Live at the El Mocambo: Slipmat

This slipmat features artwork from the Live at the El Mocambo release.

Live At The El Mocambo marks the first official appearance of the group's two famous secret concerts at the 300-capacity Toronto club in March 1977.

As the Stones took to the stage of the “El Mo,” a fixture of the Toronto music scene since the 1940s, punk and disco were both rearing into full view, supposedly ready to see off a band who had already been at the top of their game for 15 years. Over two nights, in an intimate space in one of their favourite cities, they were about to make that prognosis look foolish indeed.

The gigs became reality after the El Mocambo was identified as the potential home for a secret booking. A radio contest was organised in which the prize was tickets to see Canadian rock heroes April Wine, supported by an unknown band called the Cockroaches.

Guess who they turned out to be...

On the nights, naturally, April Wine were themselves the opening act, and so it was that the Stones rolled back the years to the exhilarating club incarnation of their early years.

Against all the odds, the band produced two nights of exhilarating music that they still talk about in Toronto, and in Rolling Stones legend, to this day.