Live Licks

Live Licks' incorporates all the best live moments from The Rolling Stones record breaking `Licks' tour of 2002/2003. Featuring loads of their classic tracks like `Brown Sugar' and `Paint It Black' as well as less well known (and rarely played live) tunes like `Rocks Off' and `Beast Of Burden', this is the ultimate document from one of the best live bands around. Explicit cover.

The Rolling Stones have built themselves a fine conundrum with this double-disc anthology culled from performances on their 40th Anniversary tour of 2002-03, releasing arguably their most comprehensive and compelling live recording at a moment in history when it seems to matter least. The Stones' by now overwhelming spate of live albums has consistently been the most disappointing part of their considerable oeuvre, but the band--particularly the chunky/bluesy twin guitar locomotion of Keith Richards and Ron Wood--are in a form here that rivals the halcyon touring behind Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main Street. Befitting this tour's anniversary aims, they tackle material that ranges from their original Brit Invasion roots ("Satisfaction," "Paint It Black") through 70's superstardom (with Sheryl Crow guesting on "Honky Tonky Women") and a middle-age that was anything but staid. Disc two is largely given over to paying energetic, loving tribute to roots heroes like B.B. King ("Rock Me, Baby"), Otis Redding ("That's How Strong My Love Is") and even Hoagy Carmichael (Richards' raggedly sweet "The Nearness of You"), concluding the show with Mick Jagger's voice triumphantly being joined by soul legend Solomon Burke on a buoyant, gospel-fervent version of his "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love." --Jerry McCulley