Kentucky Fried Rockers Vol. 2 (Dog N Cat DAC-024)
Rupp Arena, Lexington, KY – December 11th, 1981
Disc 1: Take The A Train, Under My Thumb, When The Whip Comes Down, Let’s Spend The Night Together, Shattered, Neighbours, Black Limousine, Just My Imagination, Twenty Flight Rock, Going To A Go-Go, Let Me Go, Time Is On My Side, Beast Of Burden, Waiting On A Friend
Disc 2: Let It Bleed, You Can’t Always Get What You Want, band introduction, Little T & A, Tumbling Dice, She’s So Cold, Hang Fire, Miss You, Honky Tonk Women, Brown Sugar, Start Me Up, Jumping Jack Flash, Satisfaction
The second volume of the Kentucky Fried Rockers is the Stones’ return trip to the state five weeks after their appearance in Louisville. This is sourced from an excellent, well-balanced soundboard recording like all the 1981 soundboards are. There are two small gaps in the tape: about ninety seconds in “Let Me Go” and about a minute in the middle of “Tumbling Dice”.
A poor to fair audience source was spliced in to give continuity. DAC did a good job with the actual editing job, but the difference in sonic quality between the two sources is pretty extreme and we can be thankful the gaps weren’t too big.
The performance is okay although this is a show where the band sounds a bit tired and hazy. Mick Jagger mocks confusion about the location: “I woke up this morning and where was I? Shidoobee, Shidoobee Shidoobee” he says before “Shattered”.
Before an intense version of “Just My Imagination” he says: “I woke up this morning and had a dream I was playing in Kentucky. It was just my imagination”. They play the full set with the inclusion of “Going To A Go-Go”.
Keith segues “Start Me Up” right after “Brown Sugar” almost as if he’s saying, “let’s not forget our current hit fellas!” The tape goes to “Satisfaction” (a song omitted from the circulating audience tape) which ends a pretty good Stones performance. DAC again treated the tape right and the sound is simply wonderful to hear.
And since this is the debut for this show in Lexington makes this an essential purchase if you’re into the Tattoo You tour. It seems to me that all these boards coming out, although great quality, are a bit repetitive with very little setting the different concerts apart.
