Tour Of The Americas 75 (Godfather GR-244/245)
Boston Garden, Boston, MA – June 12th, 1975
Disc 1: Intro, Honky Tonk Women, All Down The Line, If You Can’t Rock Me/Get Off Of My Cloud, Star Star, Gimme Shelter, Ain’t Too Proud To Beg, You Gotta Move, You Can’t Always Get What You Want, band introduction, Happy, Tumbling Dice, Luxury, Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo, Fingerprint File, Angie
Disc 2: Wild Horses, That’s Life, Outta Space, Brown Sugar, Midnight Rambler, It’s Only Rock And Roll, Rip This Joint, Street Fighting Man, Jumping Jack Flash. Bonus tracks: Rocks Off, Dance Little Sister (Baton Rouge), Sure The One You Need (Milwaukee), Cherry Oh Baby (NYC), Sympathy For The Devil (LA)
Tour Of The Americas 75 is another is a series of anthologies being produced on the Godfather label, and it follows the same patter by presenting a complete show in excellent quality and all of the rarities from the tour as bonus tracks. This is an effective strategy for documenting a tour without having to release every scrap of tape and have endless repetition of the same songs in the same arrangements. Hardcore collectors may like that, but releases like this one strike an effective middle ground. June 12th is the second of two nights in Boston and is captured in an excellent stereo audience recording produced by the same taper of the Pink Floyd show in the same venue several weeks afterwards. It was releases several times before on Boston 75 (VGP 190), Boston Tea Party (VGP 334) also with the June 11th show and some songs from Cleveland, and on A Fanfare For The Common Man(Screamer-05032/33/34/35), four disc set also with the June 11th show. Godfather increased the volume slightly over the Screamer edition and it sounds excellent. The tape is vivid enough to even capture the moods of the audience surrounding the tape, so you can hear their reaction to the giants props employed by the Stones throughout the performance.
All pre-1968 material including “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” are completely ignored and the focus is squarely upon the Mick Taylor period and the new album “It’s Only Rock And Roll.” The Stones also decided to present a longer show than they had in the past. And where the average show on the 1972/1973 tours reached seventy to eighty minutes, 1975 routinely reached ninety. Their endurance was tested and while it produced some memorable performances, others sound as if the band were running low on energy. Boston is the seventh of forty-six total shows and the energy level is a bit low. It has never been a favorite from the Tour Of The Americas, but there are some great things about it. The first couple of songs are played at a break neck pace with an impressive version of “Ain’t Too Proud To Beg.” Things become questionable with “You Gotta Move,” and the band seem to lose more enthusiasm with “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” After Jagger introduces the band the play two Exile pieces, “Happy” and “Tumbling Dice” before playing new material. “We’re gonna do a new number that we’ve not done before…hope it fits” Mick says before “Luxury” and Wood plays a really nice solo. After “Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo” Mick says, “We thought we’d do something called ‘Fingerprint File.'” This song was dropped the previous night for some reason but makes a reappearance in this setlist.
After the “sad song” set Billy Preston takes his two songs, “That’s Life” and “Outa Space” and pretty much steals the show. He succeeds not only in blowing the roof off the Garden, but injecting more life into the Stones and the concert is superb to the end. “Midnight Rambler” is particularly dramatic with Mick dragging out “we’ll I’m… a… talking about the BOSTON…(slam)…” with a tremendous cheer from the faithful. “It’s Only Rock And Roll” is a bit sloppy but a lot of fun and the show ends with “Jumping Jack Flash.” The second disc is augmented with five bonus tracks presenting the rarities from the tour. The first two, “Rocks Off” and “Dance Little Sister” come from the opening night in Baton Rouge on June 1st. “Rocks Off” was only played at that show and is unrehearsed and sloppy. “Dance Little Sister” was played in this show and on June 6th in Kansas City. It is a great sounding audience recording and great fun to hear. “Sure The One You Need” comes from the June 8th Milwaukee show, and was also played in Kansas City. Keith sings this song he wrote with Ron Wood for Wood’s 1974 solo album I’ve Got My Own Album To Do and remains the only time the Stones ever covered a solo song from one of its members. The sound quality of this tape is good but distorted and lacking in the lower end. Tour Of The Americas 75 is packaged in the Godfather tri-fold cardboard sleeve with several photos from the tour on the inside panels. The sound quality is very enjoyable and a nice way to hear the songs from this tour. (GS)
