The Rolling Stones, “We Didn’t Really Get It On Until Detroit” (No Label)
Intro / Jumping Jack Flash / Carol / Sympathy For The Devil / Stray Cat Blues / Love In Vain / Prodigal Son / You Gotta Move / Under My Thumb / Midnight Rambler / Live With Me / Little Queenie / Satisfaction / Honky Tonk Women / Street Fighting Man (67:57)
Live at Olympia Stadium, Detroit, Michigan, USA. 24th November, 1969
While there were a few live drops from the Stones official YouTube site on New Years Eve 2019, a complete Detroit 1969 wasn’t one of them (Maybe it had never been fully captured on tape by the Stones of they were turning a blind eye to the bootlegs that exist), the previous September, someone with a fairly clear copy of the old bootleg LP, ‘We Never Got It On Until Detroit’ made a vinyl rip and uploaded the resulting to Dime, the torrent site with the notes;
“Excellent audience recording (stereo?) from the BEST of the original vinyl sources, which is the “We Didn’t Really Get It On Until Detroit-M. Jagger” double LP with the purple label reading “The Stones Detroit”.
I was fortunate enough to find a very clean original copy of this LP which is quite rare and seems to be the first release of this recording. My suspicion is that it was done locally (in Detroit) which is where I found this copy. The master tape has never surfaced so original vinyl is all we have!
I used NO EQ for this transfer, just the occasional removal of vinyl surface noise ticks or pops, normalized to 0db and I smoothed out a couple of the transitions where the LP sides ended and began with short crossfades.”
Naturally, the No Label gang snaffled it for a silver release, this possibly wasn’t the most judicious decision the label have made as, despite this being a well oiled show from one of the Stones most popular tours, it’s a grotty recording when compared to some of the rest. That’s not to say that some of you won’t enjoy it however – A simple bit of home EQ-ing as I listened to the show through headphones lessened the heavy bass present on the recording and cleared up Mick’s vocals a little more.
The instrumentation was also a little more listenable – Jagger is by far and away the closest out front followed by Keith, Mick Taylor and Bill then, to a lesser extent, Charlie right at the back. There is a little noise from the audience here and there, it’s nothing too stifling, quite revealing (Witness the gasp of disbelief after the age change in ’Stray Cat Blues’) .
The covers for this set are beautiful again – We all know I have a fondness for these neat, linear and smart covers (No, I have no stake in them) but they do look incredible here. A gorgeous silkscreened disk tops off the package.
Again, this is more of a completists disk – If you’re looking for something from the ‘69 tour and you’re after quality – wait for the labels copyright dump releases. If you’re after a little something extra, this set is a great fixer for a medium size collection.
