Boston

Boston

Tuesday, July 18 & Wednesday, July 19

Although both Boston performances are documented on tape, and the legendary first show carries plenty of press, two song mysteries persist. For starters, Karnbach claims that the second concert included Uptight/Satisfaction, even though there is no corroborating audio or newspaper evidence of that special tune. Certainly, our lone Wednesday night review is skimpy with song details, and the circulating tape could be incomplete, but otherwise the case for the encore medley jam in Boston appears to rest entirely on Karnbach’s singular assertion. And with his record on Uptight/Satisfaction as spotty as it is - having failed to credit the easy-to-find rendition in Detroit, for example - one cannot but wonder if he gets it wrong here, too.

The other song riddle involves You Can’t Always Get What You Want, which is absent from the first show tape and generally presumed to have been deliberately skipped that morning by the understandably tired band. (After all, such a long, slow number might have been just too soporific at that very late hour, and in Montreal the group had already demonstrated its willingness to drop a song under duress.) What now complicates this scenario is the review in Fusion. The author starts out in tape-matching fashion by noting that the band “played fifteen songs at their early morning concert in Boston, including one encore,” but then he proceeds to describe all 15 template songs plus the Honky Tonk Women encore, for a tape-busting total of 16 songs. If true, his direct reference to our unacknowledged song (“The whole band seemed to rise in the air for a dynamite rendition of You Can’t Always Get What You Want and, bathed in multi-colored light, they never came down again”) would rewrite the conventional wisdom about the first Boston set and expose the incompleteness of its standard CD manifestation, They’re Really Rockin’ In Boston (VGP). But for now, by itself, the lone press reference to You Can’t Always Get What You Want cannot be accepted as compelling or proven, flying as it does in the face of the ostensibly complete audio document. Perhaps another Boston clipping will help clarify matters, but in all likelihood the fatigued band did skip a tune here.

The Wednesday evening concert brings the second confirmed wearing of Jagger’s gold jumpsuit.

July 18
*Boston Herald*	*Boston Globe*	*Phoenix*	*Fusion*
Brown Sugar	Brown Sugar	Brown Sugar	Brown Sugar
			Bitch
	Rocks Off		Rocks Off
			Gimme Shelter
			Happy
	Tumbling Dice		Tumbling Dice
Love In Vain			Love In Vain
	Sweet Virginia		Sweet Virginia
			YCAGWYW
			All Down The Line
Midnight Rambler	Midnight Rambler		Midnight Rambler
			Bye Bye Johnny
			Rip This Joint
	JJF	JJF	JJF
	SFM	SFM	SFM
		Honky Tonk Women	Honky Tonk Women
Opening: Stevie Wonder, Little Bobby Love	Jagger: “purple jump suit” Opening: Stevie Wonder	Jagger: “skin-tight purple jump suit with sash” Opening: Stevie Wonder, Bobby Love	“fifteen songs...including one encore”
*Boston Globe: “At 12:45, some three hours and five minutes after Stevie Wonder had completed his act, the Rolling Stones, led by Jagger, clad in a purple jump suit, studded with enough rhinestones to keep a Minsky chorus happy, bounded onto the stage and were greeted as warmly as if it were 9:45 p.m.” Phoenix: “It was 12:46 when the opening bars of Brown Sugar* shook the walls and Mick Jagger, attired in a skin-tight purple jump suit with sash (of his own design; he wore an identical ensemble in glittering gold the next night) pranced out on the stage and the insanity began.” *Rolling Stone: “ With the crowd perched on the backs of the garden chairs, the Stones hit the stage at 12:45 AM and plowed into Brown Sugar* to open up. The show developed loosely – and at times bordering on sloppiness. Charlie Watts, in particular, seemed exhausted. Mick, while displaying all his moves – the struts, the curtsies, the kisses, the confetti and the ciao-ciao waves – was not in his best voice. The performance ended at about 2 AM with Street Fightin’ Man.” *Fusion: “The Rolling Stones played fifteen songs at their early morning concert in Boston, including one encore. Seasoned Stones-watchers said the group looked a little groggy, but they said it from their seats, and The Stones sure as hell weren’t sitting down on their end of the job. Before they stopped singing, they had the whole audience on its feet.” Rolling Stone: “ With the crowd perched on the backs of the garden chairs, the Stones hit the stage at 12:45 AM and plowed into Brown Sugar* to open up. The show developed loosely – and at times bordering on sloppiness. Charlie Watts, in particular, seemed exhausted. Mick, while displaying all his moves – the struts, the curtsies, the kisses, the confetti and the ciao-ciao waves – was not in his best voice. The performance ended at about 2 AM with Street Fightin’ Man.” *Fusion: “Mick One couldn’t stop moving. Beating the floorboards with his belt, screaming on his knees, clutching his heart with his left hand, falling over backwards, then leaping up again to strut sideways across the stage, he passed Mick Two, motionless, his head down, hidden from view by a huge white hat.” Phoenix: “At one point he paid homage to Kevin White, thanking him for ‘getting it together to get us out of gaol.’ ‘It’s nice to be in Boston,’ said Mick. ‘Much better than Warwick.’ He kept returning to a bottle of Lowenbrau between numbers, finally splashing the last half-bottle of beer all over Charlie Watts in the middle of the closing medley of Jumpin’ Jack Flash* and Street Fighting Man. (Probably because the crowd had waited so long they came back for an encore Tuesday night, Honky Tonk Woman, which they didn’t do Wednesday.)” *Boston Globe: “The concert ended at 2:01 a.m.” STP*: “By the middle of the set though, it catches up with them. The Stones are visibly exhausted and less than sharp. They do an encore and it ends after two.”

July 19

Fusion

Bye Bye Johnny

Jagger: “all in gold, his bare chest gleaming through the white cords of his lamé jumpsuit”

“maybe fifteen [songs] in all”

Opening: Stevie Wonder

Fusion: “Jagger had said it was a beautiful audience and it was – responsive, encouraging, and understanding.”

Boston Herald: “Mayor White was in the Garden when most of the action took place, receiving a poster of the Stones autographed by each member of the British rock group. They praised him for ‘keeping things cool’ while they were awaiting bail in Rhode Island the night before.”

Selected Press Clippings

Boston Globe1 * 2 * 3 * 4a

Boston Herald1 * 4 * 5

Christian Science Monitor

Fusion1 * 2 * 8 * 9

Phoenix1 * 1a * 2 * 2a * 3 * 3a * 4 * 4a