Real Good Time (The Swingin’Pig-TSP-CD-039)
Swing Auditorium, San Bernardino, CA – March 7th, 1975
(46:14): (I Know) I’m Losing You, Bring It On Home To Me, Fly In The Ointment, Every Picture Tells A Story, Stay With Me, Motherless Child, Gasoline Alley, Maggie May, Twisting The Night Away
The date listed on this show is from Detroit, 1974, yet i have been informed it is actually from san bernadino,ca 3-7-1975 originally a KBHS show.
Anyway; this has to be the finest performance I’ve heard the Faces play.
The band is in tip top form tight and highly energized.
Ronnie Wood’s guitar playing is the best I’ve ever heard him; making me a bit more appreciative of his talents.
The show begins with I Know I’m Losing You with Rod Stewart in fine form the band in perfect time behind him Ian McLagen spilling out sweet rolls from his keyboard and Woody’s laid back smooth rhythm guitar. Following is Bring It On Home To Me a superb rendition of the old Sam Cooke track.
Next is my favorite of this show Sweet Little Rock’n’Roller, the old Chuck Berry track with a superb Ian McLagan piano boogie along with Woody’s excellent guitar playing with Kenny Jones and Tsetsu Yamauchi providing a hot rhythm section; showing how tight the band is on this night. Moving right along through Fly in the Ointment and Every Picture Tells A Story with splendid balance and the notes getting hotter and hotter. Stay With Me follows with Ian’s bogie piano and Ronnie’s guitar meshing with Rod in a splendid way. I can visualize the girls dancing rather intensely to this great track!
Motherless Child follows; the blind Willie Johnson track performed by Eric Clapton and others through the years. Ronnie Wood is absolutely on fire here; a wicked slide performance (in my opinion the best I’ve heard Woody play) having seen Woody play many times over the years this sticks as the smoothest I’ve ever heard him. This track reminds me of sitting in a juke joint in Mississippi hearing Son House play. Woody and Ian open Gasoline Alley with a wonderful version of Gasoline Alley, Rod in great form, soulful and the band swinging; then Ronnie goes back into his slide performance; smooth as a wet hummingbird; delicate, yet powerful and suddenly the band rips into Stay With Me Ian opening with some hot piano Tsetsu providing some deep bass runs with Ronnie’s rhythm and Kenny’s backbeat.
Maggie May follows with a boogie opening with Rod singing as if his life depended on it. Perfect rhythmic flow here, quite different from the studio version (Every Picture Tells A Story). This show ends with Rod asking the audience for applause for Foghat “A Magnificent Band” then says thank you, good night we’ll see ya and goes into Twistin’ The Night Away, another Sam Cooke tune with the band spot on, perfect flow with Ronnie on slide and Ian’s piano picking up the tempo faster and faster the band on fire to close this show! If you are a faces fan or just a music lover this one is a MUST have. Great sound along with a stellar performance for the ages!!
Get this one if you can as it is a brilliant show!
5 Comments
Oops, just noticed that Twisting is of course on the King Biscuit recording so no question they encored with that. Whomever made the audience recording must have turned off their deck before the encore-unless it just wasn’t included on the ‘Long Gone’ title. There should have just been room, though, as it clocks in at 71:58. In any case, between the KBFH and audience recording, we seem to have a complete show.
That would definitely be nice. I’m thinking, though, that it’s not quite complete either as it doesn’t contain an encore, most likely Twisting the Night Away, which was played at shows just a few days before and after. There’s a bunch of good recordings from that tour-Seattle, from a few days after the San Bernadino show, is great, as is Providence, a Dan Lampinski recording. Any of those would be welcome additions on silver.
It is a shame. The last two Faces silvers, the two radio broadcasts pressed on Vintage Masters Premium five years ago, both sold out and are hard to find today. Labels should take note that Faces titles appeal to Rolling Stones collectors, one of the more ravenous demographic of collector. Maybe we can see a silver release of the San Bernardino audience tape.
After reading this I’m revisiting the audience recording-it’s pretty good, actually, and does include the opening number, It’s All Over Now, which isn’t on any of the King Biscuit-sourced releases. I’m also pleasantly surprised that it still plays because I purchased a few of those Massive Attack cd-r titles 10-12 years ago and several of them no longer work.
So, yeah, a silver release of this audience recording would be nice. A silver release of any of the Faces shows that have surfaced on torrent sites in the last couple years would be nice, for that matter. There’s a bunch, and they’re all out there on cd-r labels if you want ’em. However, they seem to be one of those bands that no longer warrant silver releases in the eyes of the labels. And what a shame that is.
Nice review. The entire KBFH broadcast (which is still not the complete show) was pressed five years ago on Take A Look At The Five Guys (Vintage Masters Premium VM006). I point out in the review that the Swinging Pig is also San Bernardino but mistakenly labeled Detroit.
Jerrythebarman also points out the existence of an audience tape of the complete show which has appeared on CDR, but not on silver. A silver release with the audience recording would certainly be exciting.