The Rolling Stones
Western Australia Cricket Ground
Perth, Australia
February 24, 1973
and
Royal Randwick Racecourse
Sydney, Australia
February 26, 1973
Disc 1 (Perth)
01. Brown Sugar
02. Bitch
03. Rocks Off
04. Gimmie Shelter
05. Happy
06. Tumbling Dice
07. Honky Tonk Women
08. All Down The Line
09. Midnight Rambler
10. Little Queenie
Disc 2 (Sydney)
01. Brown Sugar
02. Bitch
03. Rocks Off
04. Gimmie Shelter
05. Happy
06. Tumbling Dice
07. Love In Vain
08. Sweet Virginia
09. You Can’t Always Get What You Want
10. Honky Tonk Women
11. All Down The Line
12. Midnight Rambler
13. Little Queenie
14. Rip This Joint
Originally posted on my Substack
The Midnight Cafe Review:
The first Bob Dylan tapes I ever obtained were from his 2010 Japan tour. They were audience recordings, of course, and I thought they sounded terrible. The thing is, I came to recordings of independent origin through the Grateful Dead – a band that has a seemingly infinite supply of superb soundboard recordings. Slowly, I obtained tapes from Grateful Dead-related and adjacent bands like Bruce Hornsby and David Grisman, but they were still nice-quality soundboard recordings.
At some point, I connected to the old Phil Zone site and all of their various vines. This opened my world up to all sorts of bands I didn’t know had recordings of shows available. But again, most of these were soundboards. Now, I certainly was aware of audience tapes. I had numerous audience recordings for the Dead and others. But they were much rarer than the soundboards I had collected up to this point, and generally went unlistened to.
I was excited to get those Dylan tapes, at least until I listened to them. I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to listen to such poor-quality tapes.
Years have passed, and I’ve since listened to a great many audience recordings of all sorts of bands, including more than my fair share of Bob Dylan tapes. I’ve come to enjoy audience recordings in all their shapes and sizes. I can’t remember the exact date of those Japan shows, but I’ve listened to that whole tour and enjoyed them.
Of course, those recordings haven’t changed. It is the same sound as always. My sound equipment hasn’t gotten better either. It is me that has changed. I’ve learned how to enjoy an audience recording with all its flaws.
Now you may be asking yourself, why is he talking about a Bob Dylan show during a review of a Rolling Stones bootleg? The answer is that I’ve plugged this boot into my system on several occasions, only to turn it off after the first few songs. The sound has always seemed off to me.
It is clearly a soundboard, so there is none of the audience noise or distant sound you get on an audience tape. But it does sound slightly cold. In my notes, I tried to explain it by the stadiums they are playing in. The Western Australia Cricket Ground is a big stadium. Wikipedia says its capacity is 10,000, but that’s for when they are playing cricket – a sport that needs a big ground to play on. One presumes that for the Stones concert they had loads of seats on the grounds. Playing in a big stadium takes a different kind of performance and sound than playing in an intimate club.
The band is playing for a stadium crowd. This is big, loud rock and roll. The guitars thunder. Mick doesn’t exactly shout his lyrics, but his singing isn’t subtle. It is an assault on the ears. Or as a commenter noted on my old blog, “the band is feral.”
I have a hard time listening at first. On other listens, I turned it off and found something else to listen to. But this time I kept going. And like those Dylan audience recordings I found, I got used to it. Then I enjoyed it.
I don’t know what was going on with the band in Perth. The band had planned a 13-night tour of Japan and Australia. Japan got cancelled because they wouldn’t let Mick Jagger into the country due to his prior drug convictions. The Perth show was their seventh gig in Australia, so it wasn’t jet lag as I had thought it might have been. Maybe they partied too hard the night before. Or maybe they got some bad drugs just before this gig.
Who knows, but they play like mad men. Keith Richards and Mick Taylor light the place up with dual guitars. Mick Jagger sings like a man strung out.
The Sydney show does settle down a bit. They sound more relaxed. The songs have more nuance and detail.
They brought additional musicians with this tour. There is Nicky Hopkins (whose birthday was the 24th, prompting Mick to lead the audience in a sing-along and giving this boot its name) on piano, as well as Ian Stewart on keys and Bobby Keys on saxophone and Jim Price on trumpet and trombone. Those horns really add a lot to these shows. The keys are great when they aren’t being drowned out.
“Gimme Shelter” from Perth is awesome. It rages like the storm it is. Keith sings on “Happy”; his vocals are worse than Mick’s, but the song rocks. “Tumbling Dice” finds the band finally finding its stride. “Midnight Rambler” has a killer middle section where they slow everything down and it gets real bluesy. “Little Queenie” lets the pianos be heard, and it’s quite nice.
Though they play some of the same songs, the Sydney show is by far the better gig. I always wonder about boots like this: why they include both shows like this. I get that these are soundboard recordings from the Australian tour, but is anyone really wanting to hear the same songs again within the same boot?
I imagine when I listen to this again I’ll just skip to the Sydney performance.
The performances of the songs shared on both nights sound much better in Sydney to my ears. I do think the Perth show is worth listening to just for how energetic (and yes, feral) it is.
“Love in Vain” is pure blues. Mick’s vocals are soulful, full of hurt and loss. The guitars are beautiful. “Sweet Virginia” is one of my favorite Stones songs, and it’s really good here.
“You Can’t Always Get What You Want” is a showstopper. The entire band completely gels. This is the nuance I was talking about. “Honky Tonk Women” is tons of fun. The horns really kick off here. Ditto with “All Down the Line,” with big guitars and big horns.
“Midnight Rambler” slowly builds into a righteous fury, then slows back down into a soulful blues riff before ramping back up again.
My brain is an idiot. While listening to “Little Queenie,” I thought, ‘man, they are really ripping off Chuck Berry with this song.’ Friends, it is a Chuck Berry song. He wrote it; the Stones covered it. I knew that, but forgot, I guess.
“Rip This Joint” ends the tape on a high note.
This is a great bootleg. Terrific sound and fantastic performance. I was listening to this on my phone in my car. When the show ended, it naturally started back at the beginning. It’s weird, but I suddenly didn’t have the same problems I did on my first listen. It didn’t sound as distant as I first thought. Mick’s vocals didn’t bother me. I guess I really did get used to it. The music didn’t change, but it changed me.