The Rolling Stones' Rock and Roll Circus, filmed December 1968 but shelved for nearly three decades, documents a pivotal moment when the band's mystique collided with live performance reality. Mick Jagger's ambitious television spectacle—complete with circus trappings and stellar supporting acts—foundered when the Stones' own midnight set failed to match the Who's afternoon dominance, prompting Jagger to vault the tapes. This expanded remaster restores not just the Stones' genuinely ragged performance, with Charlie Watts sounding simultaneously depleted and locked in, but John Lennon's ferocious Dirty Mac set. Essential for understanding late-period Stones
⚡ Quick Answer: The Rolling Stones' Rock and Roll Circus, filmed in 1968 but shelved for decades, captures raw performances worth revisiting. Highlights include John Lennon's ferocious Dirty Mac set and the Stones' genuinely ragged midnight performance, with Charlie Watts sounding simultaneously exhausted and locked in. The expanded remaster finally does justice to this legendary, nearly-forgotten television special.
There is a version of this record that lives in your collection as a curiosity — the famous TV special that never aired, the night John Lennon played guitar in a leather jacket while Yoko sat on the stage floor wrapped in a bag. You’ve put it on a few times at parties, let “Sympathy for the Devil” do its work, then flipped to something else. Tonight, do it differently. Sit down with it.
The Rock and Roll Circus was filmed at Internel Studios in Wembley over two days in December 1968, and the whole enterprise was Mick Jagger’s idea — a proper televised spectacle with a big top, acrobats, fire-eaters, and the greatest rock band in the world closing the show. Except the Stones didn’t close it well enough, at least not to their own satisfaction. Jagger watched the Who tear the roof off the tent during their afternoon set and apparently decided the Stones’ own performance looked pale by comparison. The tapes went into a vault. They sat there for twenty-eight years.
What You Might Have Missed
The Dirty Mac sequence, which opens side two of this expanded edition, deserves more than the five minutes you’ve probably given it. John Lennon assembled this pickup band specifically for the Circus — Keith Richards on bass (not his instrument, and it shows in the best possible way), Mitch Mitchell from the Jimi Hendrix Experience on drums, and Eric Clapton on lead. They play “Yer Blues” from the White Album, released just six weeks earlier. Lennon is ferocious. His voice is cracked open and raw in a way the studio version never quite captures.
Then comes Yoko and Ivry Gitlis, the classical violinist, joining for a freeform piece called “Whole Lotta Yoko.” Most people skip it. Don’t skip it tonight. Gitlis was sixty-something years old, a concert hall virtuoso, and here he is scraping his bow across a violin while Lennon feeds back through a Marshall and Yoko makes sounds that have no genre. It is completely unhinged and completely sincere and it lasts four minutes. It rewards the patience.
The Stones Themselves
The Stones’ set — recorded somewhere around 2 AM after a full day of filming — is genuinely ragged in ways that a careful listen rewards. Charlie Watts sounds exhausted and locked in simultaneously, which turns out to be his whole genius in concentrated form. “Jumping Jack Flash” has a looseness that none of the studio versions ever achieved. “Sympathy for the Devil” runs over ten minutes here, and the conga work from Rocky Dijon drags it into something hypnotic and genuinely menacing. The Stones were right that they weren’t at their peak that night. They were also wrong to bury it.
The sound on the expanded edition, finally released officially in 1996 and remastered since, is better than it has any right to be given the circumstances — a live television recording from a circus tent at midnight. ABKCO’s reissue production managed to pull genuine warmth out of those 1968 tapes. The low end on “Salt of the Earth,” which closes the set with the full company joining in, is something you feel in the chest if your room is set up right.
Jethro Tull plays a number. The Who play “A Quick One While He’s Away” in its entirety and it is one of the greatest live performances they ever committed to tape. Marianne Faithfull sings “Something Better.” Taj Mahal opens the whole night.
There’s a reason this didn’t feel like a singular experience on the first few listens — it’s too dense, too varied, and the Dirty Mac segment always seemed like an interesting footnote rather than the centerpiece it actually is. Put on the headphones. Find the moment where Lennon hits the second verse of “Yer Blues” and Richards’ bass note rings just slightly too long. That’s the sound of four extraordinary musicians playing together for the first and only time, at midnight, in a circus tent, with nothing to lose.
🎵 Key Takeaways
- 🎬 The Stones shelved this 1968 circus performance for 28 years because Mick Jagger thought they looked pale next to The Who's afternoon set, then reluctantly released it in 1996.
- 🎸 John Lennon's Dirty Mac segment — featuring Keith Richards on bass and Eric Clapton, plus a four-minute unhinged Yoko/classical violinist piece — deserves far more attention than the five minutes most listeners give it.
- 🥁 Charlie Watts' performance at 2 AM sounds simultaneously exhausted and locked-in, with 'Jumping Jack Flash' achieving a looseness the studio versions never captured.
- 🔊 The expanded remaster pulls genuine warmth from 1968 circus-tent live tapes, with 'Sympathy for the Devil' stretching to ten minutes and its conga work becoming genuinely hypnotic.
Why was Rock and Roll Circus shelved for 28 years?
Mick Jagger deemed the Stones' midnight performance inadequate after watching The Who's powerful afternoon set, so he locked the tapes away in 1968. The special finally saw official release in 1996, over two decades later.
Who performed in Dirty Mac and what made it special?
John Lennon assembled a pickup band featuring Keith Richards on bass, Mitch Mitchell (Jimi Hendrix Experience) on drums, and Eric Clapton on lead guitar. The segment includes the freeform 'Whole Lotta Yoko' with classical violinist Ivry Gitlis, creating something genuinely unhinged and sincere that rewards close listening.
How does Charlie Watts' drumming stand out on this recording?
Recorded around 2 AM after a full day of filming, Watts sounds exhausted yet locked-in simultaneously — a concentrated distillation of his genius. His work on 'Jumping Jack Flash' achieves a looseness that studio versions never captured.
What other notable acts performed at the circus?
The Who delivered one of their greatest live performances with 'A Quick One While He's Away,' Jethro Tull and Taj Mahal also played, and Marianne Faithfull performed 'Something Better.' The density and variety made it feel less singular on first listens.