The Rolling Stones: Live at the Max (DVD), Umvd Labels, Music & Performance

This 1991 concert film was one of the first to be shot and presented in IMAX format, with outstanding visual and audio clarity. Restored in high-definition to it's original spectacular visual clarity and available on DVD for the very first time. Filmed during a European leg of The Rolling Stones' Steel Wheels tour, this production boasts 15 songs and an extraordinary stage set with inflatable floozies (for Honky Tonk Woman) and wild dogs (rather cleverly for Street Fighting Man). The Stones' set emphasizes material from the late 1960s and early '70s (Tumbling Dice, Happy, You Can't Always Get What You Want). Highlights include Paint It Black, at once brutal and delicate, as well as a muscular Rock And a Hard Place, a psychedelicized 2,000 Light Years from Home, and a cheeky It's Only Rock 'N Roll. Once kings of a gloriously sloppy sound, the Stones prove to be as effective in their artistic maturity with small, breathtaking touches as they are with chunky orchestration. Guitarists Keith Richards and Ron Wood play as if they are of one mind, Richards providing powerful leads while his partner captures some of the texture of the group's original recordings. Bassist Bill Wyman, still in the band at this phase, offers wit and an encyclopedic grasp of rhythm & blues history, while drummer Charlie Watts adds control and swing. Mick Jagger prowls, climbs around the set and delivers all the charismatic goods for adoring audiences, even touching the forbidden fruit again in a feverish performance of Sympathy for the Devil.