Ladies and Gentlemen, the Rolling Stones Finally Gets the DVD Treatment

by Marc Spitz
October 11, 2010

www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2010/10/12/ladiesandgentlemen.jpg


As far as Rolling Stones concert films go, Ladies and Gentlemen The Rolling Stones (out today on DVD and Blu-ray) doesn’t have the elemental status of the Maysles Brothers’ dark verite Gimme Shelter. It lacks the notoriety of Robert Frank’s unreleased but often bootlegged Cocksucker Blues. It has no marquee director like Hal Ashby (1983’s Let’s Spend the Night Together) or Martin Scorsese (2008’s Shine A Light). It’s been on ice for the entire home entertainment era, but it merits a place among the better known classics because you simply will not find the Rolling Stones looking or sounding any better than they do here. Director Rollin Binzer spent over a year editing footage intended for the Frank film. “Then Rolling Stones Records President Marshall Chess realized they’d never be able to release Cocksucker Blues,” Binzer told me by phone last week, “they already at that time couldn’t get into three countries because of their drug bust—they didn’t need any more problems, you know. So he asked me if I could do anything with it.” Binzer distilled the backstage action away and left only the best of four performances (two matinees and two evening shows) from the band’s June ’72 swing through Houston and Fort Worth, Texas. “At one point we had a lot of Robert’s footage in there. Backstage stuff, and so on but it kept being a distraction. Robert was a wonderful guy. His vision was always sort of on the dark side. That’s what he was after. I was after performance. I just wanted to give people the best seat in the house. This is straight music. The Stones doing what made them the greatest rock ‘n’ roll band in the world.” The band was defending that title in the summer of ’72. They’d been playing for a full decade, survived the death of their founder, Brian Jones, and the fiasco of Altamont. They’d also outlived the Beatles, their chief rivals for rock’s alpha group status. Seventy-two was the time of Bolan, Bowie, Iggy, and Eno—and it shows. Jagger, then 29, is glammed out, with purple sequins around his eyes, a pinkie ring and a spangled, Ossie Clark jumpsuit on his skinny, lithe frame. He alters the lyrics of “Brown Sugar” (the show opener) to “Just like a young boy should,” as if to prove that none of these dudes can vie for the crown either. Keith, with his missing tooth and cape, is equally beautiful but certainly less femme. “My daughters went with me to a recent screening. They weren’t around to see the Stones then and their first response was, ‘Oh they’re so cute.’ They didn’t’ realize those guys were young once,” Binzer says.

Binzer favors a close frame, which is also jarring as we’ve since gotten quite used to seeing the Stones spread out across a massive stage on one stadium tour after another. Here Mick and Keith are more brotherly than we remember, sharing a microphone on “Dead Flowers” and “Happy.” The band: bassist Bill Wyman, drummer Charlie Watts, and super-impassive guitarist Mick Taylor (who manages to play one impossibly powerful solo after another without moving anything but his hands and fingers) seem like a tight unit as well; accompanied only by keys, trumpet player Jim Price, and pianist Nicky Hopkins. “The fact that they were close together was really helpful. It was just five guys on a plain stage kicking ass for an hour and a half,” Binzer recalls. With the exception of their early 60s show closer, Chuck Berry’s “Bye Bye Johnny,” the Rolling Stones American Tour ‘72 set list drew exclusively from their matchless “Jimmy Miller period” from “Jumping Jack Flash,” through Beggar’s Banquet (a sped-up, almost punk “Street Fighting Man”), Let It Bleed (“Midnight Rambler” in which Mick, bathed in fuchsia light, beats the floor with his leather sash belt, and a soulful, sax-driven “Gimme Shelter”), Sticky Fingers (a dirty, boogie version of “Bitch”) and Exile on Main Street, played here for the first time (Mick swigs from a bottle of Jack during “All Down the Line”). “There are people who called that tour the lost tour because they didn’t do a live album from it,” Binzer says.

In 1974, Ladies and Gentlemen was distributed to movie theaters as a sort of proto-virtual rock concert; a harbinger of the IMAX-style event-movies of later years (including the Stones own at the IMAX), which may ultimately be the reason for its obscure status. Each screen had a tower of speakers on either side, mounted with blue spotlights targeting the audience. “They dimmed as the images started to appear on screen and the sound of a 15,000 seat auditorium filling up was projected. It gave you the feeling of a concert. The sound totally surrounded you at 100 decibels. It really was the first quadraphonic film.” The audience were given foam Frisbees as they entered and there were even scalpers outside. Ultimately it all proved too high maintenance to be sustained, and despite a sell-out box office, the film was pulled in frustration. “There was a lot of monkey business going on with the sale—I ended up with the job of dealing with the distributors and making sure they set it up the way we wanted it with regard to the speakers. They made the first payments but didn’t continue—and the Stones ended up taking the film back.” Nearly four decades later, the long belated release is the latest to revisit the [i]Exile[/i] era (joining the reissued double album and the DVD documentary Stones in Exile), which most consider the band’s absolute peak. “People get softer as they get older,” Jagger quips during an interview on vintage BBC pop program, The Old Grey Whistle Test (part of the extras, which also include Swiss tour rehearsal footage and a brief, new interview with Jagger in which he critiques the band’s dubious fashion statements: “Charlie’s wearing a Rhumba shirt!”). Many believe the Stones began softening in ’73; becoming a more vulnerable and indulgent band in between bursts of genius like 1978’s Some Girls and 1981’s Tattoo You—but on Ladies and Gentlemen they’re beyond hard enough and rough enough to make us forget all that.

Vanity Fair


"It was just five guys on a plain stage kicking ass for an hour and a half." - Rollin Binzer

I'd go and buy one but Some Guy likely got the only copy in Atlanta....But I bet the country western bins are full!..yeeehaaw

Gotta go to Best Buy today. Gotta go to Best Buy today. Gotta go to Best Buy today......

gimmekeef wrote on Oct 13^th, 2010 at 8:34am:

they do a rehearsal version of Tumbling Dice that brought tears to my eyes.

it is my new favorite possession.

Retro-Review:
Ladies & Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones (1974) *****

By Craig Kennedy - October 12th, 2010


Mick Jagger and Keith Richards in Ladies & Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones


I’ve loved The Rolling Stones since before I liked girls. That’s a lot of years and in all the times I’ve seen them, live or on film, I’ve never seen them as they were captured in 1972 in Ladies and Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones. I hate to toss around cheesy review words like “revelatory” or “stunning” but in this case the words fit. While it’s nothing very special cinematically, musically this is one of the all-time great concert films, documenting The Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World at the peak of their powers as recording and performing giants. Even casual fans of the band owe it to themselves to see them as they are here in their prime.

Shown in limited theatrical engagements in 1974 (1973 in the UK) and few times since, Ladies and Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones finds the band touring at the climax of their most creative period which ran roughly from the Beggar’s Banquet album in ’68, through Let it Bleed and Sticky Fingers in ’69 and ’71, to the epic double album Exile on Main St.  in ’72. The tour itself slides into a perfect niche between the more stripped-down shows of the ’60s when the amps could barely overcome the roar of the crowd and the arena rock era when production design and light shows became as prominent as the music itself. Here the band is the focus and they’re at their lively and dangerous best.

Filmed simply and mostly in close-up with multiple 16mm cameras and un-enhanced stage lighting, Ladies and Gentlemen is no cinematic wonder. There are no IMAX cameras flying around the stage or swooping over the heads of an adoring middle-aged crowd, but they aren’t necessary. The Stones themselves provide all the energy the film needs. As much as I loved Shine a Light, the sheer power and vitality of The Stones’ performance here reveals Martin Scorsese’s film to be the museum-piece nostalgia act that it ultimately is. In 1972, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman and Mick Taylor weren’t pandering to aging baby boomers with a string of greatest hits. They were performing music alive with the here and now.

With the exception of the Chuck Berry cover Bye Bye Johnny – originally recorded by the band in 1964, its simplicity here sounding almost punk compared to the more layered and produced songs of the period – all the songs on the set list are from the aforementioned Banquet, Bleed, Fingers and Exile. The most exquisite stretch of the set kicks in on the fourth number with the beautiful, laid back, country-fried Dead Flowers. Keith Richards then launches into his upbeat theme song Happy before the pace changes again with a bluesy version of Tumbling Dice that’s slowed down about half a beat in tempo giving it a nice boozy, good-time groove. After a devastating workout of the straight blues Love in Vain, Jagger finally gives a taste of what he can do with the harmonica in an amazing rendition of what might be my all time favorite Stones song, Sweet Virginia. If it’s not my favorite, it’s certainly the song I most want to hear when I have a bourbon in my hand and an old flame on my mind.

As amazing as that string of songs was – and I’m not just waxing hyperbolic when I say it nearly brought tears to my eyes – the highlight of the show was a number I’ve heard a dozen versions of yet have never heard quite like this. With Mick in a white jumpsuit and the stage bathed in a lurid red light, the band launched into a searing, intense and surprisingly sped up rendition of one of their darkest numbers, Midnight Rambler. The tempo gave it an urgency to counterpoint its underlying nastiness and made the spot near the end where the song almost lurches to a stop even more jarring. It’s an epic number fueled by anger and violence that always grabs you, but here it is a musical punch to the gut.

As a live act, The Rolling Stones of the ’70s weren’t exactly renowned for their tightness – at times they were downright sloppy – but here, in performances culled from four different shows in Fort Worth and Houston, they’re surprisingly sharp without destroying that loose, unpredictable bar band energy that makes them great. There are no back up singers, but the songs are filled out by the great Bobby Keys on saxophone, Nicky Hopkins on piano and Jim Price on horns. It’s a fuller sound than their earlier work, but most of the poppy gloss has been removed. This is rock and roll stripped down to its elemental blues and country roots and the band plays it with a confidence and a swagger that will blow you away. 35 years later, The Rolling Stones still entertain, but they’ve never sounded as vital as they do in this must-see concert film.


Ladies and Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones. USA 1974. Directed by Rollin Binzer. Cinematography by Bob Freeze, Steve Gebhart, Jay Cassidy and George Manupelli. Edited by Barbara Palmer. Starring Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman, Mick Taylor, Jim Price, Bobby Keys and Nicky Hopkins. 1 hour 30 minutes. Not rated by the MPAA. 5 stars (out of 5)

livingcinema.com


Another big ...

Guess they could've turned that Russell pic on it's side.

But - Bill's well represented in the packaging and mini-poster that comes with the DVD.

Yeah...
Just got it in the mail from Amazon for 12.99 $
Too bad I gotta be at work in an hour..
Caught this tour in Indianapolis right after this concert, if my memory
severs me well.(Correct me if I'm wrong.)
Awesome......

My copy says 110 mins running time.
mmmm
I think I'll go to bed and watch it now.
Great wanking material! It doesnt get much better thsn this for us Stones loving LADIES ~ and GENTLEMEN ~  !

Just got mine, $7.99...also picked up 3 Four Flicks for 5 bucks each...early Christmas shopping...gotta love it!!

110 minutes w/ all the extras...I like it!!

gotdablouse wrote on Oct 18^th, 2010 at 11:37am:

DTS...5.1

BTW...You know those BB racks are arranged like a lunatic put them together...so when I asked the pimply faced clerk for help,
he says, " The Stones are still recording"? ( a fair enough response from a kid...)
I replied, " It's a movie, it was just released this week"...saved him from a good slap on the back of the head,...I tell ya...

Picked it up yesterday, sticker price $13.99, rings up at $7.99, why do a promo if it's not advertised ?! FF and BB back at +/- $20 so I passed.

Watching it now, nice to be able to crank up the sound, is was too low in September. It has both a DD 5.1 and DTS5.1 track but the DTS is louder !