i saw them on their first msg gig and the sound was seriously screwed and it all seemed like inane jet set pantomine to me. so ignorantly, i wrote off that entire era...until ta daaa IORR, where certain friends, especially Erik Snowe were patient but persistent that i listen more.

i admit i just wrote them off after the highs of the eoms tour, and next time i see them all excited about Ronnie (i saw Faces at Fillmore East and the guy was total genius and abandon,,,very soulful....but that show fizzled for me admist the hoopla...

...lately (these last months) i have been getting slowly into a lot of incredible '75 shows...shows where i've never heard Charlie more empahatic, even vicious...that is major to me...the guitars were often spot on and always balls out with great rolling rhythm section including piano...some of the boots take me a while to 'hear' them thru the fidelity issues etc...but i wonder if there are any others here who just dismissed a Stones period, only to go back and sort of just marvel at the sponanteous miserable acidic rolling beauty of the whole particular phenomenon during this period or that.
'75 almost got a way from me; and it's out of it's mind raw and delicious.

Beely, I felt pretty much the same way about the '75-76 tours as well as the '81-82 for a long time. Now I'm not at the same level of appreciation as our friend Erik, but things started to change for me about '81 after reading some posts here and then-- hearing audience recordings. The problem was the only shows I had were these tinny soundboard tapes, which magnify every clam on the guitars, also the massive buzz from keith's rig, and have mick's, err, rough vocals way up front. With audience shows, instruments are harder to pick out, but I get a much more pleasant overall sound, from good ones anyway.

I think I'll finally prefer '75 to '81 for the intensity of the sets. It's amazing how they can seem to be basically @#$%& around for 2 hours and then wham! finish the set with 3 or 4 steamroller numbers.

Thank you, Sleepy City, you are great.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-08-01 00:57 by Max'sKansasCity.

The one thing that irritates me about this era is the way Jagger slurs & growls his way through songs instead of singing. By 1981 he'd learnt to sing again...

But (having said that) I've always found the L.A. Forum '75 DVD fun, same with Paris '76 (possibly superior musically).

Is the 4Reel edition of the LA Forum show the best one yet? I have one called LA Blues which doewsn't appear to be on a label. It ain't bad but I was wondering whether to upgrade.

Hey Beelyboy, I knew it was just a matter of time before you'd get it, TOTA 1975 was a fiery and astonishing tour...but it takes several listens to grasp this energy, as it's quite different from other ways Rolling Stones have spread their magic through the years...for instance the 72 Tour or the best concerts of 1978.
There's lotsa 1975 material left for you to hear, Billy...the audience tapes of that tour is a goldmine

The Toronto show on June 17th has Mick singing great. Mick really shines on that one. Compare that one to New York (the one with Cherry Oh Baby) were he 'sings' like most of the 75/76 shows.

I'm also one of those people who have come to re-appreciate the 1975 shows. I saw the Stones in Buffalo, New York on the last night of the Tour of the Americas in 8/75 (my second show since Toronto 1972). From listening to several shows from that tour (Buffalo, Detroit, LA, MSG), this writer feels that this tour showcased some of Ron Wood's best playing (probably because this was his maiden tour with the Stones). Sadly, the reason cited by many fans why this tour gets overlooked has to do with Jagger's singing in which he screams, barks out the lyrics which has detracted from really enjoying recordings from this tour. One thing that I have noticed, Jagger's singing early on in the '75 tour (ie like Toronto) appears to be more tolerable than the later shows.

Probably not a popular opinion, but much I prefer it to the 1972 and 1973 tours.

The only irritating thing for me is some of the horrible Keyboard squeals that Billy produces from time to time.

yes, vudicus--his backing vocals tend to be too high in the mix as well, making several songs "duets" with mick.

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barbabang
The Toronto show on June 17th has Mick singing great. Mick really shines on that one. Compare that one to New York (the one with Cherry Oh Baby) were he 'sings' like most of the 75/76 shows.

Best version of MR extant from that tour.

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Silver Dagger
Is the 4Reel edition of the LA Forum show the best one yet? I have one called LA Blues which doewsn't appear to be on a label. It ain't bad but I was wondering whether to upgrade.

Mine is also called LA Blues, & appears to be on the Ganja 63 label. Quality isn't perfect, but it's a 1000 times better than the VHS tape I got in the early 80s (not as good as the Paris '76 DVDs on the TMOQ label though).

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Sighunt
I'm also one of those people who have come to re-appreciate the 1975 shows. I saw the Stones in Buffalo, New York on the last night of the Tour of the Americas in 8/75 (my second show since Toronto 1972). From listening to several shows from that tour (Buffalo, Detroit, LA, MSG), this writer feels that this tour showcased some of Ron Wood's best playing (probably because this was his maiden tour with the Stones). Sadly, the reason cited by many fans why this tour gets overlooked has to do with Jagger's singing in which he screams, barks out the lyrics which has detracted from really enjoying recordings from this tour. One thing that I have noticed, Jagger's singing early on in the '75 tour (ie like Toronto) appears to be more tolerable than the later shows.

I guess I need to hear some of these earlier shows. I concentrate more on DVDs than audios, so these are what I tend to judge tours by (shame there's no full length pro DVDs from 1970 / 1973 / 1978 though!).

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vudicus
Probably not a popular opinion, but much I prefer it to the 1972 and 1973 tours.

The only irritating thing for me is some of the horrible Keyboard squeals that Billy produces from time to time.

It's popular w/many of us. Keith was far far into the junk by '75. It also seems he was just copping his own riffs by that time. Not that that's bad, it's just that rock and roll riffs are pretty limited, and Keith is/was a niche guitar player. Mick was showboating (in retrospect - when I saw them he was great!), and many '75 shows were, to put it kindly, uneven. I think they should have jumped straight from Wild Horses into Brown Sugar and skipped Fingerprint and Billy's section.

Fingerprint sounded really cool on that tour. Although I like the LYL version, it doensn't capture how funky it was. Ollie Brown really helps it sound that way on the Cow Palace version.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-07-31 23:16 by ryanpow.

Yes, Beely, I agree.

And I also have to say that Erik's comments over time encouraged me to sort through the sonic issues and find those gems. For me, based on performance and sound, the top five are:

Toronto 6/17, NY 6/27, LA 7/9, LA 7/13 and Fort Collins.

I also like Baton Rouge 2 quite a lot.

If you can deal with a bit rougher sound: Seattle may be the best show of the tour, but also Milwaukee and Jacksonville.

I saw two shows that tour, the first San Antonio show (a trainwreck, but a glorious one) and Dallas (according to my memory, easily as good as the LA shows that followed.). No tapes of either have surfaced, although I keep hearing Freezer taped San Antonio.

HEILOOBAAS,skip Fingerprint ???
Not a good idea

I was at that last show in Buffalo, August 8, 1975 and I thought it was one of the best, if not THE BEST Stones concert I've seen and there have been 36 in all. When Mick sang " Angie" you could have heard a pin drop in that crowd of 98,000 +. They rocked! Brown Sugar was over the top, and it was great seeing a stripped down stage and Mick and Keith singing TOGETHER, in key! I can look back to my 1975 journal for details but I do recall it was incredible!!

I just read a great book called Dixie Lullaby which contains the author's recounting of his first Stones show, Greensboro '75. Does anyone know ( Erik ?) whether there is a recording of that show out there somewhere ? I don't think I've ever heard of one. For the record, the author, Mark Kemp, thought the show was amazing.

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mickschix
I was at that last show in Buffalo, August 8, 1975 and I thought it was one of the best, if not THE BEST Stones concert I've seen and there have been 36 in all. When Mick sang " Angie" you could have heard a pin drop in that crowd of 98,000 +. They rocked! Brown Sugar was over the top, and it was great seeing a stripped down stage and Mick and Keith singing TOGETHER, in key! I can look back to my 1975 journal for details but I do recall it was incredible!!

Mickschix-that was a great show!!

Yeah, and I was really young, went in by myself and sat in the hot sun from noon til sundown, got totally dehydrated because I would not give up my " seat" on the ground in front of the stage!! I naively thought it was an afternoon show!! Had only one soda, all day, no food. When the Stones burst onto that stage at 9:10 Icame alive, danced for the entire show, that is when I wasn't taking pictures, with NO DAMN GUARDS bothering me! Some cool guy even put me up on his shoulders so I could shoot above the heads!! It really is my very favorite Stones show! Once back at my hotel, I literally crawled across the floor to the fridge and drank 2 bottles of orange juice....nearly died but it was worth it!!

I used to dismiss the 75 tour because Mick Taylor was gone. But after actually listening, some of my biggest favourites are from this and the 76 tour:

IYCRM-GOOMC, Wild Horses: LA July 13
Heartbreaker, @#$%&: LA July 10

And, this is a treasure:

Hand of Fate: Knebworth 1976

Cheers Texas fan and CC; nice to hear

Andrewn, no, Greensboro is one of the 7 TOTA shows of which there are no recordings in circulation. The night before, in Atlanta - and the next one in Jacksonville are EX+ concerts

People go on about how they hated Mick's singing on this tour. I don't have a LOT from it, but I find his singing hilarious. It's actually comedically enjoyable to hear him.

"I wanna teay yah woood apaahtAAAAYEAH"

[thepowergoats.com]

Some of the earliest boots I collected were from this tour, including "Charlie Watts and His Fabulous Rolling Stones" and "Who Went to Church This Sunday?".

A buddy of mine (I think it was Rockman) sent me the complete LA forum set of YCAGWYW, which featured one of my all-time fave Ronnie solos.

I LOVE Ronnie's solo there! It has so much personality. He's a 'fun' soloist if that makes any sense.

[thepowergoats.com]

Thanks Erik for confirming that there is no Greensboro tape (that we know of) out there. I didn't know that there was an Atlanta recording, though. Am I right in thinking that it has not seen a silver release ?(I used to be able to check Hendrik Mulder's great Love You Live site but that's no longer possible).

Andrew, Atlanta is a somewhat poor recording....the bootlegers haven't bothered to release it.

micks wrote:
Some cool guy even put me up on his shoulders so I could shoot above the heads!!


say, mickscks, have u ever posted some of these or if not, can u??!!


75 has a special place in my heart as it was the first time, but i was so blasted out of my mind i partly ruined it for myself.

nevertheless, keep this thread going. Thread did I say??!! Why hell, why limit ourselves, let's start a new club, IO75!


p

I really liked da Blimp they used that tour !