MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: THE ROLLING STONES - LIVE AT THE TOKYO DOME 1990

What a difference eight years made in The Rolling Stones. Watching this back-to-back with 1982's Leeds concert (see last review), then it was still basically a rock show, the core band with a a couple of sidemen. By 1990, the technical improvements were huge, and the extra musicians outnumbered the official Stones ten to five. The set was gigantic, and it was a spectacle more than a music event. They had truly become a rock and roll circus.


What all this sound reinforcement meant was that the Stones were part of a performance rather than the whole show. Each night was going to be the same by and large, the only real differences night to night being Mick's energy and moves, and Keith and Ronnie's playing quality. Rough edges such as Keith's shaky vocals didn't matter, because the melody was handled by three professional singers behind him, so his grizzled harmonies were colourful rather than essential. Huge arrangements featuring five horns and two keyboards pushed the set along and all those tens of thousands under the Tokyo Dome were going to walk out thinking they'd seen the biggest and the best.


The group would learn to do these shows better on future tours. On 1989-90's jaunt, they were still trying to sell the current album, Steel Wheels, trusting in their old songwriting magic. So there are some pretty dull moments as we are made to sit through Sad Sad Sad (does anybody remember that song?) and Almost Hear You Sigh. Rock and a Hard Place and Mixed Emotions are better, because they are bigger, brass and backing vocalists again, and a very un-Stones-like glossiness.


Much was made during the tour of the inclusion of some long-ignored older songs in the set list. Ruby Tuesday and Paint It Black are lots of fun to hear again, and so refreshing amidst the set of the usual suspects (Satisfaction, Jumpin' Jack Flash, Midnight Rambler). 2000 Light Years From Home was a complete disaster though, with boring instrumental keyboard passages, an odd arrangement, and a long ending that is only tacked on to allow Jagger to spend the time climbing to the top of the massive set for his dramatic re-appearance at the start of Sympathy For The Devil.


I saw a Toronto show in 1989 on this tour, at the CNE, me and about 60,000 of my closest peeps. I'm reminded of the highs and lows of that show by watching this; great classics and fun moments, followed by clunkers and the feeling we were being hyped. The Stones have learned not to bother trying to sell new music anymore, and to tone down the contributions of the extra musicians since Steel Wheels. But there are always great points in any Stones show, and heck, Keith sings Happy on this, so it's all worth it for that.

MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: THE ROLLING STONES - LIVE IN LEEDS 1982

This live album comes from a time when the Stones had to earn the title of Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Band in the World every night, rather than having it bestowed via a grandfather clause. They had vanquished all the old foes; Zeppelin died with Bonzo, The Who were giving up on a final tour that year, no spark after moon had died, and McCartney put an end to Wings after the Japanese bust and Lennon's murder. Now they were taking on upstarts such as The Clash and The Police, edgy new music they had countered with their own Some Girls and the instant classic singles Start Me Up.


Try as they might though, the band did have a hard time keeping up the street cred. It was becoming more and more about money, as the American leg of the tour, was said to be the most profitable in history, mega-millions flying about for all concerned. Plus, it was famously sponsored by Jovan Musk, the Stones being the first big name to allow corporate sponsorship into the game, for even more profit. While the critics sniped, the band laughed all the way to the bank, but as for their status as the greatest, well, uneasy lies the head who wears a crown. After the European leg of the tour in 1982, they wouldn't hit the road again until 1989, after pretty much ending things in '85.


This is the last show from that '82 tour, the last for seven years, as performed outdoors at Roundhay Park in Leeds, U.K. It's the latest in the continuing From The Vault series, which has presented some spectacular live sets over the last couple of years, from the Marquee Club in 1971 in front of a handful, to the Tokyo Dome in 1990, and tens of thousands. The shows high-quality video to newly-remixed audio from the master, Bob Clearmountain, available in CD/DVD or Blu-ray combos. The Roundhay show is full of close-ups of the band, shot for the mammoth screens (a relative new idea then) used to help the 80,000 people see something of the show. The downside is watching Bill Wyman just stand there, expressionless, over and over. The good part is lots of shots of Mick and Keith doing their thing in your living room.


Another set in the From The Vault series is from the Hampton, Virginia show of 1981, the last show on the U.S. leg. The difference is night and day, this the winner hands-down. That one was shot for pay-per-view, the first music one ever, and there's none of the immediacy you get from the Leeds close-ups. The band seems much more relaxed, and on top of their game as well. There are several highlights along the way, including the best Angie I've heard live, and the band really enjoyed the Motown covers Just My Imagination and Going To A Go-Go. Keith's really enjoying his little licks and fills, and everybody gets into playing Tumbling Dice; Keith's pulling guitar-hero poses, saxman Bobby Keys is winking, Ian Stewart's grooving, and wow, Charlie just smiled. Meanwhile, Bill Wyman...well, nothing happening there.


Seriously, an hour-and-a-half into the show, they are cooking so well, they make lame new numbers She's So Cold and Hang Fire fun. Charlie grins through the whole thing. But why is the camera back on Wyman, who now looks like he's attending the village council tax assessment meeting?


In 1982, The Rolling Stones were not touring a great album (Tattoo You), were no longer the baddest bunch on the block, were a long way from the being the most innovative, and weren't really close to the blues anymore. But on that night, once again, they earned the title of World's Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Band.

MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: THE WHO - LIVE IN HYDE PARK (CD/DVD combo)

Recorded this past June, this was The Who's big present back to London, a huge outdoor show in the iconic park, crammed on this occasion with 65,000 people. Although it was billed as a 50th birthday show, it was really 51, and like everything else on this show, it felt a bit off. That was Roger and Pete up there, but the rest of the band was a dull bunch, including three keyboard players when one would do. Only Zak Starkey offered any kind of personality and flair.


It seems the group has been talked into the kind of show The Stones and McCartney have been doing the last few years, a tribute to themselves, with a greatest hits set and projection screens showing pictures of past moments and tributes to fallen bandmates. But the whole time you can watch the DVD and see how awkward the principals are doing such a show. When John Entwistle's mug appears on the big screen behind him during an instrumental break, Daltry gamely raises his arm in salute, then does it again a few seconds later, not sure what else to do. In the commentary in between some of the songs, Townshend repeats his usual complaints about not wanting to be playing live, ambivalence about the group, training to be gracious to the fans but seeming more above this kind of hero worship.


McCartney is fine with this kind of show, a narcissist. Jagger has that as well, and Richards wants to grow old ungracefully. Townshend and Daltry probably want to do all this for the fans, and The Who legacy, but they just can't be phony. It never was an act for them, and when it does become that, the edge is gone.


There are great moments; when the Quadrophenia songs come up, I'm One and Love Reign On Me, you do get taken away for a bit, a taste of the epic in those songs. That goes double for good ol' Tommy, five songs from it and sounding as good as the day it was made. Townshend and Daltry still do a credible job, even if the keys have been dropped to accommodate aging voices, and there aren't many leaps and windmills. It's wall-to-wall hits, except for the dire Eminence Front, the youngest cut here, from 1982, but the rest is of course wonderful material. The Who remain, of all the giants, the ones least able to reconcile their present with the past.

MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: FLEETWOOD MAC - TUSK (Super Deluxe edition)

To this day, Tusk is a confusing and largely misunderstood album in Fleetwood Mac's long career. It was many things: experimental, bratty, forward-thinking, game-changing, panned at the time, and potential career suicide. In hindsight, it's just as many things: part brilliant, party folly, career-killer in some ways, career-saver in others. But 36 years on, it's better than its reputation at the time certainly, and well-worthy of this bulky re-examination.


Available in several formats, including a stand-alone 180-gram vinyl edition for purists, the big super-deluxe edition covers it all. The original double album is on the first CD, at nearly 80 minutes. Disc two is singles, out-takes and sessions, featuring several remixes and edits for radio, then a bunch of early versions of the songs, in various attempts over the long year making the album


Disc three is novel, a complete alternate version of the album, featuring the songs in sometimes quite different forms, from largely acoustic to different instrumentation, to a take of Christine McVie's Brown Eyes, featuring band founder Peter Green doing a guitar solo. Discs four and five feature a reconstructed live album, with songs from various sources along the lengthy Tusk tour, but feeling very much like a single show. The final disc is for the audio junkies, in 5.1 surround and 24/96 stereo.


It is Lindsay Buckingham's album, and is has his reaction to the ridiculous success of Rumours, That album had made them the biggest band in the world in the days of the greatest glory and excess. They were also the most dysfunctional group of people in the world. If Rumours had been a soap opera, Tusk was a farce. Nicks had an affair with Fleetwood, destroying his marriage. Then Fleetwood took up with Nicks' best friend, Sara (as in the hit single). Christine McVie, having split with the bass player before Rumours, now ended her relationship with the group's lighting designer. Then she started seeing Beach Boy Dennis Wilson, probably the most unstable, self-destructive person on the planet. Only Buckingham seemed to have it somewhat together, except he wanted to experiment with recording techniques, make wildly different songs from his usual hit singles, go all over the map stylistically, and in general say screw you to fame, record companies, and anyone's expectations.


The record-buying public certainly noticed that Tusk wasn't Rumours pt. 2. It sold a few million, but nowhere close to the previous mark. Those who bought it barely played it. The first single, much anticipated, was the title cut, a most odd percussion experiment. There were more typical singles to come, from McVie's Think About Me, and Nicks' Sara and Sisters of the Moon, but without an upbeat Buckingham tune like Go Your Own Way, the more moody songs from Nicks couldn't carry the disc.


If you do go through it now, song-by-song, appreciating Buckingham's, techniques and lofty goals, and stop waiting for the hits, it's a very strong collection. It has a horrible running order, so it never gels as an album, and is too long, but there's something there for sure. I know lots of music fans who don't listen to Rumours because it's so overplayed. They should try out Tusk, because it is a lot better than its been given credit for all along.

MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: JETHRO TULL - TOO OLD TO ROCK 'N' ROLL: TOO YOUNG TO DIE

Crisis! As Jethro Tull fans know, the classic '70's albums are being reissued chronologically, in wonderful box sets complete with plenty of bonus cuts, excellent booklets and multiple remixes. The centrepiece of each one is a brand-new mix of the original album by the renowned Steven Wilson, the leading light in progressive rock audio circles. However, the only way you can remix an album is to have the original master tapes, with all the tracks separate. And for this Tull album, several of the masters had disappeared.


After fruitless searches, a surprising solution was found. A few weeks after the album's release, the band negotiated a performance on a British TV show, in a unique format. The show they did featured band performances, a bit of acting out the storyline, plus linking frames of cartoon illustrations, as found on the original album's sleeve. And because of the famous Musician's Union rules, the band could not simply mime to the original album tapes. It had to be live (risky) or a new recording of the songs, so the group re-recording the whole album.


Guess what? It's better. The band, especially Ian Anderson, won't admit such a thing, but listening back, these are tougher, tour-worn versions, more about the stage and less about the studio crafting. There are moments on the original album were the songs are too soft, especially at the start of the oft-quoted title cut, but on the re-done version, it starts with needed strength.


Too Old To Rock 'N' Roll: Too Young To Die is not one of the best-loved Tull albums, but it didn't get a fair shake. The press and some fans had grown tired of the band at the time of A Passion Play in 1973, and follow-ups War Child and Minstrel In The Gallery had failed to grab the excitement of the Aqualung and Thick As A Brick days. So there was decreasing audience and interest in Tull's usual concept albums and prog sounds.


It was another concept release, but as Tull stories go, not so hard to follow. As for the music, it was a lively and varied set, with plenty of rock moments, even some blues for the first time in several years for the group, featuring Anderson on harmonica. There were also light acoustic parts, and as good a batch of melodies as Anderson had placed on a record since Brick.


The concept story wasn't too lofty or odd either. There was an old rocker from the '50's, who refuses to change with the trends, feels washed up but then he survives a motorcycle crash, rock 'n' roll comes back in style, and he gets re-discovered. Hardly Quadrophenia but not too hard on the head. The songs, some related to the concept and others not, were a cut above.


Then there were a batch of other cuts dropped along the way, included as well. Originally the idea was to present this concept as a stage play, and there were several for that, plus a couple more dropped for time restrictions on the album proper. Some showed up later (One Brown Mouse on Heavy Horses in 1978), others that should have, and some that really should have made the album (A Small Cigar).


Again, lots of great bonuses, a very good album you probably have never heard, and a great book to keep you company all afternoon. Plus, I've seen this selling for less than $40 online, so definitely something worth considering for your Boxing Week purchases.

MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: THE WAINWRIGHT SISTERS - SONGS IN THE DARK

This is kinda perfect. The next generation of the extended Wainwright, McGarrigle, and Roche families have been mingling, mixing and matching their whole lives, in various combinations, for events such as Christmas specials. Now for the first time, Martha Wainwright and her half-sister Lucy Wainwright Roche have teamed up for a full album. For those who need a program to follow the family connections, they share a dad, Loudon, Martha being Kate McGarrigle's daughter, while Lucy's mom is Suzzy Roche.


The concept here is a series of dark lullabies, inspired by a mixtape given to Martha when her first son was born. Dark, you betcha. While the music may soothe the youngsters, if they knew what the words were, they'd have nightmares the rest of their lives. Take the traditional All The Pretty Little Horses, with its rarely-sung second verse, with a poor little lamb in the meadow, bees and butterflies plucking out its eyes. Then there's long-time family friend Richard Thompson's End of the Rainbow, telling an infant about the realities of life waiting for them outside the nursery: "Your father is a bully and he thinks that you're a pest/and your sister is no better than a whore."


It seems the sisters come by this naturally. Various family members have taken to the dark lullaby genre with glee. After all, it is a folk staple going back a few centuries, and the Wainright/McGarrigle/Roche clans are hip to all that. There are a couple of Loudon's songs, including Lullaby, where he sings to the horrible kid (Martha? Rufus? Lucy?) causing him so much grief, who needs to sleep so they can get up and do it all over again the next day. That's followed by Lullaby For A Doll, one of Kate's, a bittersweet song for a young Martha, her mother remembering her own childhood.


There are some others in the set to lighten the mood, including El Condor Pasa, best-known in its adaptation by Paul Simon, and the traditional tune Long Lankin, a vocal number the duo sings with their cousins, Lily and Sylvan Lanken, another family in-joke. The Wainwright Sisters delight in these family connections, and the way it's all wrapped around folk tradition. Good humour, good music, and the ties that bind.

MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: THE DEL-FI'S - CROWD PLEASER

Del-Fi Records was a Los Angeles label best known for signing Richie Valens and releasing La Bamba, plus being the home of early rockers The Bobby Fuller Four, Chan Romero of Hippy Hippy Shake fame (covered by The Beatles live), and even a young Frank Zappa. It was a small, but very cool label.


Toronto group The Del-Fi's are a small, but very cool new band. Small, in that they are an indie group, immersed in music, not hype and trends. Very cool, in that they have a great raw-roots feel, certainly something that the musicians around the old Del-Fi Records would have appreciated. Very cool as well, because they are 20-to-30-year-olds, probably never heard of Del-Fi Records or Chan Romero before, but sure love and can play the real roots stuff. They are old souls.


The group is an off-shoot project of songwriter Jerry Leger, one of the best young talents of the last half-decade, with a half-dozen of his own consistently strong albums. These are always rich, impressively-written sets, but sometimes you gotta just get the gang together and blast, you know? Leger had saved up a bunch of songs that had that old feel, with outlaws and femme fatales and Saturday nights and rockabilly and noisy bars. With a some fellow compatriots such as Sam Cash and Aaron Comeau, the Cameron House crew, they rolled into Comeau's trailer studio (The Trailer, natch) and in ten hours had eleven cuts down.


I wouldn't call it ragged,or sloppy,or raw, even if the band was after that feel, because it's not really true. Rough and ready perhaps, but this bunch is just too good for mistakes or late cues or parts that don't quite work. Mandolins, pedal steel, parlour piano, harmonica, it all fits right in as natural as can be. And while the songs were orphans, they aren't throw-aways from Leger's notebook. Who's Been Haunting You, with its Tex-Mex organ and slashing garage guitar is a wise take-down of a boy with a problem. Tabletop Jukebox might be a sentimental look back at seemingly better days, but it's hardly a novelty number, it's a statement of purpose: "Bring me back across the tracks, that's where I belong."


Catch the album launch why doncha? The Del-Fi's will release Crowd Pleaser with a show at Junction City Music Hall on Saturday, December 19.