The Rolling Stones
Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out!

THE REVIEW

Raise your hand if you don't consider this album one of the best live records in history. THERE YOU ARE! GET OUT! As we were saying, the second live album by the Rolling Stones (or rather the first, considering that "Got Live If You Want It" is heavily overdubbed) is one of the greatest live albums in rock history. Recorded over the course of three different concerts at Madison Square Garden in New York during the historic 1969 tour, it represents the most bluesy side of the Stones, and is a worthy successor to two excellent works like "Beggars Banquet" and "Let It Bleed". But let's proceed in order: after replacing the deceased Brian Jones with Mick Taylor, the Rolling Stones embarked on a long tour in the United States, during which they celebrated the blues that imbues them.

The album opens with the explosive riff of "Jumpin' Jack Flash", in a rough and fiercely aggressive version, followed by Chuck Berry's cover "Carol". Then we move on to pure blues: the triptych "Stray Cat Blues" - "Love In Vain" - "Midnight Rambler" is devastating, with the latter in particular lasting nine minutes and containing notable improvised parts and continuous duets between Keith Richards' guitar and Mick Jagger's harmonica. Side B of the album opens with the best-ever version of "Sympathy For The Devil", where, compared to the studio recording, Keith's guitar is much more prominent, freely ranging between solos and call-and-response with Mick; after this comes "Live With Me", immediately followed by another Berry cover, "Little Queenie", perhaps the most "roll" track on the entire album, along with the following "Honky Tonk Women", with its riff and catchy chorus. These songs alone would be enough to make this record a milestone, but the best is yet to come: although censored by radio for its revolutionary lyrics, the Stones do not refrain from offering to an ecstatic audience their masterpiece, the magnificent "Street Fightin' Man", highlighting it as much as possible by placing it as the closing track; you can feel the blues flowing in the crescendo attack of Bill Wyman's bass and Mick Taylor's guitar, while the song explodes with the entrance of Charlie Watts' drums, as Keith Richards proudly duets with the piano towards the end.

The only jarring note of the album: the duration. It should have been released as a double album, but the record executives of the era did not agree. They are probably still kicking themselves, and so are we, because certainly Gimme Shelter, Satisfaction, and Under My Thumb (among the various other songs played during the tour) would not have looked out of place on this album. In short, rating: 5/5, for the tracks included and the quality of the performances. My favorite Stones album.