Empire Pool 1973 (SODD 055)
Wembley Empire Pool, London, England – September 8th, 1973 (early show)
(77:18): Brown Sugar, Gimme Shelter, Happy, Starfucker, Angie, You Can’t Always Get What You Want, Dancing With Mr. D, Heartbreaker, Midnight Rambler, Honky Tonk Women, All Down The Line, Rip This Joint, Jumping Jack Flash, Street Fighting Man
The Rolling Stones’ afternoon show at the Wembley Empire Pool on September 8, 1973 has turned into THE most popular Stones show in the past couple years. Empire Pool 1973 on Singer’s Original is the sixth release in the past three years and the third in the past couple months.
The fascination began with the finding of an excellent audience source which first surfaced on Rolling Stones Touring History Vol. 4 (Bad Wizard C040310) with a cut in “Gimme Shelter.” Vinyl Gang followed that with Timeless ’73 (VGP 372) editing the missing track form the lesser quality audience source.
Wembley High Rollers on Empress Valley’s Halcyon label followed and contained the complete song. Several months ago the verified master cassette was used on London 8th September 1973 (Early Show) (Devil’s Breath DB 002). Dog N Cat followed this with Nasty Songs (DAC-065) which corrected the tape speed. This new release on SODD follows DAC by using the master cassette as used by Devil’s Breath and correcting the speed.
But instead of the dark and heavy emphasis of the DAC, SODD apply their favored mastering technique and have brightened up the tape considerably. The sound is much brighter and fuller on this release and depending on one’s taste is an improvement over the other editions. This is the best sounding tape from the British shows in 1973 and is essential to own. This version is very good and worth owning if you don’t have any other.
