Opening With A Bang (Dog N Cat DAC-030)
Fenway Park, Boston, MA – August 21st, 2005
Disc 1: Introduction, Start Me Up, You Got Me Rocking, Shattered, Tumbling Dice, Rough Justice, Back Of My Hand, Beast Of Burden, She’s So Cold, Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker), Night Time Is The Right Time, band introduction, The Worst, Infamy
Disc 2: Miss You, Oh No Not You Again, Satisfaction, Honky Tonk Women, Out Of Control, Sympathy For The Devil, Jumping Jack Flash, Brown Sugar, You Can’t Always Get What You Want, It’s Only Rock N Roll
The Rolling Stones’ opening show on their current tour has circulated through tapes, cdrs, and released with the second show on the Exile label. (In fact that label have released three massive four disc sets so far covering this tour). It finally receives the DAC treatment. Opening With A Bang is a three-source mix: two audience sources and an excellent soundboard recording. This release is a welcome break from all of the 1981 soundboards they have been releasing and will continue to release in the future.
The three sources are redacted in this way (and pay attention, I’m only going to say this once): the first tape source is used for the introduction up through Mick’s opening words (“People ask why we began the last tour here in Boston and the Bigger Bang tour here, it’s because Boston is a championship city.”) “Shattered” comes from the soundboard source.
The second tape source picks up with “Tumbling Dice” (“What is this song?’ someone by the taper asks. “I hear it all the time on the radio”) and includes also “Rough Justice”. After Mick’s salutations to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and his fundraising, the soundboard recording is used for “Back Of My Hand”. The second tape source picks up from the final note of that track and goes from “Beast Of Burden” through to the first minute of “Sympathy For The Devil.” The second tape source which is poor to fair is used to plug a thirty second hole in that track. The first audience source then picks up until the end of the show.
The Stones were rehearsed, ready and hot in this show. There are some surprises like “Heartbreaker” in the set, and several songs that haven’t been played in many years like “She’s So Cold.” Jagger dedicates “The Night Time Is The Right Time” to Ray Charles and Keith gets two songs “The Worst” and “Infamy”. The newer songs sound great along side the classics. “Back Of My Hand”, in the sterling soundboard, is I think one of their best contemporary songs. This comes in the usual high-class packaging and is a title worth having.
