“The Beatles are a recording band. It’s always been the Stones thing to get up on stage and kick the crap out of everything”
> Keith Richards told magazine London’s New Musical Express in 1969

IT had been two years since the Rolling Stones went on tour and the days of screaming teens getting their knickers in a damp knot and making the sound the band produced largely irrelevant had thankfully passed.

It was on this 1969 tour of America that the Stones built their reputation as the greatest rock and roll band in the world.

They even made such a proclamation in the introduction to this live album, featuring tracks from Madison Square Garden in New York and a concert in Baltimore.

This was new guitarist Mick Taylor’s first tour > after making his concert debut in front of an estimated 300,000 fans at a free concert in London’s Hyde Park.

Taylor’s playing enriched their blues sound > done with maximum effect on Love in Vain here. “Cry on, baby” moans Mick Jagger > and that’s exactly what Taylor’s guitar does.

He also proved himself a perfect foil for Keith Richards, whose rocking riffs are all over Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out.

 “I think I’ve lost a button on my trousers, I hope they don’t fall down … you don’t want my trousers to fall down now, do ya!”
> Mick Jagger to the audience on Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out

“Jimi (Hendrix) came to see us at Madison Square Garden. He sat through the show behind Keith’s amp. Not a safe place for most people”
> bass player Bill Wyman, from his book Rolling with the Stones.

THE SONGS

Great versions of Stones originals Sympathy for the Devil > with strong guitar solos > the rumbling groupie song Stray Cat Blues and Jumpin’ Jack Flash > “Oh yeah, it’s all right now, in fact it’s a gas.”

Mick Jagger changed the age of the conquested girl in Stray Cat Blues from 15 in the original to a how low can you go 13.  “Would you let your daughter go out with a Rolling Stone?” screamed the headlines in the 1960s [no bloody way if that’s what they’ve got in mind]

The piece de resistance on Ya-Ya’s  is a rampaging rendition of rape riot Midnight Rambler > with several changes of pace in a frenzy of rhythm, hot harmonica and violence vocals.

Keith Richards gets to pay tribute to one of his greatest influences > pioneer rock riff master Chuck Berry > on the Berry tunes Carol and Little Queenie.

 The remaining songs, Stones originals Live With Me, Honky Tonk Women and Street Fighting Man, just don’t get into the groove compared to other hot tracks.

Despite this, Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out is often rated as one of the best live albums ever > by any group.

RIOT IN COPENHAGEN

Hundreds of fans clambered to climb the stage during a concert in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1971 > after several thousand left their seats and invaded the stadium’s pitch area.

Police and security guards just managed to hold back the crowd.

> WORDS by MALCOLM LIVERMORE