Let It Rock (Dog N Cat DAC-012)
Ernst Merck-Halle, Hamburg, Germany – September 14th, 1970
Jumping Jack Flash, Roll Over Beethoven, Sympathy For The Devil, Stray Cat Blues, Love In Vain, Prodigal Son, You Gotta Move, Dead Flowers, Midnight Rambler, Live With Me, Let It Rock, Little Queenie, Brown Sugar, Honky Tonk Women, Street Fighting Man.
Let It Rock Hamburg 1970 isn’t the first release of this show, but it is with this newly discovered tape source. Previous releases include May I Have A Record Contract (“Love In Vain” only) and Prodigal Sons Tour Of Mother Europe on Vinyl Gang (VGP-061). That tape source is best described as “decent” but problematic. This source is good to very good, listenable although taped a distant from the stage.
There is noticeable echo and a good live feel to it. It’s better than the Cologne tape but below Essen. It is almost complete. There are two big noticeable gaps, the final two minutes of “Midnight Rambler” and the final minute of “Street Fighting Man”. DAC utilizes the first tape source to fill in the gap with excellent edits. Since the two tapes are similar sonically, the transitions are not too abrupt, but they are noticeable.
It’s always good news when a new tape source surfaces from this almost forgotten tour. Their trek across the United States the pervious year receives most of the attention since it was their first in three years, the cultural meaning behind the events of Altamont, the Gimmie Shelter movie and Get Yer Ya Ya’s Out, released right at the beginning of their European tour.
But they consistently played outstanding shows night after night and this is the first time they augmented their live show with horns, bringing Bobby Keys on saxophone and Jim Price on trombone. The set lists were very similar with “Roll Over Beethoven” replacing “Carol”, dropping “Under My Thumb” and introducing “Brown Sugar” and the country “Dead Flowers” from their forthcoming LP Sticky Fingers.
The Hamburg audience were certainly enthusiastic for the band. “We’re gonna play some acoustic. Can you dig it?” Jagger asks before “Prodigal Son”. The audience claps along to the still unreleased at that point “You Gotta Move”. Mick explains “This is a country song for you, for you!” before “Dead Flowers” and before “Brown Sugar” everyone is encouraged to dance along!
This is a great tour to hear the band expanding out as never before and it didn’t begin as slowly as the previous. Almost every concert is very strong and enjoyable and this is a nice overall presentation by DAC with very rare pictures from the tour. This is a definite improvement over previous releases and is worth having.
