Here is where the Stones almost blow it. Just as they are building incredible momentum, releasing a series of incredibly strong hit singles that prove they are legitimate rivals to the Beatles, they release a truly lousy live album, preceded by a mediocre single.

The Beatles utilized quality control on their releases to the point that they seemed almost too perfect, with excellent production quality, brilliant album sequencing (in the UK, at least), and attention to detail with their packaging. The Rolling Stones already gave the impression that they were less concerned with such mundanities, but “Got Live if You Want It” shows such utter disregard for quality that it makes the band look slipshod, if not downright foolish. The album sounds outdated, more like a relic from the old days of 1965, rather than the ‘progressive’ sounds of late ’66. Worse, some of the tracks aren’t even really live at all, but instead are old studio recordings with overdubbed crowd noise. The mix is so sloppy that they fail to even disguise this ploy, by placing the crown noises on one side of the stereo mix only, thus allowing an adroit listener to ‘pan’ to one side and hear the original studio recording with no crowd at all!

“Have You Seen Your Mother Baby, Standing in the Shadow”, besides having a ludicrously long title, was a murky mess of a track that did little to further the image of the band – unless you want to consider the 45 RPM single sleeve that showed the band members dressed in drag (looking more like middle-aged housewives than pin ups), or worse, the photos that surfaced of Brian Jones in Nazi regalia. If that, combined with all of these other potentially lethal missteps, couldn’t kill their career, nothing could. If nothing else, this show proves that by late 1966, the Rolling Stones were Teflon.

Featured tracks include;

1) Have You Seen Your Mother Baby, Standing in the Shadow?

2) Who’s Driving Your Plane?

3) Under My Thumb

4) Get Off of My Cloud

5) Lady Jane

6) Not Fade Away

7) I’ve Been Loving You To Long

8) Fortune Teller

9) The Last Time

10) 19th Nervous Breakdown

11) Time Is on My Side

12) I’m Alright

13) Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby…

14) (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction

15) If You Let Me