Rolling Stones Live at Max [Blu-ray]

This 1991 concert film was shot in the IMAX format and was originally presented on enormous IMAX screens, with outstanding visual and audio clarity. The dimensions may have been scaled down for this DVD release, but the show is still huge in energy and talent. 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"), but the band's performance is so furious that the show is far from a pandering oldies act. 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 peformance of "Sympathy for the Devil." The DVD also includes a full Stones discography. --Tom Keogh