Was Thru and Thru played on any tours other than 2002-2003? 

I'm kind of sorry that I missed it live - they didn't play it in Pittsburgh 2003.

What a great track. It's one of my favorites.

Just played on the Licks tour

I was there the night they debuted it at Madison Square Garden (26.9.02).

Keith had just a few minutes earlier made a bit of a pigs arse of the intro to Before They Make Me Run, a song he'd probably performed live a couple of hundred times.

Then he played this one, a song which, what with the changing tempos, might have easily turned out to be a bit of a trainwreck - and he absolutely nailed it.

The studio version is a wonderful little potboiler.  You do wonder where its going for about 3 and three quarter minutes and then when the drums kick in, it becomes something pretty special. Very soulful vocal too - the way Keith sings "we're ooooo-pen" at around 4:15 is just wonderful.

Yeah, it really holds up.  It should have been in Shine a Light.  Nobody could go out for beer in Imax.

With the open-ended, experimental arrangements of songs like Thru and Thru and How Can I Stop, plus all the likeminded stuff with the Winos, it's no wonder Keith and Mick found it difficult to collaborate over the last 20 years. Imagine coming to the studio with HCIS, and Mick is doing Might as Well Get Juiced.

Two different planets.

Luckily for us — whether out of mercenary or legacy concerns or some combination of both — the two planets have chosen to remain roughly in the same orbit.

I like the alternate mixes too, on the voodoo bootlegs.
amazing song, keith gave credit to the sopranos for reminding him of it… love that…
RIP Big Pussy

Mel Belli wrote on Apr 20^th, 2015 at 10:39am:

With the open-ended, experimental arrangements of songs like Thru and Thru and How Can I Stop, plus all the likeminded stuff with the Winos, it's no wonder Keith and Mick found it difficult to collaborate over the last 20 years. Imagine coming to the studio with HCIS, and Mick is doing Might as Well Get Juiced. Two different planets.

Well - Imagine Keith a dozen or so years before coming to the studio with the superior songs on Dirty Work, plus the great Keith songs that didn't make the album but are on the Dirty Work studio boots, and Mick shows up with Winning Ugly and Back to Zero.  If they'd forgotten about convention and made it a half-Mick/half-Keith record (also putting on the better Mick songs relegated to the bootlegs), Dirty Work could have been a groundbreaking record.  Instead....

andrews27 wrote on Apr 20^th, 2015 at 7:12pm:

Mel Belli wrote on Apr 20th, 2015 at 10:39am: With the open-ended, experimental arrangements of songs like Thru and Thru and How Can I Stop, plus all the likeminded stuff with the Winos, it's no wonder Keith and Mick found it difficult to collaborate over the last 20 years. Imagine coming to the studio with HCIS, and Mick is doing Might as Well Get Juiced. Two different planets. Well - Imagine Keith a dozen or so years before coming to the studio with the superior songs on Dirty Work, plus the great Keith songs that didn't make the album but are on the Dirty Work studio boots, and Mick shows up with Winning Ugly and Back to Zero.  If they'd forgotten about convention and made it a half-Mick/half-Keith record (also putting on the better Mick songs relegated to the bootlegs), Dirty Work could have been a groundbreaking record.  Instead....

Yup, every album since Tattoo You has been a missed opportunity of one sort or another. The one time they were able to "look down the same telescope," as Keith put it, was for the Voodoo Lounge sessions. That's probably the most coherent and collaborative record of the modern era.

Not being on the inside, we can't know if Keith dried up as a songwriter by the time of A Bigger Bang; or, alternatively, the stuff he writes now is totally incompatible with the Stones brand, which Mick keeps alive with "imitation riffs" (Keith's description) and lyrics about cock, tits, and booty.

Thru and thru is a classic Keef tune, it's humble. Charlie sounds like he means it.
MICK/KEEF ARE different planets in the same orbit, yes for sure. But Charlie and ronnie are too, same can be said of Bobby , Lisa,  Bernard, Chuck and the newest addition Dennison - has he  been invited back?

Gazza wrote on Apr 19^th, 2015 at 7:35pm:

The studio version is a wonderful little potboiler.  You do wonder where its going for about 3 and three quarter minutes and then when the drums kick in, it becomes something pretty special. Very soulful vocal too - the way Keith sings "we're ooooo-pen" at around 4:15 is just wonderful.

Nice description. Very strange chord progression, and even stranger lyrics - as you point out, hard to tell where it's going. I thought when it came out, and am even more convinced of now, that the song is a eulogy for the the then recently deceased Johnny Thunders and Jerry Nolan - two guys who Keith knew and admired and , very unfortunately, lived the NYC street pirate, tough guy existence Richards has always fantasized about.

Such a desperate song; and what's with the nearly inaudible vocal bits towards the end? Very haunting piece of music indeed.

Love is a pizza delivered.