![]() It was another turning point, finally available for all to savor. ![]() Whether intended or not, the performances heard on Live at the El Mocambo gave the Rolling Stones the jolt that they needed to move forward during a period of doubt. The often-played "Jumpin' Jack Flash" doesn't sound like an obligation, as it has onstage for years before and since this Toronto date – especially in the go-for-broke finale. Check out the snapping "Around and Around" and the way they raunch up the already raunchy "Star Star." And "Little Red Rooster," a Love You Live highlight, takes a similar central position here.īut even the overplayed and relatively weaker tracks come alive in the new context. A minor song like "Hand of Fate" from Black and Blue crackles with energy here, as Jagger and Richards share a call-and-response near the end. Starting with mid-set covers of Muddy Waters' "Mannish Boy" and Bo Diddley's "Crackin' Up" and ending with a one-two punch of "It's Only Rock 'N' Roll" and a breathless "Rip This Joint," the Stones hadn't sounded this vital onstage since the '60s ended. So the middle section of the 107-minute album is the launching point of the show's legend. In a continuing series looking at locations where some of the scenes in my ‘Garden of Allah’ novels take place: Mocambo With places like the Trocadero and Ciro’s attracting the glamor crowd, the Sunset Strip had, by the early 1940s, become the street to go when Hollywood was in the mood to party. Early on they go through the motions for the most part, but once they settle into the smaller stage and an audience that's an integral piece of the performance it's easy to forget they were filling stadiums just months earlier. What's different here is the band's looseness. The set list is mostly familiar many of the songs were staples of their world-conquering tours from the previous half-decade or so: "Tumbling Dice," "Let's Spend the Night Together," "It's Only Rock 'N' Roll" and "Brown Sugar" have been part of Stones shows since they were introduced. Mick Jagger snarls, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood's guitars slash and Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman's on-point rhythm forcefully pushes everything along. You can hear them already thinking of this approach in El Mocambo's 23 tracks, reworking old classics by injecting new life into them. Of course, Some Girls confirmed this as the group confronted its looming dinosaur status by going on the defense against punk and disco, adapting the young genres to their strengths and needs. All they needed, it turned out, was to get out of the spotlight and back to their roots to reclaim their crown as the Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Band in the World. ![]() Live at the El Mocambo gathers the entirety of the March 5 performance along with three songs from the earlier show, and it's a revelation for anyone who thought 1978's Some Girls was the trigger point for the Stones' return. Those songs were always the standouts on the live LP but haven't been heard in their proper context (at least legally) for more than 45 years.
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