Happy Birthday Nicky (Dog N Cat DAC-017)
The Rolling Stones toured Australia and New Zealand for the first time since 1966 by playing ten shows in about two weeks, starting in Aukland and ending in Sydney. Many of the shows were recorded from the audience and three soundboard tapes have managed to gain circulation in the past twenty years.
Western Australia Cricket Ground, Perth, AU – February 24th, 1973
Disc 1 (47:46): Brown Sugar, Bitch, Rocks Off, Gimme Shelter, Happy, Tumbling Dice, Honky Tonk Women, All Down The Line, Midnight Rambler, band introduction, Happy Birthday to you Nicky, Little Queenie
There have been at least fifteen releases of the Perth fragment alone since it surfaced back in 1987
Happy Birthday Nicky (Noja Records PPTC-292), the first disc of Happy Birthday Nicky (Oh Boy 2-9039), Rocks Off! (The Swingin’ Pig TSP-CD-056), Exile Afternoon, Exiles Afternoon Revisited (Turd on the Run TOTR-001), Perth 1973 (RSCD73), Live in Perth Australia (Rockawhile Productions RS 89101), disc one of Back Strap Jacket (Tarantura TCDRS-3-1,2), and Happy Birthday Dear Nicky (Halcyon).
and Happy Birthday Nicky 1973, this new release on DAC offers some things that are new to the table. For the Perth tape, according to one Japanese collector, DAC have switched the left and right channels and have thickened the sound to make it sound more full and dynamic.
The soundboard recordings from both the Perth and Sydney shows are among the best from the seventies period. The Stones definitely emphasized the guitars in 1973 and you get a lot of that on these tapes. “Gimme Shelter” from Perth, although begins with the light guitar motif and the sax, when the dual guitars come in, weaving around one another, it sounds appropriately apocalyptic and amazing. Both “Midnight Ramblers” are noteworthy and the Perth version even has Mick out of breath!
Royal Randwick Racecourse, Sydney, AU – February 26th, 1973
Disc 2 (75:17): Brown Sugar, Bitch, Rocks Off, Gimme Shelter, Happy, Tumbling Dice, Love In Vain, Sweet Virginia, You Can’t Alw1ays Get What You Want, Honky Tonk Women, All Down The Line, Midnight Rambler, band introduction, Little Queenie, Rip This Joint, Jumping Jack Flash, Street Fighting Man
Previous releases of this soundboard recording can be found on disc two of Happy Birthday Nicky (Oh Boy 2-9039), A Sticky Sydney Racecourse (R187-22-7A), Rock ‘n Roll Stew (VGP-173) and on It’s Getting Hot Up Here! (Mighty Diamonds MD 2008). DAC splice the audience tape for the beginning and end of the show for completeness.
The very start of the show including the taped “2000 Light Years From Home” intro and the first minute of “Brown Sugar” start off the show, and it ends with “Jumping Jack Flash” and “Street Fighting Man” also from the audience tape. That tape source is merely good but distorted and contains lots of audience noise.
Four tracks, “Love In Vain”, “Sweet Virginia”, “You Can’t Always Get”, and “Rip This Joint” have often been spliced into the Perth show, but are in reality from this concert.
The soundboard recording is very good but raw and at points distorted. And like the
Overall everyone says these tapes are essential and it’s no understatement.
power outage in the beginning of “Gimme Shelter”
Keith starts “Happy” out of tune
