The Rolling Stones, ‘Salt Lake City 2005’ (No Label)
Disk 1 – Intro / Start Me Up / You Got Me Rocking / She’s So Cold / Tumbling Dice / Rain Fall Down / It’s Only Rock and Roll / Wild Horses / All Down The Line / Night Time Is The Right Time / band introductions / Slipping Away / Infamy (61:43)
Disk 2 – Miss You / Rough Justice / Get Off My Cloud / Honky Tonk Women / Sympathy For The Devil / Brown Sugar / Jumping Jack Flash / You Can’t Always Get What You Want / Satisfaction. (51:15)
Delta Centre, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA – 22nd November, 2005.
We’ve been here before, of course. After the No Label gang released ‘Austin 2006’, the show from Zilker Park, Austin, TX, which first appeared, taken ‘from disk one of the the Bigger Bang DVD set from 2007 and latterly, the blu ray in 2009’ as I wrote in 2017. The No label gang have taken the audio from the bonus DVD show released on the deluxe set, ‘A Bigger Bang Live On Copacabana Beach’ and, after initially putting it out as a bonus CD-R set, have decided that it needed proper silver disk representation. Their reasoning behind the transfer was, by all accounts, the popularity of the ‘free gift’ set that was produced originally. Sure it makes sense as a gift, it edges in to piracy when released as a pressed set, but when has that ever stopped them?
Regardless, it sounds great. Properly mixed, obviously, it has been ‘tweaked’ a little for this release (The label don’t go in to too much detail regards this transformation other than it will sound slightly better / different to it’s other releases, whether official or not) and as always, it’s a different beast when you’re listening to the pure audio – I tend to find myself craning my neck to watch the videos sometimes but I’m much more involved when I can put on my headphones and listen.
Some posters have pointed out the weird little flubs in the performance – This seems to differ from ear to ear – though thankfully, the Stones didn’t bother to try omit any of these. Keith’s sloppy guitar work towards the end of ‘Tumbling Dice’ remains, the odd, harsh sounding guitar work on ‘Rain Falls Down’ is a little jarring but these a minor gripes if anything – Keith’s on / off relationship with the chords nowadays is very typically Stonesian – In fact, most people I know take this as standard. Mick trying to keep pace with ‘Satisfaction’ after he loses the thread is pretty funny too.
The label stay consistent with their packaging by using the exact same front cover for the pressed release as they did for their CD-R set. The inside features a great looking quad of photos from the era, the rear cover features a dark monochrome shot of the band to lighten the white text, the inner tray is a fab shot of the band on stage and the disks themselves are beautiful silkscreens.
Another of those sets that’s easy / difficult to recommend – I enjoyed the show, it sounds good and natural, however, this release being what it is (whisper it, official) – I couldn’t justify telling you to buy it.
2 Comments
Thanks for this interesting review. However, I don’t collect DVD’s or any video formats, except when they come bundled with audio-only CD’s, and since I already own a boot 2CD of the Copacabana Beach show in my audio-only CD collection, this recent release of the Salt Lake City 2005 show provided me with the only reasonable way I could get it to add to my Stones collection. So the type of format, whether it’s audio-only CD or any type of video, can in fact make a big difference for some collectors.
That’s why I hesitantly recommend it. I liked the fact that I could own it on silver (audio) CD though I’m sure the band (Sorry, the company) might not see it the same way. But that’s up to them.
Thanks for your thanks!