Rolling Stones Eternal Touring Thread

[classicrawker]

looks like a typical stadium greatest hits setlist. Guess Mick was playing it safe in Columbus. Might have had something to do with ticket sales being slow there and he felt the hits would go over better.

In any case happy they put on a good show for you Power. Can't beat seeing the Stones in good seats at LD prices even if it was a hits setlist.

[Powerage5]

looks like a typical stadium greatest hits setlist. Guess Mick was playing it safe in Columbus. Might have had something to do with ticket sales being slow there and he felt the hits would go over better.

In any case happy they put on a good show for you Power. Can't beat seeing the Stones in good seats at LD prices even if it was a hits setlist.

I'm thinking you're right about playing it safe for Columbus - I believe it was the worst selling show of the tour. But dropping a slot entirely is still pretty lame.

Additionally, I wish they wouldn't put warhorses like PIB in the song vote.

[MrBrownstone531]

I get that a lot of people don't like the setlists, but the way I look at it is you get to see the greatest band of all time play some of the most iconic songs in rock history. I'd love to hear them play some of the more offbeat songs, but they want to sell out stadiums, and they know that "Dandelion" and "Summer Romance" won't do that. The show last night was the greatest concert I've ever seen, and if the Pittsburgh show in three weeks is even remotely close to it I'll call this a successful summer.

[Powerage5]

I get that a lot of people don't like the setlists, but the way I look at it is you get to see the greatest band of all time play some of the most iconic songs in rock history. I'd love to hear them play some of the more offbeat songs, but they want to sell out stadiums, and they know that "Dandelion" and "Summer Romance" won't do that. The show last night was the greatest concert I've ever seen, and if the Pittsburgh show in three weeks is even remotely close to it I'll call this a successful summer.

I think it's a bit of a stretch to put songs like Sway, Can't You Hear Me Knockin' or Sister Morphine in the same category of obscurity as Dandelion and Summer Romance. We're talking about an album that is widely regarded as one of, if not the best, Stones albums of all time, and it was made abundantly clear that the tour would celebrate that album, even if it didn't mean playing the whole album front-to-back. Mick even explicitly said in several interviews that, while they may or may not play the album in it's entirety, they would most certainly be playing the lesser-played songs. So to say that, and then go out and play Bitch and Wild Horses and basically say "well, there's your Sticky Fingers songs" is kind of a slap in the face. I mean, let's make some small adjustments to last night's set and see how it looks - my proposal for what this tour should look like:

Brown Sugar (The obvious choice for an opener given the "theme" of the tour)

It's Only Rock N' Roll

Let's Spend The Night Together

Tumbling Dice

Sway

I Got The Blues

Bitch

Moonlight Mile

Paint It Black

Honky Tonk Women

Before They Make Me Run

Happy

Midnight Rambler

Miss You

Gimme Shelter

Start Me Up

Sympathy For The Devil

Jumpin' Jack Flash

---

You Can't Always Get What You Want

Satisfaction

Literally all I changed was swapped Brown Sugar/JJF as the opener/closer, replaced Doom & Gloom (Which, on the scale of songs necessary for a stadium crowd, this doesn't rank highly) with another SF song, and added back in the original third SF slot from San Diego. That setlist would satisfy the casual fans just as much as the actual set that was played last night; the only warhorse I replaced was Wild Horses, and I see no reason that can't be rotated as part of the SF set along with the rest of the album. However, I think those small tweaks I made would also satisfy a much bigger portion of the hardcore fans since the band would still be fulfilling the Sticky Fingers obligation going along with this tour. Leave the Let's Spend The Night Together slot for rotating live regulars that aren't considered warhorses; You Got Me Rocking, All Down The Line, Get Off Of My Cloud, When The Whip Comes Down, Street Fighting Man, etc, and keep the song vote (albeit not with a mega hit and 3 mildly popular songs like last night), and you'd see very little complaining from anyone about the setlist for this tour.

[dalsh327]

The whole thing about "playing it safe" setlists has to do with Mick "reading" the audience and knowing they all paid a lot of money to see them and assess that they're also playing to people who never saw them before. If the audience isn't into it, the song goes away. I wish the Stones would throw shows in where they had no setlist because they've rehearsed over 50 songs. I think 50 and Counting was 4 pages of songs so they had to have gone through at least 100 songs.

[Powerage5]

As bummed as I was about the Columbus setlist, I do have to say I don't think any rarities would have gone over well with the crowd - they were pretty shit. No one seemed into the show at all unless Mick was trying to hype them up, and then they'd give up as soon as he turned his back. Around me there were people sitting down even - 20 fucking feet from the stage.

[DieselDaisy]

As bummed as I was about the Columbus setlist, I do have to say I don't think any rarities would have gone over well with the crowd - they were pretty shit. No one seemed into the show at all unless Mick was trying to hype them up, and then they'd give up as soon as he turned his back. Around me there were people sitting down even - 20 fucking feet from the stage.

I went to a Neil Young gig a bit like that. Terrible 'play the hits' lazy layman crowd.

[Daedalus]

I know Brown Sugar with Clapton has been around for ages, but now I guess it's an official release - well, it was uploaded on their official youtube account yesterday.

[Powerage5]

Minneapolis gig starting momentarily. Event poster for tonight - love this one:

[Black Sabbath]

Hope the poster for Pitt is really cool.

[Powerage5]

Setlist for Minneapolis (I'll update as it goes):

Jumpin' Jack Flash

It's Only Rock N' Roll

All Down The Line

Tumbling Dice

Doom And Gloom

Bitch (Song vote)

Moonlight Mile

Out Of Control

Honky Tonk Women

Before They Make Me Run

Happy

Midnight Rambler

Miss You

Gimme Shelter (w/ Grace Potter)

Start Me Up

[Powerage5]

Hope the poster for Pitt is really cool.

I like everything so far this year, even if they had the wrong city for the Columbus poster

San Diego

Columbus

The posters sold at the shows are hand-numbered lithos, only 650 available. The online posters are a re-print I believe. I wasn't going to get a poster at every gig I'm doing, but for a hand-numbered litho I figured I'll at least try. $50 this year as opposed to $75 last year in Europe.

[ZoSoRose]

Alright! Moonlight Mile back in there! Throw that and CYHMK in my set and I'm thrilled. Also, All Down The Line, Out Of Control, and Bitch? Not bad!

Edited June 4, 2015 by ZoSoRose

[Powerage5]

Alright! Moonlight Mile back in there! Throw that and CYHMK in my set and I'm thrilled. Also, All Down The Line, Out Of Control, and Bitch? Not bad!

Looks like we're permanently down to 3 SF songs (Including Brown Sugar, that is). Fuck that - they set the bar higher in San Diego and they should keep it at 4 at least.

[classicrawker]

Alright! Moonlight Mile back in there! Throw that and CYHMK in my set and I'm thrilled. Also, All Down The Line, Out Of Control, and Bitch? Not bad!

Looks like we're permanently down to 3 SF songs (Including Brown Sugar, that is). Fuck that - they set the bar higher in San Diego and they should keep it at 4 at least.

Unfortunately Sir Mick is historically conservative with the set-lists and will not try anything he feels won't go over big. He is an anally retentive perfectionist when it comes to how he and the band come off. He seems to get more conservative the older he gets.

Keef is up for shaking things up but he defers to Mick as he rightly says Mick is the front-man and has to sing the songs.

[ZoSoRose]

Its still a good set

[Powerage5]

Alright! Moonlight Mile back in there! Throw that and CYHMK in my set and I'm thrilled. Also, All Down The Line, Out Of Control, and Bitch? Not bad!

Looks like we're permanently down to 3 SF songs (Including Brown Sugar, that is). Fuck that - they set the bar higher in San Diego and they should keep it at 4 at least.

Unfortunately Sir Mick is historically conservative with the set-lists and will not try anything he feels won't go over big. He is an anally retentive perfectionist when it comes to how he and the band come off. He seems to get more conservative the older he gets.

Keef is up for shaking things up but he defers to Mick as he rightly says Mick is the front-man and has to sing the songs.

You can say that again - this year is exceptionally boring so far. Other than Moonlight Mile, there really isn't anything to get excited about setlist-wise

In the end it doesn't really matter though - I'm still incredibly excited to see a few more gigs this year since the performances are top notch. That's what counts in the end.

[dalsh327]

The posters look great.

It was good to hear the Clapton version of Brown Sugar cleaned up.

Notice what it says on the sticker.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/from-the-vault-the-marquee-club-cd-dvd-only--best-buy-dvd/8433001.p?id=3385422&skuId=8433001

Edited June 5, 2015 by dalsh327

[Powerage5]

The posters look great.

It was good to hear the Clapton version of Brown Sugar cleaned up.

Notice what it says on the sticker.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/from-the-vault-the-marquee-club-cd-dvd-only--best-buy-dvd/8433001.p?id=3385422&skuId=8433001

There's a lot of talk about that on IORR. It's odd that Hyde Park hasn't been officially announced yet though.

[GivenToFly]

They always do Brown Sugar, so that's a given. I'd drop Bitch forever because it's a bad song, fuck it. They've done Can't You Hear Me Knocking a few times recently so they could have that, even without Mick Taylor, I think it could work. Dead Flowers is pretty upbeat, it could work live pretty well. Wild Horses, of course, is super famous, it's one of their big classics and could always go into one of the ballad spots. And I'd put Sway into heavy rotation, because it's one of very few of their songs that actually sounds like it can work in a big venue. So I would have:

- Brown Sugar every night

- Sway every night

- choose between Can't You Hear Me Knockin and Dead Flowers

- choose between Wild Horses and Moonlight Mile

Four songs every night from one of their classic albums isn't excessive.

[ZoSoRose]

I just REALLY want Dead Flowers, but fuck that or CYHMK would be tough. I think I'd go with Flowers, though

[Powerage5]

I'd go with CYHMK because, after seeing Karl Denson tear it up in the backing band gig last week, I wanna hear his spin on the Bobby Keys solo. Dude is an amazing saxophonist.

Also, Dallas poster:

[Powerage5]

Picked up the SF Deluxe edition today. Can't remember what's been put online so far and what hasn't, so here's my brief little description of everything:

Brown Sugar (w/ Eric Clapton) - This is awesome, easily the most exciting thing on the reissue. It's a very polished sounding take too - maybe not as good as the album version, but with the proper mastering I think it could've been suitable for the album version. Bobby Keys' solo is a little lackluster (And half the length to accommodate Clapton's solo), but it kicks ass other than that.

Wild Horses (Acoustic version) - Same take as the album version, just stripped down to acoustic guitar, lead vocals, and drums. I have to admit I actually really like this song without Keef's backing vocals, but it would've been a lot more interesting if it was a different take of the song.

Can't You Hear Me Knocking (Alternate version) - More of a demo than anything. Very light on vocals, and when Mick is singing they're pretty much impossible to make out. Cool to hear where the song came from, but it's more of a novelty track than anything.

Bitch (Extended version) - I don't like the fact that this is called an "extended version" since to me, that implies it's the same take but with something that wasn't cut out - this is an entirely different take than the album version. The song structure is a little different (There's no real chorus although the lyrics to the chorus are sung by Mick twice in the middle of the song), and the lyrics are different other than a handful of lines. This take is slightly slower than the album take, but in a way I think it actually has a bit more energy. The horns sound much fuller on this take, and in terms of mastering this sounds the best of any of the alternate takes. This take ends really abruptly though, really awkward.

Dead Flowers (Alternate version) - Probably the least exciting of the bunch for me. It's very thin sounding, and this take doesn't really have that country swing that makes the album take so great - this sounds more like a rock band trying to play a country song than an actual country song. There's very little that differs from the album take, other than the fact that it is indeed a different take.

The live tracks - If you've heard any early 70's Stones live recordings you know what to expect. The sound is really great on them though, they sound like a proper mix instead of a straight soundboard feed, which is more what I expected. The one thing that did catch me off guard however (And maybe I've just never heard an early live version of this song?) is that the bass intro isn't present on Live With Me - the song actually starts off with piano and drums, and really isn't distinguishable until Mick starts singing.

There's some interesting stuff, but all in all, it's easily the least exciting of the recent deluxe editions.

[Daedalus]

Picked up the SF Deluxe edition today. Can't remember what's been put online so far and what hasn't, so here's my brief little description of everything:

Basically, everything except live recordings was put online in the last couple of weeks... Stupid move?

[Powerage5]

Picked up the SF Deluxe edition today. Can't remember what's been put online so far and what hasn't, so here's my brief little description of everything:

Basically, everything except live recordings was put online in the last couple of weeks... Stupid move?

Everyone does it nowadays. They do it because it's a way to try and increase awareness of a product since albums sales are in the toilet. At the same time though, I think it's one of the things that promotes poor album sales. The casual fans can listen to every track once online before the album is even released and just check it off their list of things to listen to - it's only hardcore fans that will pick something up despite the fact that they can hear it online right now.

When an artist does this, I generally listen to the first song they put up pre-release. After that I go on blackout mode until I have the disc in my hands. It's just more exciting to listen to something for the first time while reading the liner notes as opposed to listening to it on YouTube.