Bang In Sapporo (Dog N Cat DAC-50-5/6)
Sapporo Dome, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan – March 29th, 2006
Disc 1 (60:26): Opening, Jumping Jack Flash, It’s Only Rock’n Roll, Let’s Spend The Night Together, Oh No Not You Again, Angie, Rain Fall Down, Bitch, Midnight Rambler, Tumbling Dice, band introductions, This Place Is Empty, Happy
Disc 2 (54:38): Miss You, Rough Justice, Start Me Up, Honky Tonk Women, Sympathy For The Devil, Paint It Black, Brown Sugar, You Can’t Always Get What You Want, Satisfaction (encore)
When the Stones announced their tour of Japan it was a surprise to see Sapporo on the itinerary. Not many bands make the stop to the northern island of Hokkaido and this marks the very first appearance of the band in this city. The venue is the Sapporo Dome which seats 30,000 and is home for the professional soccer and baseball teams. Jagger, who has been dropping in Japanese phrases between songs on the trip uses local Hokkaido slang words to great affect and Keith says “Sapporo at last. It’s a long way but it’s worth it” before “This Place Is Empty”.
According to reviews the audience was very noisy and makes two previous cdr releases of this show, Run Through The Bang on Anaconda and White Out on Hot Smack, difficult listening. There is no news of any future releases of this show on another label from any other tape source so what has been released so far is probably all that we will get. The ALD source used is, according to the DAC people, the ideal recording to enjoy this particular show because of the loud audience.
The stated concerns about the Tokyo tapes are also applicable here, but it’s only really noticeable “Bitch” and with the lack of the saxophone solo in “Brown Sugar”. Reviewers note the heaviness of Charlie’s drums and that does comes through on the tape (although one reviewer comparing Watts to Bonham is a bit much). This is perhaps the best of the ald Japan tapes so far. Since there are not many releases of this concert to choose from so this is ideal.
The set list is heavy with A Bigger Bang songs with four, “Oh No Not You Again”, “Rain Fall Down”, “This Place Is Empty” and “Rough Justice” being played. Keith plays a bit of “Shaking All Over” before “Angie”, which is a nice surprise and sounding very tender and emotional and the excellent tape picks up the acoustic guitars beautifully. “Rain Fall Down” hits a real nice groove (reminds me of “Fingerprint File”).
The second half of the show has “Paint It Black” as the first Tokyo show did among the classics.
Bang In Sapporo is packaged the same was as all of the DAC releases covering the Japan tour. They are all numbered DAC-50 in sequence as if they are all one set. Given the circumstances this one is definitely worth having and we’ll have reviews of the final two DAC titles, Bang In Saitama and Bang In Nagoya soon. The Nagoya show has many different releases so it will be interesting to see how it compares to the others.
