The Rolling Stones: Steel Wheels - Live Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		1.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.5

The Rolling Stones: Steel Wheels - Live Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 5, 2020

Eagle Rock continues what has been a rather interesting set of releases culled from the video archives of The Rolling Stones, many of which have been branded as “from the vault” and almost all so far put out on so-called “SD BD” formats, meaning that video is upscaled and not always in great looking condition. So far this series has included The Rolling Stones: From the Vault - Hampton Coliseum - Live in 1981, The Rolling Stones: From the Vault - The Marquee - Live in 1971, The Rolling Stones: From the Vault — Hyde Park Live, 1969, The Rolling Stones From the Vault: Live at the Tokyo Dome, The Rolling Stones From the Vault: Live at Leeds, The Rolling Stones: From the Vault - Sticky Fingers Live at the Fonda Theatre (this last, and perhaps not so coincidentally fairly recently performed, release is the one that's in "true" high definition) and The Rolling Stones: From the Vault - No Security - San Jose '99 . If the video side of things often leaves more than a bit to be desired in many of these releases, one thing is made absolutely, unmistakably clear: the Stones seem to be genetically incapable of providing a bad live performance, something that's once again in evidence on Steel Wheels Live Atlantic City New Jersey.

This 1989 concert marked the Stones' last tour with Bill Wyman and was actually their return to live performance after having not been on the road for years. You'd hardly know it from the high energy concert, which sees Mick in fine form (so much so that getting even a reasonable screenshot of him not in some kind of manic motion proved to be quite a challenge) and the rest of the band sounding tight. The concert's set list is as follows:

1. Intro
2. Start Me Up
3. Bitch
4. Sad Sad Sad
5. Undercover Of The Night
6. Harlem Shuffle
7. Tumbling Dice
8. Miss You
9. Terrifying
10. Ruby Tuesday
11. Salt Of The Earth (featuring Axl Rose & Izzy Stradlin)
12. Rock And A Hard Place
13. Mixed Emotions
14. Honky Tonk Women
15. Midnight Rambler
16. You Can’t Always Get What You Want
17. Little Red Rooster (featuring Eric Clapton)
18. Boogie Chillen (featuring Eric Clapton & John Lee Hooker)
19. Can’t Be Seen
20. Happy
21. Paint It Black
22. 2,000 Light Years From Home
23. Sympathy For The Devil
24. Gimme Shelter
25. It’s Only Rock n Roll (But I Like It)
26. Brown Sugar
27. (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction
28. Jumpin’ Jack Flash

The Rolling Stones: Steel Wheels - Live Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Rolling Stones Steel Wheels Live Atlantic City New Jersey is presented on (so-called "SD") Blu-ray courtesy of Eagle Rock Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.33:1. Even by the rather lackluster standards that several of these SD Blu-ray have offered, this is one of the less well detailed presentations, one that is also beset with some of the worst combing and upscaling artifacts I've personally seen in this series. Detail is pretty minimal, and the entire concert can look waxy and smeary, even without the "benefit" of DNR (this is said as a joke, in case it's not clear). The best thing here is probably the palette, which still pops with some authority on elements like Mick's bright blue shirt or some of the stage lighting.

The Rolling Stones: Steel Wheels - Live Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Luckily, as tends to be the case with most of the SD Blu-rays Eagle Rock has released, the audio component is much stronger. Both the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and LPCM 2.0 tracks offer good, solid fidelity. The surround track nicely opens up the soundstage, though as tends to be the case with me personally, I sometimes wished the vocals were a little bit more forward in the mix. The rhythm section sounds precise and both midrange and low end are quite forceful throughout. As Eagle Rock tends to do on many of their concert fare releases, the disc is authored to default to the stereo track.

The Rolling Stones: Steel Wheels - Live Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There are no supplements on the Blu-ray disc. The digipack comes with 2 CDs offering the complete concert, as well as a nicely appointed insert booklet with an essay and lots of stills.

The Rolling Stones: Steel Wheels - Live Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

If you can get past the often kind of shoddy looking video, this is another fantastically energetic performance by The Stones, and some of the "special guest stars" add extra allure. As I've often mentioned in other reviews of these SD Blu-ray releases, you'd almost be better advised to just leave your monitor and/or display off and simply enjoy this as an audio Blu-ray. In that regard, audio sounds great here, but those interested in a purchase should peruse the screenshots accompanying this review to see how they feel about how things look.