charlesheld
The Stones at their amphetamine-and-heroin-fueled best, tearing through half of "Exile On Main Street" and selected other favorites on the Texas leg of their infamous 1972 tour. With their sound fleshed out by sax, trumpet and piano, and their musicianship raised by the addition of virtuoso blues man Mick Taylor, "Ladies and Gentlemen" offers definitive versions of "Love In Vain", "Sweet Virginia", "Jumping Jack Flash" and other Stones classics.Taylor's remarkable slide guitar playing on "Love In Vain" convincingly mimics harmonica and train whistle to great effect. A couple of tunes don't quite work: "You Can't Always Get What You Want" in particular is too slow (drummer Charlie Watts could never master its shuffling rhythm and the Stones' producer Jimmy Miller actually plays on the record) while Taylor seems out of his comfort zone on his solo. But on "Midnight Rambler" - for years the centerpiece of Stones shows - the whole band returns to form with a blistering 11+ minute mix of Robert Johnson and Jack The Ripper. The widely-bootlegged Brussels '73 show might be a better performance of "Rambler", but here the visuals of Mick Jagger's showmanship before he became a self-parody carry the day.The camera most often sets its sights on Jagger (indeed the film could've been accurately titled "Ladies And Gentlemen: Mick Jagger and Seven Other Blokes"), though you get glimpses of Keith Richards playing band leader and Watts having a smashing good time pounding his skins. No playing to the camera, and no silly crowd shots. All in all, LAGTRS shows a band at the top their game - both believing all the hype and committing themselves to going to an even higher level.
jf_moran49
"Ladies & Gentlemen, The Rolling Stones" (Directed by Rollin Binzer,1973) Although I would perhaps include The Rolling Stones' performance in "The T.A.M.I. Show" along with this, that was a different era and line-up of the group, still including the musically-versatile band founder, Brian Jones, on guitar, dulcimer, mandolin, maracas, recorder and whatever else warranted his talents.And although there are many great live or pseudo-live performances of the band, ranging from their half dozen or so appearances on "The Ed Sullivan Show" (the earliest of which rank with the aforementioned "T.A.M.I" showcase) to "Hullabaloo," to "Ready Steady Go!," to "Shindig!," and even a full-set, 1971 videotaped show at London's Marquee Club, where they got their start as a blues cover combo, one really cannot count these as full-feature, theatrical documents of the group. Nor can one, I suppose, count the initially British-only TV performance (since made commercially available from a color print, after the Stones reacquired it from The Who) of "The Rolling Stones' Rock & Roll Circus." And besides, although riveting, lead singer Mick Jagger was apparently higher than a cut-cord, helium balloon for that one! But for a pure, near-cinema verite (conceding they rehearsed their music sets) concert film, you can't get any better than this, save for a front row seat at one of their gigs from either the 1972 or '75 tours, the latter of which was, sadly, not filmed (at least to general knowledge). That tour contained the infamous ride Jagger took on an inflatable phallus, musically just as tight, theatrically even more the spectacle, though not in support of as great a studio recording. This film, culled from footage at two Texas concerts in the summer of 1972, to promote their then-new Atlantic/Rolling Stones Records LP release, "Exile On Main Street," remains not only the best concert film of the band, but among the best, straight rock concert films ever! I saw this film in a theater only once, in re-release on a 1980 double bill with the then-newly-released "Rock 'N' Roll High School," starring The Ramones, and it has to rank as one of the greatest double bills I have ever seen in a commercial theater--while away at college in Amherst, Massachusetts. One, the best celluloid document of a world-famous rock & roll band, in their prime and playing one of their best sets; the other, the best re-creation of a rock & roll drive-in movie, starring the world's most famous, two-chord garage band.Of course, the theater in which I saw it didn't have the benefit of the quadraphonic sound included for the film's initial release, but was nevertheless an awesome experience to see larger-than-life images of Jagger and Keith Richards (with his streaked, rooster's mane shag) double-sucking the mike, the camera close up on Jagger in a blue jumpsuit one second, panning the stage to a shot of Mick Taylor on a lead solo or Bobby Keys blowing sax the next, or downstage, then back up to Jagger, shimmying the stage at the second show in a white jumpsuit! "Dead Flowers," "Happy," "Sweet Virginia" and "Tumbling Dice" are high points, but it's all excellent, if only a little too short.I don't know about the validity of information contained in a previously-posted review, that someone associated with the film's production said existing prints of this film were damaged? All I can say is that I saw what appeared to be an intact film in '80; have since acquired a bootleg VHS copy of it in the early '90s, which appears to be mostly there, though something seems weird about the very beginning of it versus how I recall from the theatrical screening. But that could also be just my impaired memory--like those notorious Twins of Glimmer, I too have done some chemical dabbling over these many years! In any event, if you get a chance ever to see this on a big-screen--do yourself a favor and go see it! Also, you may try cruising the Web and/or eBay for an illegitimate DVD/VHS copy of the film--at least will get a sense of what all the fuss is about here. I think you'll find the superlatives justified.The Stones are well past their prime these days, almost the equivalent of a very well-compensated, touring oldies act ("The Strolling Bones" as some have said), making records that don't matter but to their legions of fans numbering in the millions & spanning a few generations now. But this film captures them perfectly, when they were very much an in-the-moment, happening entity, still releasing records of reckoning, really worthy of their moniker, "The World's Greatest Rock & Roll Band!" But even Richards, the group's heart & soul, if not nominal leader, has said that dubbing given the Stones is overused, that on any given night the world's best rock & roll band is a different group; maybe that garage outfit playing their hottest set at some roadside shack in the boondocks is, on that night, the "world's greatest" rock act. For that humble admission alone, seeing this filmed recording of The Rolling Stones at the peak of their powers is an investment of time well worth spent!
