The Rolling Stones celebrated the 40th anniversary of Rock and Roll Circus this week by selling the classic live album for $3.99.
The special price was for 24 hours, 40 years to the day from when the band performed the historic show.The Rock and Roll Circus featured the most amazing line-up in history. On December 11, 1968, the Rolling Stones, John & Yoko, The Who, Jethro Tull, Marianne Faithfull and Taj Mahal as well as Eric Clapton and Mitch Mitchell, gathered to perform the historic show with the intention of it airing shortly after on the BBC.
Instead, the recording was not officially released for another 30 years.
Mick Jagger hated the Stones performance and the show was shelved.
However, in 1996, he finally gave in and allowed a CD of the show to be released. Until then, it had become one of the most bootlegged shows in history.
The filming did not go well. The first of the performances began at 2pm but the final performance did not finish until 5am the next day.
The production was a nightmare, acts took longer than expected to set-up and cameras kept breaking down.
Jagger was so disappointed with the results that he cancelled the broadcast.
It is also historic because it became the last every performance of Stones founder Brian Jones. 6 months later, Jones was found dead in his swimming pool.
A remastered version of the concert was released on DVD in 2004. It is an incredible performance.
The song performed included John Lennon doing his Beatles song ‘Yer Blues’, The Who with ‘A Quick One While He’s Away’ and Tull with ‘A Song For Jeffrey’.
John Lennon introduced the Rolling Stones who performed ‘Jumping Jack Flash’, ‘Parachute Woman’, ‘No Expectations’, ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’, ‘Sympathy For The Devil’ and ‘Salt Of The Earth’.
