Live At LA Forum July 9, 1975 (Screamer-04008/9)
The Forum, Los Angeles, CA – July 9th, 1975
Disc 1 (69:44): Intro/Fanfare For The Common Man, Honky Tonk Woman, All Down The Line, If You Can’t Rock Me/Get Off My Cloud, Star Star, Gimme Shelter, Ain’t Too Proud To Beg, You Gotta Move, You Can’t Always Get What You Want, Happy, Tumbling Dice, It’s Only Rock’n Roll (But I Like It) / band introduction, Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)
Disc 2 (74:25): Fingerprint File, Angie, Wild Horses, That’s Life, Outta Space, Brown Sugar, Midnight Rambler, Rip This Joint, Street Fighting Man, Jumpin’ Jack Flash, Sympathy For The Devil
The Rolling Stones’ first show at the Forum in 1975 has been booted since right after the show and has been in circulation ever since with many different releases. It first surfaced on vinyl as L.A. Fog (TMOQ 8207 A/B 8708A/B), on the rare L.A. Friday on Dragonfly Records and as American Tour 75 Volume 1 & 2(Idle Mind Productions and Holy Grail) containing about half of the show: “If You Can’t Rock Me/Get Off My Cloud”, “Star Star”, “You Gotta Move”, “Brown Sugar”, “It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll”, “Tumbling Dice”, “Wild Horses”, “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”, “Gimme Shelter”, “Ain’t Too Proud To Beg”, “Midnight Rambler”, “Heartbreaker”, “Fingerprint File”, and “Sympathy For The Devil.”
The first CD copies of this show were straight copies of the original vinyl like 1975 Tour Of The Americas One (IMPAT-CD-001) and 1975 Tour Of The Americas Two (Charlie Watts And His Fabulous Rolling Stones) (IMPAT-CD-002).
More recent releases include L.A Fog on Vinyl Gang (VGP 277), L.A. Opening Night (Totonka CD PRO 17/18), the rather oddly named Tattoo Out on Rattlesnake and Whores Cocaine And A Bottle Of Jack on Empress Valley (EVSD 43-50), part of the 8CD set with the July 11th, 12th, and 13th shows. Vinyl Gang released the six disc The Lost Millard Masters after the Empress Valley box set but omitted this tape.
As anyone who has heard previous releases of this tape can tell you this is an amazing sounding recording. Sharp, deep, well defined and powerful, this is one of the very best audience recordings to surface from the seventies. The only negative is with the actual house mix which tends to lower Ron Wood’s guitar. The sound quality is only part of the appeal.
It’s been said that the band took their week in Los Angeles very seriously. This show is one of the most ferocious Stones concerts ever heard. The opening number, “Honky Tonk Women” sounds a bit tentative, but is followed by one of the most aggressive versions of “All Down The Line” every committed to tape. The concert never lets up and, like all of the LA concerts, ends with the encore “Sympathy For The Devil”.
They used this concert’s version for the official Love You Live LP, albeit edited along with “Brown Sugar” and “Jumping Jack Flash”. The front cover design looks identical to that used by Dog N Cat for many of their releases.
It has been suggested that Screamer used this intentionally to make it look like a Dog N Cat release. However the reverse is true. Screamer released this title on January 16th, 2005 and Dog N Cat didn’t use this format until their Seattle Superfonic release in June 2005.
The rest of the packaging for Screamer doesn’t hold up since the use thin paper and several out of focus pictures on the inside. Whatever the case is they have made this show available again, it sounds excellent and is well worth seeking out.
2 Comments
Does anyone have the full set of releases of this show & can confidently pin down the best version? I have the no-label RS copy ( Featuring a facsimile of the eagle from the concert posters on it’s front cover ) & the SODD version but does tis Screamer label version compare favorably against the other two I mentioned or is there an additional, better release?
unfortunately this Screamer label version is the only version of the show that i have, but in the late Gerard Sparaco’s review of the “Smoking Stones” version elsewhere on this site (CMR), he wrote that the Screamer version is the definitive version of the July 9th, ’75 show…in terms of sound quality & completeness. and after having listened to it myself, i see it as being very improbable that Gerard could have been wrong since the Screamer version sounds so awesome that it’s hard to imagine that it could get any better.