DVD/2CD Review: The Rolling Stones - From The Vault: L.A. Forum (Live in 1975)

As recording artists the Rolling Stones by 1975 were, depending on your perspective, either trudging through a provisional rut or growing accustomed to the status of a legacy act. Their magnum opus, Exile on Main Street, was ensconced three years in the past; their brazen resurgence (or anomalous triumph), Some Girls, lay three years ahead; and their weakest effort in the interim, It’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll, was what they’d ostensibly mounted their much-hyped Tour of the Americas to promote.

Of course by this point the Stones didn’t need to release a spectacular album to sell concert tickets. Not only was their reputation as live performers arguably unsurpassed in this era but, as evidenced on L.A. Forum (Live in 1975) — recorded during a five-night stand at the Forum, bootlegged for years thereafter, refurbished and most recently released as a DVD/2CD set by Eagle Rock — utterly justified.  


With the ever gregarious lead guitarist Ronnie Wood now in tow after having replaced the often taciturn Mick Taylor, the band is especially rambunctious during the 24-song set, even by Stones standards — not unlike Wood’s old mates, The Faces, veritable connoisseurs of errant behavior both on and off the stage. Auxiliary musicians (including percussionist Ollie E. Brown, saxophonist Trevor Lawrence, and keyboardist Billy Preston) no doubt enrich the sound and each man has his moments, but ultimately it’s the Stones stalwarts (Ian Stewart, Bobby Keys) that prove indispensable.


Flamboyant to a fault, Mick Jagger unleashes a primal, savage growl throughout that gives even the ballsiest songs (“Rip This Joint,” “Star Star,” “Brown Sugar”) an added guttural thrust. On the rare ballad (most notably “Angie”) he summons a soul man’s urgent ache, his gruff vocal suggesting Otis Redding’s raw, Southern-bred inspiration. Yet it’s on a torrid, sixteen-minute romp through “Midnight Rambler” that Jagger is at his most intoxicating, at turns humping and writhing atop the stage floor, brandishing his glittered belt like a whip as if in a masochistic fit. It’s a steal-the-show moment in any other band’s show. But this is the Rolling Stones in their prime as live performers, and L.A. Forum (Live in 1975) thrills from start to finish. 

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Album Review: Ronnie Wood - I Feel Like Playing

When you’re already a member of one of rock ’n’ roll’s most legendary, successful bands, odds are you don’t get the urge to make a solo album unless you have something to say.

The past few years have been rather bumpy ones for Ronnie Wood, who hit some turbulence in his personal life only to see it parodied by the tabloid press. It wouldn’t be all that far-fetched, then, to think he may want to get some things off his chest through his music. Not that the Rolling Stones guitarist should need a reason to record a solo album; his seventh and latest such release, I Feel Like Playing (Eagle Records), is fantastic.

A venerable slate of guest and backing musicians make appearances throughout, including Slash, ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons, and Bobby Womack. Also on hand are vocalist Bernard Fowler and bassist Darryl Jones—both men stalwarts of the Stones touring entourage—giving Wood some of the comforts of home even while he’s out on his own. 

For his part Wood sounds invigorated, with his raspy, Dylanesque singing on rambunctious cuts like “Thing About You” and “I Don't Think So” betraying a kind of precocious, little-boy-inside-a-man enthusiasm. Things get even funkier on “Fancy Pants,” a modish ode to British men’s sartorial excess set to a raunchy, thick-riffed groove.

It’s not all roguish mischief and bravado, however, as “I Gotta See” features Wood and Fowler engaging in a soulful, near call-and-response duet that gives the song a gospel resonance. Wood turns strikingly tender and compelling, though, on “Why You Wanna Go and Do A Thing Like That For,” his grim vocal betraying the fragility of a heartbroken man.

In the end, though, whether or not I Feel Like Playing is Ronnie Wood's way of working through some things doesn't matter as much as how good of an album he has made.

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