Words by

Mike Pollock

Charlie’s Good Tonight
Charlie is brilliant and right on the button as usual. Track one on CD2 is the hottest version of “ NEIGHBOURS” I have ever heard! Now this one makes this trip worthwhile, fantastic drum work, full throttle Chuck-Berryish guitars and bass like stampeding rhinos. Then BAM they fall on their face with a lame ass version of the great rock song off Exile on Mainstreet “Rocks Off.”
Next up is “Can’t Ya Hear Me Knockin.” The intro to this song by Keith Richards on the original version is one of the best guitar licks/intros in rock n roll history. When you hear it you can imagine flames shootin’ out of his ass, but all we get on this version is a little smoke.

Where’s Rubin When You Need Him?
Track 9 brings us to “Rock Me Baby.” I still say I would love to see the Stones get down to the basics and hire Rick Rubin or Jack White and make the kinda cut-the- crap-back-to-the-roots CD I know they are capable of. I have heard enough studio bootlegs to know that the Stones are still a badass blues band, but this version of “Rock Me” just ain’t giving me a hard on and if you gonna mess with this blues classic on an official live CD you better dig up somethin better than this! Mick, where the hell is the fantastic Chicago Blues Harp I know damn well you can play!? Now Keith, he’s doin’ some tasty guitar work and the rest of the band is cookin’ pretty good, but then Ron Wood comes in with some shit (awful tone & tasteless solo) that’s definitely killin’ my dick. Muddy Waters used to stop his band if somebody hit a bum note and tell the guilty party to stop it because it was hurting his dick!;)

Not to Be Messed With
A great reggae song with Keith on vocals is “You Don’t Have To Mean It” that I’m sure I’d be raving about if I smoked a couple of his Jamaican brand cigarettes. Last but not least by a long shot is a shit hot version of “EVERYBODY NEEDS SOMEBODY TO LOVE” with the Great Solomon Burke as guest singer; the whole band is kickin’ ass and I can just see in my mind the party really gettin’ out of hand now, tables & chairs flyin’ everywhere, snacks whipped around the room like confetti and one gal dancin’ with her panties on her head as Live Licks comes to an end. Completists/Collectors will buy this, people who went to see The Stones on the Live Licks Tour will want this for a memo, but hardcore fans won’t mess with it at all.