The Rolling Stones – Real Sterio (Stones Of Fire SOF 9006)

Real Sterio (Stones Of Fire SOF 9006)

Samba Park, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – April 11th, 1998

Disc 1 (59:47):  Satisfaction, Let’s Spend The Night Together, Flip The Switch, Gimme Shelter, Ruby Tuesday, Saint Of Me, Out Of Control, Miss You, Like A Rolling Stone

Disc 2 (64:05):  band introductions, You Don’t Have To Mean It, Wanna Hold You, Little Queenie, I Just Wanna Make Love To You, You Got Me Rocking, Sympathy For The Devil, Honky Tonk Women, Start Me Up, Jumping Jack Flash, Can’t Always Get What You Want, Brown Sugar

The Rolling Stones tour of South American consisted of five shows in Buenos Aires, Argentina and shows on April 11th in Rio de Janeiro and on April 13th in Sao Paulo.  On the Voodoo Lounge tour in 1995 they played Estádio do Maracanã but on the Bridges To Babylontour they booked the smaller Praça da Apoteose.  42,000 tickets were available but only 30,000 were sold because of the high asking price of the tickets.

Rio was also telecast on Rede Globo, the biggest television network in Brazil and is the source for the unofficial audio tapes.  All of them are missing “It’s Only Rock And Roll,” “Wanna Hold You” and “Tumbling Dice” because of commercial interruptions in the original telecast.

Rio 98 (RR 017/18) is in good sound quality and has “Anybody Seen My Baby” and “19th Nervous Breakdown” from the March 30th show in Buenos Aires and “Bitch” from the September 23rd, 1997 Chicago show as bonus tracks.

Vinyl Gang first released this show soon after the telecast on Old Friends from Rio(VGP-180) in excellent mono.  Several months later they released it again but in stereo on Bob Dylan & Los Rolling Stones (VGP-198).  The second release had several bonus tracks including “Honest I Do” from the EMI Tokyo session in 1995 and two remixes of “Out Of Control.”

Real Sterio on Stones Of Fire is another version of the stereo telecast (as the title indicates).  There are several cut between tracks and the same three songs missing from the other releases are also missing from this.

The show in Rio didn’t differ much from the others in South America.  Much of the early part of the set is devoted to newer songs from Bridges To Babylon and the rest to the classic Rolling Stones hits.  

The concert opens with Keith Richards alone onstage playing the “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” riff before the rest of the band come onstage to finish the song.  Throughout the course of the evening Mick tries to speak in Portuguese.  He is self-conscious but gives a good effort.  

The audience are also quite enthusiastic, singing along with Jagger.  The early highlights are definitely “Ruby Tuesday” and the new song “Out Of Control.” 

Bob Dylan opened for the Stones in South America on six nights and joined them onstage for “Like A Rolling Stone” on four including Rio.  Dylan and Jagger take turns singing the verses, but the sound engineer completely messes up the mix and ruins what is an otherwise strong track. 

After the band introduction Keith has his two song set.  He “You Don’t Have To Mean It” with “Thief In The Night” during this trek and chooses the former for this show. 

Two covers, “Little Queenie” and “I Wanna Make Love To You,” are played on the center stage.  The short mini set ends with the clanging guitar of “You Got Me Rocking.” 

The show ends with “Jumping Jack Flash” and has two encores, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” (with audience sing-along) and “Brown Sugar.” 

Real Sterio was released in 1999 and has very simple yet effective graphic design on the artwork with a note to “avoid cheap CDRs” on the back.  This is a good and affordable way to obtain this popular show from the South American Bridges To Babylon tour.