Live'r Than You'll Ever Be is a bootleg recording of the Rolling Stones' concert in Oakland, California, from 9 November 1969. It was one of the first live rock music bootlegs and was made notorious as a document of their 1969 tour of the United States. The popularity of the bootleg forced the Stones' label Decca Records to release the live albumGet Yer Ya-Ya's Out!The Rolling Stones in Concert in 1970. Live'r is also one of the earliest commercial bootleg recordings in rock history, released in December 1969, just two months after the Beatles' Kum Back and five months after Bob Dylan's Great White Wonder. Like the two earlier records, Live'rs outer sleeve is plain white, with its name stamped on in ink.
Recording and release
Live'r Than You'll Ever Be was recorded by "Dub" Taylor from Trademark of Quality using a Sennheisershotgun microphone and a Uher "Report 4000" reel-to-reel tape recorder. It was the first audience-recorded rock bootleg to be mastered and distributed; some sources consider it the first live bootleg. Though the sound is not nearly as clear as the official release of Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out!, the recording is considered to be very strong for an audience recording, especially one of that era. The Rolling Stones performed two sets that night and it is the second concert that was more heavily bootlegged and has sharper sound. Bootleggers had collaborated to record Stones shows across the United States, recording them on two-trackSony recorders for months prior to the release of the album. At least one source claims that the recordings initially came from rock promoter Bill Graham's staff, who used the tapes for broadcast on KSAN and released their edit on Lurch Records in early 1970. The recording was made available about one month after the concert, and it became popular enough to spur speculation that the Stones released Ya-Ya's as a response to the bootleg and the quality was high enough that it was rumoured that the band had even released the bootleg themselves. The recording has been released through several bootleg labels, including the original release by Lurch and shortly thereafter Trademark of Quality, Swingin' Pig, and Sister Morphine, usually documenting only the second set. The Swingin' Pig release even replace performances of "Jumpin' Jack Flash" and "Under My Thumb" with different recordings from the band's 10 November performance in San Diego and their two-night stint in New York City and attempted to enhance the sound quality by using de-clicking technology—both changes have drawn criticism in comparison to the original Lurch Records release.
Reception and influence
Live'r Than You'll Ever Be was favourably reviewed by Greil Marcus in the 7 February 1970 issue of Rolling Stone. He praised its sound and speculated that it may have been recorded from the stage; footage from this concert was recorded by ABKCO Records for the film Gimme Shelter. The album also received praise as a more authentic example of the Stones on stage because Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! was heavily overdubbed in many places. Richie Unterberger has noted that the recording is inferior to the sound quality of Ya-Ya's, but displays a spontaneity that the official recording lacks and this helps to explain its long-lasting appeal to fans. Reviewing the album in 1970, Wim Wenders called it "the best Rolling Stones record." "John Peel reviewed this in Rolling Stone magazine," remarked photographer Ross Halfin, "and said that it was the greatest live album ever, and a great lost live album." The album eventually sold enough to qualify for a gold recordRIAA certification, with TMOQ sources claiming that it had sold 250,000 copies by November 1970; 150,000 of which were produced by other bootleggers. Although the album did not chart on the Billboard 200, the magazine included it in a list of best-selling bootlegs in 1971, noting that hard sales figures were impossible to confirm, but six-figure numbers had been routinely discussed. The sleeve's generic design was copied by The Who's 1970 album Live at Leeds.
Track listing
All songs written by Jagger/Richards, except where noted ;Side one
