A solid live album feature recent (Slide on This) and older material with some familiar faces.
Kronomyth 8.0: Wood roarier.
Ron Wood wasn’t gathering much moss of late, with three world tours in the last five years: The Gunslingers with Bo Diddley, the Rolling Stones’ Steel Wheels/Urban Jungle tour and, captured here, the Slide On Live tour with the Ronnie Wood Band. Slide On Live – Plugged In And Standing (the title is a wink and a nod to Rod Stewart’s Unplugged… And Seated) is the first live disc from Wood to focus on his own career, featuring a handful of songs from his latest release (Slide On This) plus earlier stuff (“I Can Feel The Fire,” “Seven Days”) and material from The Faces (“Stay With Me”) and the Stones (“Pretty Beat Up”).
For the tour, Wood enlisted familiar faces Bernard Fowler, Ian McLagan and Wayne Sheehy from the Slide On This sessions plus Johnny Lee Schell (guitar) and Shaun Solomon (bass). Ronnie’s the star of the show, naturally, but smart enough not to rely on his voice all of the time, leaning on Bernard Fowler and, on The Faces’ “Silicon Grown,” Ian McLagan to take the lead vocals.
Slide On Live is a nice brisk walk through Wood’s work that never hits a lull or lingers too long at one place. The material from his most recent album (“Testify,” “Josephine,” “Show Me”) is good stuff, arguably better than the Stones’ rock-by-rote records of late. Ronnie had a more reasonable claim to the music of The Faces than the Stones, so it’s not surprising that only one or two Stones tracks made it into the show. (Rod Stewart also performed “Stay With Me” in his Vagabond Heart tour from 1992, but he was no longer the face of The Faces.) Ronnie’s not looking to re-imagine any of these songs on stage, just capture their original appeal and maybe kick up the energy a notch or two.
It’s as solid a live record as you could want; Ronnie’s fans clearly got their money’s worth, and for $12-15, so can you. Ronnie (or someone) seemed to think enough of the disc to re-release it in 1997 with a new pair of studio tracks, and issue more performances from the same tour as Live And Eclectic in 2000.
The Songs
1. Testify (George Clinton/Daron Taylor)
2. Josephine (Ron Wood/Bernard Fowler)
3. Pretty Beat Up (Mick Jagger/Keith Richards/Ron Wood)
4. Am I Groovin You? (Bert Berns/Jeff Barry)
5. Flying (Ron Wood/Rod Stewart/Ronnie Lane)
6. Breath On Me (Ron Wood)
7. Silicon Grown (Ron Wood/Rod Stewart)
8. Seven Days (Bob Dylan)
9. Show Me & Show Me (Groove) (Jerry Williams)
10. I Can Feel The Fire (Ron Wood)
11. Around The Plinth* (Ron Wood/Rod Stewart)
12. Gasoline Alley* (Ron Wood/Rod Stewart)
13. Traditional* (Traditional, arr. by Ron Wood)
14. Stay With Me (Ron Wood/Rod Stewart)
Expanded CD bonus tracks
15. I Don’t Know What You’ve Got
16. You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me
* Tracks 11-13 appear to be credited as one track (“Slide Inst.”) on the back cover of the CD and cassette versions (track 9 is also listed as two tracks). The internal booklet for Continuum #19309-2 lists fourteen tracks.
The Players
Ron Wood (vocals, guitars), Bernard Fowler (vocals), Ian McLagan (keyboards), Johnny Lee Schell (guitars), Wayne P. Sheehy (drums), Shaun Solomon (bass) with Chuck Leavell (additional keyboards). Produced by Bernard Fowler, Ron Wood and Eoghan McCarron; mixed by Bernard Fowler and Eoghan McCarron; live recording engineered by D2; edited and compiled by Eoghan McCarron and D2.
Did You Know?
- “Plugged In And Standing” is a reference to Rod Stewart’s acoustic show released earlier in the year, “Unplugged… And Seated,” which also featured Wood.
- Other songs performed during the Slide On Live North American Tour included “Little Red Rooster,” “I’m Losing You,” “Black Limousine,” “Somebody Else Might” and “It’s Only Rock And Roll.”
- Ronnie also performed “Seven Days” live at Bob Dylan’s 30th Anniversary Concert on October 16, 1992 in Madison Square Garden.
The Pictures
Album design & layout by Continuum In-House Art.
The Plastic
Recorded live on October 31, 1992 (The Ritz), December 3, 1992 (Avalon Club) and January 14, 1993 (Nippon Budokan) and released on 2LP, CD and cassette on September 27, 1993 in the UK (Continuum, CTUM3), the US (Continuum, 19309-2) and Japan (Sony, SRCS-6855).
- Re-released on expanded CD (with two bonus tracks) in 1997 in Japan (Ariola, BVCP-6087) with different cover.
