Tuesday, August 13, 2024

The Rolling Stones - BBC Sessions, Volume 5: In Concert, Wembley Stadium, London, Britain, 7-7-1990

I've posted four volumes of the Rolling Stones performing for the BBC, all from 1963 to 1971. The Stones stayed away from the BBC, for two decades, before allowing a 1990 concert in Glasgow, Scotland, to be broadcast. So here it is.

The band had a lot of problems for most of the 1980s, effectively breaking up for a couple of years. But they got back together with a new studio album in 1989, "Steel Wheels," and then had their first concert tour since the one started in 1981. It was their longest and most lucrative by far at that point in the band's history. By the time of this concert, the name of the tour had changed from "Steel Wheels" to "Urban Jungle," the set list had changed, and the set design had been redone. The tour came to an end about a month after this.

One thing I like about this concert is that it was still done with what I consider the "real" Stones, meaning when the band still had five long-term band members in it. At the end of the tour, bassist Bill Wyman would retire permanently. Many years later, in 2021, drummer Charlie Watts died. So now, as I write this, the band is technically only a trio of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Ronnie Wood, plus backing musicians. 

The band's 1989 "Steel Wheels" was pretty good, but it was hard for it to complete with all the classic albums and songs they'd done previously. They played five songs from that album in this concert: "Sad Sad Sad," "Almost Hear You Sigh," "Rock and a Hard Place," "Mixed Emotions," and "Can't Be Seen." However, "Can't Be Seen" wasn't included in the BBC broadcast for some reason, so it's the only song played that isn't included here either. (I'm not counting an instrumental recording of part of the song "Continental Drift" that was played right before the concert began.)

That means the other 19 songs were from the band's previous albums, and pretty much every single one of them was a popular classic. So this is the nearly the last excellent recording of the version of the band with Bill Wyman firing on all cylinders. As far as I know, this remains unreleased.

The only problem with this album's sound quality was the vocals were a big low in the mix. So I used the UVR5 audio editing program to boost the vocals.

There are two more full BBC concerts the band did after this that I know of. I plan on posting them eventually.

This album is two hours and ten minutes long.

01 Continental Drift [Instrumental Version] (Rolling Stones)
02 Start Me Up (Rolling Stones)
03 Sad Sad Sad (Rolling Stones)
04 Harlem Shuffle (Rolling Stones)
05 Tumbling Dice (Rolling Stones)
06 talk (Rolling Stones)
07 Miss You (Rolling Stones)
08 talk (Rolling Stones)
09 Almost Hear You Sigh (Rolling Stones)
10 talk (Rolling Stones)
11 Ruby Tuesday (Rolling Stones)
12 talk (Rolling Stones)
13 Angie (Rolling Stones)
14 talk (Rolling Stones)
15 Rock and a Hard Place (Rolling Stones)
16 talk (Rolling Stones)
17 Mixed Emotions (Rolling Stones)
18 Honky Tonk Women (Rolling Stones)
19 Midnight Rambler (Rolling Stones)
20 talk (Rolling Stones)
21 You Can't Always Get What You Want (Rolling Stones)
22 talk (Rolling Stones)
23 Happy (Rolling Stones)
24 Paint It, Black (Rolling Stones)
25 2000 Light Years from Home (Rolling Stones)
26 Sympathy for the Devil (Rolling Stones)
27 Street Fighting Man (Rolling Stones)
28 Gimme Shelter (Rolling Stones)
29 It's Only Rock' N Roll [But I Like It] (Rolling Stones)
30 talk (Rolling Stones)
31 Brown Sugar (Rolling Stones)
32 Jumpin' Jack Flash (Rolling Stones)
33 [I Can't Get No] Satisfaction (Rolling Stones)

https://www.imagenetz.de/hesfC

The cover photo is of the band from this exact venue, Wembley Stadium, but about a month later. From left to right, that's Ronnie Wood, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, and Bill Wyman.

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