Live From England 1973 (Dog N Cat DAC-090)
Disc 1 (77:21), King’s Hall, Belle Vue, Manchester, England – September 12th, 1973: Brown Sugar, Gimme Shelter, Happy, Tumbling Dice, Star Star, Angie, You Can’t Always Get What You Want, Dancing With Mr. D, Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo, Midnight Rambler, Honky Tonk Women, All Down The Line, Rip This Joint, Jumping Jack Flash
Disc 2 (79:21) Apollo Theatre, Glasgow, Scotland – September 16th, 1973: Brown Sugar, Gimme Shelter, Happy, Tumbling Dice, Star Star, Dancing With Mr. D, Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo, Angie, You Can’t Always Get What You Want, Midnight Rambler, Honky Tonk Women, All Down The Line, Rip This Joint, Jumping Jack Flash, Street Fighting Man
The Rolling Stones’ 1973 European tour has received quite a bit of attention the past several months with shows in Vienna, Newcastle, and Glasgow all seeing release. Live From England 1973 is another new Dog N Cat releases with the September 12th show in Manchester on the first disc and the September 16th Glasgow show on disc two. And like many DAC releases is really a mixed bag. The Manchester show has only had one silver pressed release, European Tour – Manchester 1973 (Vinyl Gang VGP 021) which is incomplete, missing the final two songs “Jumping Jack Flash” and “Street Fighting Man.”
Live From England 1973 is an upgrade over the Vinyl Gang. Manchester is a good but distant recording which is similar to the Newcastle tape. DAC sounds better and has “Jumping Jack Flash.” The opening notes of “Street Fighting Man” is audible at the end, but cuts off. It can be said this is the definitive version so far of this show. Their European 1973 tour is one of their best and all the shows are worth having.
The show itself meets the high standard of the tour. The recording begins with Jagger greeting the audience before the band begin one of the heaviest versions of “Brown Sugar.” In the following song “Gimme Shelter,” Mick Taylor squeezes so much intensity in that Jagger just has to yell to relieve the pressure.
After a fun version of “Tumbling Dice” (and actually introduced by Jagger, a rare occurrence) they play the full slate of Goats Head Soupsongs: “Star Star,” “Angie,” “Dancing With Mr. D” and the funky expanded “Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo.” As the tour progressed some were dropped for time constraints. A thirteen minute, quick tempo “Midnight Rambler” is the highlight sitting in the middle of the set.
The downside for this release is disc two. DAC-090 is the second pressed release of the September 16th Glasgow tape and even though they use the same tape used on the no label Glasgow 1973 (no label), this is significantly worse. Whereas the no label is “fair but listenable with slight distortion in the sound,” this is extremely poor. It would be fair to say that collectors should expect at least and equal sounding disc. It isn’t clear exactly what the label was trying to achieve with the tape, but it is a significant downgrade of what has come out before. Live In England 1973 is recommended to those collectors who absolutely have to hear “Jumping Jack Flash” in Manchester. Otherwise nothing is really accomplished with this.
5 Comments
Speaking of the Sister Morphine “label”…I’ll just hold my tongue. Hi Robert.
If the No Name label would just press this Manchester show coupled with the Helsinki 1970 tape as a 2CD set they would clean up$$.
Unlike this dreadful overpriced set. I d/l’d the Manchester disc on dime and it is truly amazing, better clarity, lower gen. The 1973 UK dates were some of the best of tour.
How does this Manchester release compare to the fairly recent Sister Morphine release? They also put that show out, and usually do pretty well.
Is the Glagow tape from the same source the no label release used, as there is almost a minute difference between that one and the DAC version? I heard DAC used a different source, but either way the review says it’s worse than the no label release, so that one is obviously the better version. What’s happened to DAC with their last few releases being rather disappointing and poor?
Thanks for the review GS but what is the quality of the Manchester show?? I don’t have either version so a little more info on the sound quality of that show is appreciated thanks…..