Consider what listeners expect from a live album now, and a half-hour-long play just won’t cut it. Movies that take up every screen of a Vue cinema, freezing out independent dramas in the process, merchandise peddled from the leftover stock of venues across the world, and a series of variant releases which mean you can listen to the album and then once more, but with a blue splatter on the record. What a thrill the modern world can be. Got Live If You Want It!, a live album from The Rolling Stones’ years as a blues rock band chasing The Beatles, is a no-frills experience. The Stones we shall have, as the announcer confirms. It’s a bold claim to make, given how drowned out in the screams of the crowd the band are the whole way through. But it is a capsule of the times. Got Live If You Want It!, as unlistenable as it is in parts, is a fantastic example of the band’s popularity.
But that was never in doubt. The Rolling Stones are household names because of the seismic shift they provided in the 1960s and 1970s. Under My Thumb is a fantastic opener to this short and slick set of classics from the band. It is staggering to see just how many great songs the band had at this early point in their careers, but you can see just how much they had to offer from the tracklist alone. Instrumentally impressive moments are what you can hold onto when the crowd gets a little too boisterous. We should not knock the crowd for being excited by an all-time great band, but surely, they could have been lost in the mix. Under My Thumb contends with this well and then the instrumental strengths of Get Off of My Cloud are lost to the screams.
Got Live If You Want It! serves more as an example of modern-day gig etiquette than anything else. Can anyone truly enjoy a performance if the rest of the crowd scream the whole way through, be it because they find the band attractive or heard a new thrill in their instrumental quality? Unsurprisingly, the answer is no. This is a brief performance where even the focus on Jagger, harmonica blows on Not Fade Away and guitar strengths of (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, cannot hide the shortcomings of the recording itself. Considering how many other performances there are by The Rolling Stones, this is a last resort listen, one for those who have heard everything else released. Fortune Teller is difficult too, once more because of the crowd. Had that volume been balanced then the screeches, the horrors, would be manageable.
It’s not to be for Got Live If You Want It!, a live album lost to the live spectacle. Pretty dismal but the songs themselves are not the problem. These are excellent pieces of work, like The Last Time and Lady Jane, just not brought through to the live album well. It’s not a fault of the performance, either, which from what you can hear over the screams, does sound relatively strong from The Rolling Stones. Jagger comes across well, a strong vocal lead to the blues rock thrills of the band during this time. Flashes of brilliance on Time Is on My Side are not enough to pull Got Live If You Want It! together, and that much is a real shame. Moments of interest but none of them are essential. Strong performances if you can hear them, which the crowd will certainly challenge as best they can.
