I once had friends who lived in Ealing in London and knowing I'm a huge Stones fan, remember them many years ago taking me on a tour of some well-known haunts of the band. I distinctly remember them showing me into the Marquee Club during the daytime, just to see the stage, there being no bands on at that time and even remember dining out with them at Bill Wyman's Sticky Fingers restaurant later that night. I've actually had this video of the Stones' forty-minute performance there to promote "Sticky Fingers" for a long time as a poor-quality bootleg without watching it, but finally watched the official cleaned-up version today and I'm sure glad I did.
Their set comprising just eight songs, the band is grouped on the small, rather cramped stage with the aptly named horn-players Jim Horn and Bobby Keys for company, but no female backing singers. I knew that I heard keyboards in the mix and so was both surprised but then disappointed to see Ian Stewart and Nicky Hopkins listed in the credits without ever seeing hide nor hair of either of them.
That aside, this was a great opportunity to get up close and personal with the world's greatest rock and roll band as they certainly were at this stage in their career and at close to the height of their powers. The song selection is great, "Sticky Fingers" gets represented with four brilliant tracks, "Dead Flowers", "I Got the Blues" (my favourite track from the album), "Bitch", with the horns in full flow, or should that be blow and inevitably a hot and sticky "Brown Sugar" as their closing number. They started with a rasping version of "Live with Me", threw in a Chuck Berry cover "Let it Rock", did just one deep dive backwards with "Satisfaction" and turned up the heat with a scorching reading of 'Midnight Rambler", Jagger contributing some superb harmonica.
Obviously the limited stage space reduced Jagger's mobility and his voice isn't completely across a good few of the numbers, but as he once famously said in an interview, he's no Tom Jones and he doesn't give a you-know-what about it. Bare-chested but sporting a short glittery waistcoat number, he preens and postures about in great fashion.
Keith looks as louche and lairy as he ever did, prowling about the stage, he and Mick swigging generously from what I suspect are whisky bottles strewn around the stage while Mick Taylor, dressed in earth-tones and a tank-topped Bill Wyman almost play musical statues for their parts as Charlie eats to the beat on the drums.
The direction naturally focuses on Jagger and Richards but occasionally gets carried away with some frantic flash-cutting on the faster numbers, with just a few token audience reactions shown for good measures, although I'm sure these were repeated at one point.
Anyway, this gig for me almost ranks with the Beatles on the Apple roof as an essential live document and I'm delighted the band finally agreed to release it in their "From the Vaults" series of live video releases.
