Live albums can often be patchy affairs. Live Rolling Stones albums are often patchier. However, one thing which can be said about them is that they certainly reflect the particular phase the band would have been going through at the time. From 1982’s Still Life when they just didn’t care anymore to 1991’s Flashpoint which captured them as the well-oiled money-making monster we know and love(?) today, the evolution of the band has always been caught on tape. The quality of the recorded show is also dependent on Keith Richards’ own dependence on drugs.
The Rolling Stones first official live album, Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out, was recorded in late 1969 as part of an American tour, their first tour anywhere since the halcyon days of 1967 when the band couldn’t hear themselves over the screaming girls who would leave auditoriums stinking of piss. The band now faced a different challenge: the audience were there to actually listen to their music, so the band bumped up the amplification, the length of the show, everything.
The album begins with the band’s now-trademark recording claiming them to be ‘The Greatest Rock ‘n Roll Band in The World’ – first used on this tour – and, on listening to the album, one really can’t argue with the claim. Capturing a band embarking on the peak years of their career as both a live act and as a recording group the album is drenched in the sex and death blues which they so excelled at.
The tracklisting isn’t instantly recognisable for fans expecting yet another run through of 'Satisfaction' or 'Get Off of My Cloud' – but doesn’t that make it all the more exciting? Here the Stones flex their blues muscles with renditions of Robert Johnson’s lonesome 'Love in Vain' - sounding like one of those perfect concert moments where time and unexplained emotions are perfectly crystallised - as well as the creeping 'Stray Cat Blues'. Yet it is the utterly menacing 'Midnight Rambler' where the true magic of the album lies. Stretched out to nine minutes Keith Richards’ raunchy riff (does he know any other?) is gradually replaced by a bluesy breakdown, the essence of the blues dripping from Richards and Mick Taylor’s fingers.
For those who possess a sketchy knowledge of the Stones there is enough here to remain satisfied. 'Jumpin Jack Flash' is played with heady abandon whilst 'Honky Tonk Women' is dispatched with glorious enthusiasm. 'Sympathy For The Devil' bounces along intoxicatingly as Mick Taylor screams and wails on his Les Paul (his playing deliciously gorgeous as usual) and the welcome inclusion of 'Live With Me', including a fantastically bum note right at the start of the song, harks back to the band’s R ’n B roots (never has a group of skinny white cockneys sounded like a troupe of black Chicago natives). There is of course a couple of Chuck Berry numbers, 'Carol' and 'Little Queenie', to keep Keith Richards happy.
They were the baddest band on the planet during this epoch, a time when hippy idealism was being booted in the head, and no band anywhere possessed such an inherent sense of danger or a knack of backing it up. The performance recorded here captures a band in fine live form and, more importantly, having a hell of a time on stage. And to think Altamont was just over a week away...
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