Shane’s Music Challenge: THE ROLLING STONES – 1989 – Atlantic City ’89 [Bootleg]

Shane | 19 March 2014 | Reply

Shane’s Music Challenge: THE ROLLING STONES – 1989 – Atlantic City ’89 [Bootleg]
9/10

Recorded on 19 December 1989 on The Stones’ Steel Wheels tour, this is a triple CD bootleg with the ‘Swingin’ Pig’ imprint, with excellent quality throughout.

Listening to these three discs consecutively, I’m reminded of the sheer JOY of music appreciation. The songs are so ingrained in me that they are almost part of my DNA – and that includes the numbers from the Steel Wheels album they were touring at this time.

To digress, momentarily – I know people say that The Stones haven’t produced a great album since 1981’s Tattoo You, but there is nothing wrong with Steel Wheels, Voodoo Lounge, Bridges To Babylon or A Bigger Bang – all fine records well worth a listen. Sure they’re not wall-to-wall groundbreaking, genre-defining, soul-touching classics, but these guys have done the hard yards and lived the life less ordinary – they INVENTED this shit. Just ‘cos we’re used to it, must they reinvent themselves again and again? [The same could apply to Status Quo, AC/DC and a myriad of others – but The Stones have always had one thing those bands left behind here n’ there: Great Songs!]

Listening to Ronnie Wood and Keef Richards trade licks is almost transcendant at times, and on this magnificent show they earn the title of ‘Greatest Rock n Roll Band In The World’, over and over.

There’s guests – Axl Rose & Izzy Stradlin’ of Guns n’ Roses – if my memory serves me correctly, the support band on these dates – join Mick n’ Keef for a rootsy Salt Of The Earth (apparently the first time they’d played it live, ever), Eric Clapton for Little Red Rooster, and Clapton stays on to back the mighty John Lee Hooker for a great run through the latter’s Boogie Chillin’.

Keef rasps his way through Can’t Be Seen (an unappreciated gem from Steel Wheels) and Happy, and the band bring it home for a trawl through the big hits, culminating in a third disc of Paint It Black, 2001 Light Years From Home, Sympathy For The Devil, Gimme Shelter, It’s Only Rock n’ Roll, Brown Sugar, Satisfaction and Jumping Jack Flash. Not bloody bad at all, that!