Commentary from Joe Viglione

This terrific concert adds to the Stones’ legacy, “I Got the Blues” keeps its early integrity, but the sounds captured here include new revelations. “Brand New Car” from 1994’s Voodoo Lounge actually feels like Boston band The Cars trademark riff merged with Chuck Berry. The importance of these releases on Mercury Studios (the old Eagle Rock,) are more essential with fans taking telephone videos in concert and bootleggers almost obsolete. Where rock and roll fans were desperate for live performances in the 70s and 80s, these classic official recordings serve a need, especially for legacy artists like the Rolling Stones.

“Tumbling Dice” is downright elegant in its guitar phrasings and horns, a four minute twenty four second rendition with Mick’s vocals front and center (where his Jimmy Miller-produced studio version from the early seventies had them nicely tucked away inside the grooves.) “Brown Sugar” sounds like the party that the studio version of “Tumbling Dice” was, thumping with Mick and the boys in command. Yes, a 1999 concert sounds vital and so today. Mick changes the gender here, “just like a young man should,” naughty man that he is.
Classic 60’s Stones are here with a reinvention of “Route 66.” The group is having their way with this old nugget, perhaps written around 1946 by Bobby Troup and recorded by Nat King Cole – listen to Cole’s jazz version to see how the band plays the old riff to a contemporary setting, decades after the Stones recorded it as well. Nat King Cole: https://youtu.be/uRX_NZ7kTt0 Songwriter Troup, who passed in 1999 when Shepherd’s Bush was recorded, has a 1964 video on YouTube from his lips to your ears here: https://youtu.be/kLUYf6cekMA
“Some Girls” on Shepherd’s Bush snarls with lots more energy than the original, Jagger having fun with the lyrics and taking it to the white girls here rather than the ethnicity on the original, guitars zipping in and out almost like a new studio version. One would think Exile on Main Street would have gotten more attention on this set, “All Down the Line” filling in nicely. Just a terrific look about 26 years back from this 2025 on a classic set of discs that satisfy completely.