Got Live If You Want It (1966)


 

  1.Under My Thumb
  2.Get Off My Cloud
  3.Lady Jane
  4.Not Fade Away
  5.I've Been Loving You Too Long
  6.Fortune Teller
  7.The Last Time
  8.19th Nervous Breakdown
  9.Time is On My Side
 10.I'm Alright
 11.Have You Seen Your Mother Baby,
    Standing in the Shadow?
 12.(I Can't Get No)Satisfaction

 

The title Got Live If You Want It! is more than a little ironic. After all, who in their right mind would actually want a live album from 1966? In fairness, you can’t really blame anyone for the poor quality of the recording—it was simply par for the course back then. Live rock and roll albums in the mid-sixties were more about capturing the chaos than producing any sort of sonic clarity. And chaos is exactly what you get here.

The band blasts through their short set in a frenzy at London’s Royal Albert Hall, though you wouldn’t know it unless someone told you—that’s how buried the actual performance is beneath the shrieks of hysterical teenagers. The playing is rushed, the sound is muddy, and half the time you can barely tell what song they’re even playing. The Last Time is so disjointed and off-key, it’s painful to sit through. But hey, at least the kids in the audience were having fun.

The track list isn’t bad, even if not everything translates to the live stage. The recently released Lady Jane—a delicate studio piece if there ever was one—sounds hopelessly out of place in the din. But there are some decent moments, including a raw version of Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow?, which hadn’t yet appeared on a proper album at the time. The energy is there, even if the execution isn’t.

Later reissues have tried to polish things up, but there’s only so much you can do with a tape that sounded like a subpar bootleg to begin with. Still, Got Live If You Want It! holds some historical value. It’s a snapshot of the Stones at their most unhinged, back when their shows were more of a riot than a concert. As a listening experience, though? You’re better off skipping around. This one’s for the completists only.


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