Release Date: September 4, 2006
The New Barbarians were a rock band that played two concerts in Canada and eighteen shows across the United States in April and May 1979; in August 1979, the band also supported Led Zeppelin at the Knebworth Festival 1979.
The group was formed and led by Rolling Stones and Faces guitarist Ronnie Wood, primarily to promote his latest LP Gimme Some Neck. The line-up included Rolling Stones member Keith Richards, bassist Stanley Clarke, former Faces keyboardist Ian McLagan, Rolling Stones confederate and saxophonist Bobby Keys and drummer Joseph Zigaboo Modeliste of The Meters. For the Knebworth show Clarke was replaced on short notice by bassist Phillip Chen, who had to learn all the songs in one day.
The band played a mix of classic rock & roll, R&B, blues and country music, along with Ron Wood solo material and Jagger/Richards songs. Wood sang lead on most numbers (with Richards, McLagan and Clarke providing back-up vocals), as well as playing guitar, pedal steel, harmonica and saxophone.
In October 2006 Ronnie Wood's record label, Wooden Records, released a two-disc CD of a New Barbarians concert at Capital Center Arena in Largo, Maryland, entitled Buried Alive: Live in Maryland.
A year after Some Girls, Keith Richard and Ron Wood set out on a brief, ramshackle tour as the New Barbarians, supported by Stanley Clark on bass, Ian McLaughlin and Bobby Keys. This was brief but legendary, since it could be romanticized as the Stones' Id unhinged -- the two hardest partiers in the band, out on their own, rampaging and pillaging, drinking and drugging, running wild. Apart from a single that was kind of released, but not really, there were no official recordings, but plenty of bootlegs circulated over the years, with no official release of the live material until 2006's Buried Alive: Live in Maryland appeared. This performance has circulated before, but never in such clear fidelity, or in such careful packaging, which is why this is worthwhile for those who already have the boots. But this is really for listeners (aka Stones fans) who have heard the legend of the New Barbarians, but not the band itself. And they'll find that the show may not quite be legendary, but it's sure a hell of a lot of fun. It's a little bit tighter than the band's reputation might suggest -- Richard and Wood may be a little ragged, but they're anchored by the rest of the band, which doesn't give this the sense of being a careening, glorious mess. And if Wood actually sings more than Richard, there's also little question who the real star is: whenever Keef steps to the mic, he pushes Wood to the side, and the encores are almost all his. But leadership doesn't quite matter here, since this is at its core just a guy's night out -- that the guys are pros means this isn't as loose as the Replacements, but it also means that they're tight enough to pull off an entertaining show while still seeming a bit wild. It's not quite a lost classic, then, but it's surely a great time and it's hard to imagine anybody who wants to hear this being disappointed by this two-disc set.