The four El Mocambo songs tucked into Love You Live weren’t pure the band overdubbed new parts onto some of them. The El Mocambo tracks, pushed on by a clearly audible and enthralled small audience, presented them as a band that wanted to re-connect with those fans and stay relevant, just as punk rock was rearing its spiky head. The distant crowd roar heard throughout most of Love You Live was a metaphor for how removed the Stones had become from the average rock fan, not to mention most mundane household chores. With Mick Jagger unleashing a new style of growl, their crackling covers of Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley and Willie Dixon songs paid strutting homage to their heroes, and the recordings were so visceral that you felt as if you were in the first few rows of the 300-seat club. And judging from the small portion of the two El Mocambo shows heard on Love You Live, they stepped up to the job. Playing in front of a few hundred people, and unable to hide behind props like the giant inflatable penis of the 1975 shows, the Stones had to focus on music, not spectacle. But tucked away (on side three) were four songs cut at Toronto’s tiny El Mocambo club in March 1977, when the Stones played a surprise set billed as “The Cockroaches.” For 45 years, the Rolling Stones’ Love You Live has been one of rock’s greatest teases. About 75 percent of the double LP was recorded in arenas and stadiums during the band’s 1976 tour, and presented competent but rarely exhilarating or necessary renditions of concert warhorses and deep cuts.

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