Gazza wrote on Jan 25
th, 2018 at 5:49pm:
The record company (EMI) wouldnt have had any input into what goes on a Rolling Stones record. Its not as if theyre some up and coming band.
the buck stops with whoever edited it but especially with the artist who allowed it to be released in their name.
Live Licks, if you remember, was released a full year after the excellent Four Flicks DVD boxed set and was seen at the time as something of an pointless afterthought of a release which appeared to be put out as a bit of a contractual obligation rather than something they spent any time on. It showed.
The thing was there was no need to edit anything. When the release was first talked about, there was a leaked track listing which consisted of 33 songs including 'Parachute woman' from the Orpheum Theatre and other such performances. However, a release with that many songs would have required a substantial bit of editing to fit onto two 80-minute discs.
In the end, they released 23 songs on two discs with a running time of under 110 minutes. They had more than enough room to have included all of those songs without any cuts. It appears they just cut out ten songs and kept the other 23 - with whatever edits had been done for the original 33-song release.
The band clearly never listened to the finished product before sanctioning it's release.
A shame, because it was a terrific tour and there are some fine performances on it.
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Yes.. Four Flicks was excellent (and so neat).
Gotta disagree... the record company often has input on what is going out and in under their name. Ask Aerosmith .. Back in 97 Sony so much didn't like their first record they came out with they told them to make another. So the result was Nine Lives.
The Stones have far more space and freedom than Aerosmith but ultimately .. the record company listens to the major releases <before> they are put out in clearing them for release. Nobody caught it.. which means to me.. at the time ... Whoever was working for Virgin ... doesn't didn't know anything about what sounds passable or correct.
Record companies give space to large acts like U2 and The Stones and ultimately mostly let them do their thing .. but this was not a performance or quality thing .. It was a horrid edit that needed fixed so one would think it would be requested to be fixed before they put it out.
Ian