Rolling Stones - Western Springs, Auckland, NZ.
11th February 1973


Source: audience recording, generation unknown
Quality: C+ to D+

A = excellent, E = abysmal

cd-r-> Logic Audio -> AIFF -> FLAC


TRACKS:

01 Brown Sugar
02 Bitch
03 Rocks Off
04 Gimme Shelter
05 Happy
06 Tumbling Dice
07 Love In Vain
08 Sweet Virginia
09 Can't Always Get What You Want
10 All Down The Line
11 Midnight Rambler
12 Jumping Jack Flash
13 Street Fighting Man


Mick Jagger - lead vocals, harmonica
Keith Richards - guitars, backing vocals
Mick Taylor - guitars
Bill Wyman - bass guitar
Charlie Watts - drums

Additional musicians

Bob Keys - saxophones
Jimmy Price - trumpet, trombone
Nicky Hopkins - piano


This is a wonderful recording I have of the Stones only concert in New Zealand in the southern hemisphere summer of 72/73. A lively and full-on show with a punk rock rendition of "Street Fighting Man" with raga like lead guitar by Mick Taylor. Fantastic! This is the show that prompted the rumours of their return every three years or so but the return didn't actually happen until 22 years later! All of the instruments and vocals are audible and pretty clear on this recording and there is hardly any audience noise until later in the tape i.e. "Jumping Jack Flash". There has been no signal processing at all with this document although the intros and outros of the songs had to be redone as the cd-r had slight gaps between the songs.

While this isn't an excellent audience recording it isn't at all bad for 1973. The bass sounds a tad distorted in places and during the first number and ninth you get the impression the taper was trying to get closer to the stage and further away from it for the end of the concert as the sound has a different character from the beginning to the end. The last tune sounds as though it was being done at the edge of the venue right up by the fences and you can hear that it is a huge concert of 10's of thousands of people. However my ears and guesses could be wrong and this might be a mesh from different sources. There was a rumour as well that this originates from a very rare Japanese vinyl bootleg. But to this day I've never seen this but could be convinced that this is true as there is what appears to be vinyl surface noise audible on "Jumping Jack Flash" and in a few other places where the levels are quiet.


This concert appeared on Dime some time ago I recall but this is from my cd-r source, not from that version. This came as a gift about a decade from a Stones collector to whom I am very much indebted for giving this gem to me. Up till I saw it on his list I had no idea it even existed! It has remained to this day one of my favourite recordings of any live show. There's bits in it that are just hilarious from Keef's slightly fluffed up intro of Brown Sugar to Jagger sounding rather jumpy i.e. "Bitch" and some of his show-biz chatter between songs. You'll want this if you dig this period of the Stones and like a show and recording with a bit of character. Enjoy.


From the HT archives.
Uploaded to Dime by Happy Trader January 2011.
You know the drill. For trade or giveaway only.