Stones at the Max

Production

Rolling Stones: Live at the Max was the first feature-length film ever to be filmed in IMAX format.

Imaging fed to the jumbotrons at concerts came from "bread trucks" switching live feeds from an army of video cameras. Midway through post, the request came to use some of this video that had been recorded on 3/4" tape in the final IMAX film. This began a crazy series of tests to improve and up-res this video to be shot on IMAX neg at the lens facility in Mississauga. Test neg was processed in New York, prints made, returned to Toronto for screening at the IMAX theater at Ontario Place. After many tries, a process was created to improve imaging enough to be used. Final release included approximately 6 minutes of this footage.

Originally shot with 8 IMAX cameras outfitted with the first long load film magazines, for 5 concerts in 3 cities. The magazines were so huge and the ballistics of the loading so unpredictable, there was no guarantee of complete coverage of any song in any single concert. Eventually trying to cut this on a flatbed proved impossible. Recently re-released EditDroids were in Toronto on various projects and one was custom configured with the help of the folks at Lucas in Los Angeles. All 35mm "twist reduction" work print was reassembled in original rolls, transferred to video and recorded on one-off laser videodiscs. The 8-headed Droid could load all data bases and imaging for a single song in all concert locations. The editors could jump to any point in a song, see what was available (or not) then jump to the same spot in all subsequent concerts. The trick was tracing back from the Droid data through LaserDisc data through video data back to 35mm stepdown print edge code and ultimately to the original IMAX neg - frame accurately to produce the neg cut list that needed to sync with the original 64 track digital recordings.

Home video

VHS, DVD and Blu-ray versions were released under the title Rolling Stones: Live at the Max.

See also the live album Flashpoint, released in 1991, from the same tour.

Track listing

All songs by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.

1. "Continental Drift"
2. "Start Me Up"
3. "Sad Sad Sad"
4. "Tumbling Dice"
5. "Ruby Tuesday"
6. "Rock and a Hard Place"
7. "Honky Tonk Women"
8. "You Can't Always Get What You Want"
9. "Happy"
10. "Paint It Black"
11. "2000 Light Years from Home"
12. "Sympathy for the Devil"
13. "Street Fighting Man"
14. "It's Only Rock 'n Roll (But I Like It)"
15. "Brown Sugar"
16. "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"

Personnel