The Rolling Stones have shared archival footage of their first-ever live performance of their 1968 track ‘Sympathy for the Devil’. Uploaded on US label ABCKO’s YouTube channel earlier this week, the clip is a previously unreleased cut from the band’s 1996 concert film Rock and Roll Circus that didn’t make it into the final version. Watch it below.
The video features the outfit’s original lineup as it was when the performance was initially filmed on December 12th, 1968 – just six days after the release of Beggars Banquet – with Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts, Ian Stewart, and then bandleader Brian Jones. John Lennon makes a brief cameo at the 4:54 mark, having also performed during the gig as part of The Dirty Mac supergroup along with Eric Clapton, Richards and Mitch Mitchell.
“It was an incredible shoot, I think, 36 hours or something,” said Keith Richards in a statement. “I remember not remembering everything towards the end… but it was fun… we went through two audiences… wore one out… it was great!”
Recalling his experience shooting the film, director Lindsay-Hogg added: “[Mick Jagger] used the last shred of the great performer that he is. The camera was right there in front of him to use as he wanted. It wasn’t observing him from a distance; it was two feet away from him and he and the cameras were molded to each other almost because he used it so wonderfully.”
Earlier this year, The Rolling Stones released a reissue of their 1973 LP Goat’s Head Soup, featuring the previously unreleased tracks ‘Criss Cross’ and ‘Scarlet’.