of the setlist. To me 3½ minutes of Satisfaction is more than satisfactory...

I think in brown sugar and jumping jack flash. Those extended versions are totally unnecesary.. they ruin some of this songs, and they could have more time for other songs.

I can go the rest of my life never seeing Miss You again
1975 and 1981 Were monster tours loaded with prolonged songs and they're two of the best tours for me...

Some prolonging has been great. It made 'Rambler' what it is. And YCAGWYW in '72 was awesome bc it felt of the moment. That tour was so great, and by all accounts it was the kind of song, and setting where you wanted to stand on your chair and sing along.
And I thought 'Saint of Me', on it's first tour out was fantastic. Jagger didn't even have to urge the crowd - they never wanted to shut up.
The entire SG album got the exactly right treatment in '78: loud, fast, wobbly and real.
2000 Lightyears in '89 was the winner. It pointed to a whole new possibility of live performance.
frankotero mentioned NFA. That's a good call. I only wish they had done it later in set. I thought they played it well; but IMO it seemed a bit out of place, as set opener, with all the technology, and fire spitting cobra etc.
Streets of Love and Out of Time were good. Wish we had got a bit more.

On negative side - yes, Miss You became tiresome. Almost every guest spot has been just a going-thru-motions kind of thing.
And Sounds of Heaven is just 2 people face to face screaming.

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frankotero
Not Fade Away on the VL. I thought it was great.

Yes, and what a wonderful surprise too.

Question - has there ever been a great live version of Rocks Off? I don't believe there has but hoping to hear otherwise.

They can keep the Tumbling Dice coda rolling for as long as they like imo. Wouldn't mind endless jamming on Waiting On A Friend either.

I think overall their song extensions have worked well. Just My Imagination in '81 is another one that comes to mind. Not a big fan of the long Miss You they play nowadays, but not too bothered by it either.

Oddly I love Miss You again. Disliked it for many years. The interaction between Darryl and Steve is amazing. And then Midnight Rambler is right around the corner where there's even more band interaction. Maybe my favorite part of the recent gigs.

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Silver Dagger
Question - has there ever been a great live version of Rocks Off? I don't believe there has but hoping to hear otherwise.

Philadelphia 72 is the best I can think of. Dallas 2014 was ok too.
Jagger spits blood in the studio version but he never does live...

Rocks Off has always been a waste of time live - they ruin it every time.

There are long songs, studio wise, that they've played live, perhaps within even the album time, like CYHMK and Worried that work but Miss You, JJF, IORR, Brown Sugar, Tumbling Dice and, at least in 1989-90, Satisfaction - ehhhh, extremely extended live, one tour is enough.

Crowd participation vs playing the song - Satisfaction was fantastic for BRIDGES: just play the damn song and get to the next one.

No one needs to hear a 10 minute version of Miss You or YCAGWYW or SFTD (post-1989/90 anyway) or Tumbling Dice... all piss breaks.

Play more songs!!!

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treaclefingers

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frankotero
Not Fade Away on the VL. I thought it was great.

Yes, and what a wonderful surprise too.

I think it was a bit too slow for a show opener. What I remember the most at the beginning of the show was the heat from the fire blowing from the snake. I was up towards the front on the floor. Not as hot as the row of flames at the beginning of Start Me Up in 89 though. I was lucky to be row 2 center for that.

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GasLightStreet
Rocks Off has always been a waste of time live - they ruin it every time.

There are long songs, studio wise, that they've played live, perhaps within even the album time, like CYHMK and Worried that work but Miss You, JJF, IORR, Brown Sugar, Tumbling Dice and, at least in 1989-90, Satisfaction - ehhhh, extremely extended live, one tour is enough.

Crowd participation vs playing the song - Satisfaction was fantastic for BRIDGES: just play the damn song and get to the next one.

No one needs to hear a 10 minute version of Miss You or YCAGWYW or SFTD (post-1989/90 anyway) or Tumbling Dice... all piss breaks.

Play more songs!!!

It’s been a train-wreck on occasion, but like Gimme Shelter, it’s such an awe-inspiring song, and somehow, alway’s a thrill to hear performed live.

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KeVvV2011
They can keep the Tumbling Dice coda rolling for as long as they like imo. Wouldn't mind endless jamming on Waiting On A Friend either.

I think overall their song extensions have worked well. Just My Imagination in '81 is another one that comes to mind. Not a big fan of the long Miss You they play nowadays, but not too bothered by it either.

AMEN

Dice is the highlight of every show for me, however they should keep it at the 9th or 10th position as the song before the intros. That's the perfect place for it. That suspense, it's like Rock n Roll dust from heaven coming down.. Plus the coda can be extended. Satisfaction should be the opener again cause it was so brilliantly effective in 97-98.

I am more in favor of short versions of songs with the exception of Rambler. Once the songs go into "Allman Brothers" territory they lose direction in my opinion. Thankfully Chuck did not bring that over to the Stones.

However I do like what Keith has called songs performed live "Growing up". Things change over the years and minor changes in the arraingments can turn something old into something different. Sometimes better sometimes worse. But it gives us variety.

A friend of mine who is a casual Stones fans who mostly only knows the hits, once told me that when he went to a Billy Joel concert the songs sounded the same as the records. He went on to say that he did not enjoy the Stones concert because the songs sounded different that what he was expecting.

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DGA35

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treaclefingers

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frankotero
Not Fade Away on the VL. I thought it was great.

Yes, and what a wonderful surprise too.

I think it was a bit too slow for a show opener. What I remember the most at the beginning of the show was the heat from the fire blowing from the snake. I was up towards the front on the floor. Not as hot as the row of flames at the beginning of Start Me Up in 89 though. I was lucky to be row 2 center for that.

Just watched the film of Not Fade Away from 1994...FANTASTIC opener.

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Mister O
However I do like what Keith has called songs performed live "Growing up". Things change over the years and minor changes in the arraingments can turn something old into something different. Sometimes better sometimes worse. But it gives us variety

I'm not so sure about that. Songs like JJ Flash, Satisfaction and Brown Sugar sound about the same every time. The only difference is the length of the songs.
Otherwise I can't hear any big variation between live version 879 or live version 1023 of JJ Flash for instance. It's basically the same riff over and over...

I noticed within the 2013 tour they played songs like Jumping Jack Flash, Satisfaction or Brown Sugar, and even Miss You and Gimme Shelter, shorter because of 22 songs in the set.
In 2014 in Australia I remember getting a few 8+ min Gimme Shelter versions and in 2016 with the 18 song setlists some 10min version of Satisfaction and 16 mins of Midnight Rambler.

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Silver Dagger
Question - has there ever been a great live version of Rocks Off? I don't believe there has but hoping to hear otherwise.

Yeah, it's one of those songs where the original album version is so sublime it's difficult to get it that good live. She's So Cold is another.

Songs like Midnight Rambler and Out of Control on the other hand come alive...live , and it's hard to like the studio version after listening to a live version of these tracks.

A couple of songs that seem to nail it both ways, is Gimme Shelter and SFTD, though I'm sure there's lots of other examples.

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MadMax

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KeVvV2011
They can keep the Tumbling Dice coda rolling for as long as they like imo. Wouldn't mind endless jamming on Waiting On A Friend either.

I think overall their song extensions have worked well. Just My Imagination in '81 is another one that comes to mind. Not a big fan of the long Miss You they play nowadays, but not too bothered by it either.

AMEN

Dice is the highlight of every show for me, however they should keep it at the 9th or 10th position as the song before the intros. That's the perfect place for it. That suspense, it's like Rock n Roll dust from heaven coming down.. Plus the coda can be extended. Satisfaction should be the opener again cause it was so brilliantly effective in 97-98.

Totally agree regarding TD, still the highlight basically every show for me. My wish for that one is that Matt Clifford gets to play keys on it every show - I like Chuck but the Racket version where he was absent has by far the best coda in years.

Agreed that Satisfaction would feel really fresh again as an opener.

...comments since i've seen shows since '69.

I completely agree that 2000 Light Years From Home 2000 " whole new possibility of live performance."

I do like the longer versions of the rockers (i.e. not Miss You) but +3 minutes is about the limit.

I thought the NFA opener was the worst ever; the organ ruined what could have been great with guitar instead.

I can listen to Keith and Ronnie hammer out the riffs on Street Fighting Man and JJF forever.

JJF in 1978 had an interesting twist. The were riffing away and eventually ended the song. Then they re-started it. If memory serves, that re-start was the only encore of the night.

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Silver Dagger
Question - has there ever been a great live version of Rocks Off? I don't believe there has but hoping to hear otherwise.

Yep, Perth 1973

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Eleanor Rigby

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Silver Dagger
Question - has there ever been a great live version of Rocks Off? I don't believe there has but hoping to hear otherwise.

Yep, Perth 1973

Agreed. At least it's probably the best one. Still somewhat lacking in the vocal department (melody-wise), though.

I think Audience Participation should come from the audience itself. Saint of Me during the Bridges tour is a nice example.

I agree with most of the above. Stretching songslike Satisfaction or JJF doesn't really do these songs any good. I rather see them do an extra song instead.

Their best prolonged is Imagination from 1981. Check out Hampton.