Review: The Rolling Stones ‘Welcome to Shepherd’s Bush’
By Hal Horowitz
“We’re going to carry on into the unknown further and further,” muses Mick Jagger after performing “Brand New Car,” a relative obscurity in the Rolling Stones’ extensive catalog.
That, along with the following mid-tempo “Moon Is Up,” and later “You Got Me Rocking” (all three from 1994s Voodoo Lounge) provides an idea of how the Stones approached this one-off, 90 minute, 1999 UK date.
They blew into the relatively intimate London venue Shepherd’s Bush Empire (1800 capacity) and the result, 25 years later, is the video/CD release for the appropriately titled ‘Welcome to Shepherd’s Bush.’
There, in front of a star-studded audience that included peers such as Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, along with Pete Townshend and even Jerry Hall (she and Jagger divorced that year), the Stones dug a little, sometimes a lot, deeper in their history, performing tunes that seldom, if ever, made it to stadium shows. One of them, ‘Black and Blues’’ languid “Melody,” Jagger says the band never played live before.
This tour supported 1998s ‘No Security,’ their then recent live album of songs that rarely appeared in concerts, so the smaller site worked to further that concept. While warhorses like “It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll,” “Honky Tonk Women” (with Sheryl Crow), and the closing hat-trick of “Tumbling Dice,” “Brown Sugar” and “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” are accounted for, other Stones’ standards such as “…Satisfaction,” “Street Fighting Man,” and “Sympathy for the Devil” are MIA. Since those are available on plenty of other concert releases, they are not missed.
That allows room for Keith to unplug for a sensitive “You Got the Silver” (both he and Ron Wood play slide solos, Richards actually smiles and seems to be enjoying himself) and dig out “Before They Make Me Run,” (featuring the four-piece horn section that appears sporadically throughout the evening), both less familiar selections.
The group takes a ride on “Route 66,” peering back to 1964s debut full length for a cool cover that few have recently heard live. It’s also one that lets Richard pop off a short, sharp solo Chuck Berry would be proud of. The first airing of the aforementioned “Melody” opens up to a slinky jazz inflected blues with a surprise, show-stopping trombone solo, all of which works remarkably well. Jagger is clearly enjoying this side road, as Richards picks his black Gibson with cool aplomb.
“This is like a soul thing, that Otis Redding used to do,” says Jagger introducing “I Got the Blues,” another rarity (at least for live gigs), culled from ‘Sticky Fingers’ that fans will appreciate. Jagger rips into the sexed up “Some Girls,” slithering around the stage, impervious to the tongue-in-cheek lyrics “Black girls just want to get f—ked all night, I don’t have that much jam.”
The ensemble, along with horns, augmented by three backing singers and longtime keyboardist Chuck Leavell, seems looser and more connected to the audience, likely aided by the smaller stage. The remixed Dolby Atmos audio sounds great, and it’s shot professionally, albeit with a few too many split screens that many find distracting.
Why it has taken so long to appear is unclear. But ‘Welcome to Shepherd’s Bush’ finds the Stones in fighting form playing some of their less popular yet potent songs with heightened passion, polish and pizazz.
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