The Rolling Stones — Sympathy For The Devil (Live) - OFFICIAL

JUL 01 1968 · 12:00

The Rolling Stones — Sympathy For The Devil (Live) - OFFICIAL (1968) Director: Michael Lindsay-Hogg Era: Late 1960s British Rock & Roll (1968) - Final live performance of the Rolling Stones' original lineup, filmed at The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus on December 12, 1968, six days after the release of Beggars Banquet; shelved until 1996 and restored in Dolby 4K for 2020 ABKCO release. Exceptionally high. This footage constitutes a singular primary historical document: the world premiere live performance of one of rock's most culturally significant songs, performed by the band's irreplaceable original lineup, filmed in intimate proximity by a pioneering music video director at the end of an all-night shoot. The combination of its long suppression, its 4K restoration, and its status as the last recorded appearance of Brian Jones in performance with the Stones makes it an irreplaceable archival artifact. The quantitative metrics — extreme low brightness, slow shot lengths, warm tungsten palette — directly reflect the physical and temporal conditions of its production, giving researchers a rare alignment of measurable aesthetic data with documented historical circumstance. Context: Filmed on December 12, 1968 — six days after the release of Beggars Banquet — this performance represents the Rolling Stones' first-ever live rendition of 'Sympathy for the Devil' and the final documented public performance of the band's original lineup. The Rock and Roll Circus was conceived as a BBC promotional vehicle set within a circus theatrical framework, but was shelved for nearly three decades. The track's first-person Satanic narrator voice, its samba-inflected rhythm, and its evocation of 20th-century atrocities made it among the most provocative songs of the era. Its suppression until 1996, and subsequent 4K digital restoration and ABKCO re-release in 2020, transforms the footage into a time-capsule document of the late-1960s British rock counterculture at its creative and cultural apex. Director notes: Lindsay-Hogg conceived and directed The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus in December 1968 as a promotional television special for the BBC. The 'Sympathy for the Devil' performance was filmed at approximately 5:30 a.m., making it the final performance of the evening and capturing the band's original lineup in their last documented live appearance together. Lindsay-Hogg deliberately framed the performance to exclude the audience from shots, intending the camera itself to serve as Jagger's primary interlocutor — positioning it approximately two feet from the performer throughout. The footage was shelved following Brian Jones's departure and death and was not released until 1996. The ABKCO-released 'OFFICIAL' version used for this annotation is drawn from a 2019 Dolby 4K restoration of the Rock and Roll Circus film, uploaded to ABKCO's YouTube channel in late October/November 2020. The clip runs approximately 7-8 minutes (consistent with the 461s duration) and represents previously unreleased material not included in the 1996 theatrical cut.