Rolling Stones – Europe 76 (Dog N Cat DAC-087)

Europe 76 (Dog N Cat DAC-087)

Pavilon de Paris, Paris, France – June 7th, 1976

audience recording 

Disc 1 (63:48): Honky Tonk Women, If You Can’t Rock Me / Get Off Of My Cloud, Hand Of Fate, Hey Negrita, Ain’t Too Proud To Beg, Fool To Cry, Hot Stuff, Star Star, Cherry Oh Baby, Angie, You Gotta Move, You Can’t Always Get What You Want

Disc 2 (45:40):  band introductions, Happy, Tumbling Dice, Nothing From Nothing, Outa Space, Midnight Rambler, It’s Only Rock And Roll, Brown Sugar, Jumping Jack Flash, Street Fighting Man

soundboard recording

Disc 3 (61:06): Honky Tonk Women, If You Can’t Rock Me / Get Off Of My Cloud, Hand Of Fate, Hey Negrita, Ain’t Too Proud To Beg, Fool To Cry, Hot Stuff, Star Star, Cherry Oh Baby, Angie, You Gotta Move, You Can’t Always Get What You Want

Disc 4 (44:53):  band introductions, Happy, Tumbling Dice, Nothing From Nothing, Outa Space, Midnight Rambler, It’s Only Rock And Roll, Brown Sugar, Jumping Jack Flash, Street Fighting Man

The Stones’ Paris shows in 1976 have received the most exposure of any from the mid seventies through the myriad titles and their use on the official live album.  June 7th is the fourth and final night of this set set of shows. 

Complete audience recordings and an almost complete soundboard recording exist and three songs, “Tumbling Dice,” “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” and “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” (with overdubs) were used on Love You Live.  Europe 76, recently released on Dog N Cat, is a four disc set with both audience and soundboard recordings collected together in one convenient package.

The earliest incarnations of this show were on vinyl titles Hosts Tuff (WAR 101), a one LP release with the incomplete show, Paris Par Excellence (Devil’s Disciple DD 769 PF A/B) with the incomplete soundboard tape on 3LPs, Vive Le France (Audio Recording Corp ARC 3001) with the complete show from an audience recording on 3LPs and Stones A Les Abattoirs (AS 054).

The soundboard tape is more frequently found on compact disc.  Vinyl Gang released five titles with material from this show,  Vive La France(VGP-046) six songs from the soundboard along with other material from the June 1976 Paris shows and “Jumping Jack Flash” from the June 25th, 1990 show at Parc de Princes, Europe 76 (Vinyl Gang VGP-056) from an audience tape plus “Fingerprint File” from Toronto 75, Paris Par Excellence (VGP 147) with the soundboard but missing “Angie,” “Nothing From Nothing” and “Outa Space” but with the bonus track “Fingerprint File” from June 17th, 1975, From San Francisco To Paris (VGP 276) couple songs from latter half of show soundboard and Vive La France (VGP 350).

Down And Out In Paris (Rattlesnake RS 066/067) contains the complete show with the soundboard recording used primarily and an audience tape for “Angie” and “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”  Live In Paris (Golden Stars 2096 1-2) contains an audience recording copied from LP Vive La France.  Vive La France (King Snake KS 006  1/2) is an audience soundboard mix from LP but missing the Preston songs and From San Francisco To Paris (FSFRP 6976) has the soundboard tape again copied from vinyl.  

Paris Aux Printemps (TSP-CD-126) has “Cherry Oh Baby” from the audience tape as a bonus track for the complete June 4th show and Tour Of Europe ‘76 Revisited (Godfather GR-227/228) also has “Cherry Oh Baby” along with the June 6th complete show and other rarities from the tour.  Viva La France (SODD009/010) has the complete show from and excellent sounding new audience recording, French Made (Dog N Cat DAC-009) has seven songs from the soundboard as bonus tracks with the complete June 6th show and Paris Par Excellence (SODD-067/68) features the soundboard with the audience for “Angie” and “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”

Dog N Cat use the same audience recording on the first two discs as are found on SODD 009/10.  It is a complete, very clear and detailed recording from close to the stage.  It lacks significant bottom end and sound somewhat thinner compared to the older releases. 

The stereo soundboard on the second two discs has much more liveliness and presence than the audience tape but contains cuts between most of the numbers and has noticeable hiss.  The soundboard recording is much better in emphasizing the fuzzy crunch attack of Wood and Richards guitars, displaying that the Stones were, even after Taylor left, trying to be a guitar band.

The show begins with the south American carnival fire walking drum music (only present on the audience recording) before the band start the set with “Honkey Tonk Women.”  It begins sluggishly but soon picks up steam and they deliver one of the best night of the entire European tour.  The new songs which dominate the first half of the show are played at almost definitive level.  Wood’s guitar dominates a brooding version of “Hand Of Fate” before their rhythm excursion in “Hey Negrita.”

But after “Star Star” they alter the setlist “Cherry Oh Baby” from Black And Blueis played for the only time which is probably more then enough. It sounds under rehearsed and underwhelming and afterwards Jagger laughs in embarrassment “wasn’t that a surprise!” 

All of the Paris dates, and several shows afterwards also included “Angie” as a special bonus since they were filming and recording for the live album.  This song comes off much better and Preston plays a double time organ solo in the middle.  The first disc ends with “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” with Wood trying to add his own crunch to the mix while attempting to duplicate Taylor’s style.

The second disc is dominated by Preston’s two song high energy soul revue that always creates tremendous excitement.  Although there was always the danger of him upstaging the Stones, the level of playing is so high there is no concern and serves as a good diversion from the main act.  A ten minute version of “Midnight Rambler” recalls the violent cut-and-slash of earlier versions and the final songs are delivered in a flurry. 

“Brown Sugar” in particular seems to be in double time and the show ends with a six minute “Street Fighting Man” with an extended Wood-Richards guitar duel.  

Europe 76 is packaged in a normal quad fatboy jewel case with common photos on the liner notes including the same picture of Mick on the front VGP used for their Europe 76.  Given the sound quality of the tapes this is a mixed bag since the audience tape could have sounded better.  But nevertheless this is one of the essential shows from the era and is recommended in one form or another.