Watch INXS Perform ‘The Stairs’ from ‘Live Baby Live’ Wembley Stadium Film
The ‘Live Baby Live’ soundtrack album will also be released across 3LP Deluxe, 2CD & all digital formats on 15 November.
‘The Stairs’ is the second track to be taken from the forthcoming INXS Live Baby Live Wembley Stadium soundtrack album and global cinema event which will be showing at over 100 screens in Europe on 27 November, with more being added every day. The movie recently opened the prestigious 13th annual Byron Bay Film Festival in Australia with a standing ovation for its global film festival premiere. You can check it out below.
Available now from Live Baby Live ‘The Stairs’ is often cited by INXS fans as the best single the band never released and named by Sir Elton John as his favourite ever INXS song. The Stairs was only ever issued as a limited edition live single in Holland making it one of the most highly prized items in the INXS canon. It’s truly one of the band’s ‘lost classics’.
This new digital single of ‘The Stairs’ was recorded on Saturday 13th July 1991, when INXS, one of the world’s most revered and iconic bands, delivered the gig of their lives at London’s Wembley Stadium to 74,000 ecstatic fans. After a decade and a half on the road the group was at the peak of their live powers and the performance that day shows they were now indeed a world-class stadium band.
INXS’s Kirk Pengilly says of the song: “The Stairs’ was one of our favourites to perform live. It starts simply giving us a breather on stage and then builds & builds right to the end. I think this (LBL) version is more powerful than the studio recording. Definitely one of Michael’s finest, “social comment” lyrics’.
At the time Michael Hutchence described ‘The Stairs’ as “The most ambitious song I’ve ever written.” Guitarist Tim Farriss remembers that it was “Probably one of my favourite songs we ever recorded and a stand out track of Live Baby Live. Pretty much sums up the ever changing passages of the lives we all lead and how they all intertwine.”
Andrew Farriss who co-wrote the song with Hutchence spoke about the track in 1990 saying “It deals with people in highly urbanised environments not communicating”. Almost thirty years later the song has lost none of its power and is as relevant today as it was then.
INXS, one of the world’s most revered and iconic bands, delivered the gig of their lives at London’s Wembley Stadium to 74,000 ecstatic fans. After a decade and a half on the road the band were at the peak of their live powers and the performance filmed that day shows they were not only a world-class stadium band but the only band that ever had the guts to walk onto the stage at Wembley Stadium in front of 74,000 people and jam their own intro!
INXS played over 2000 shows before singer Michael Hutchence’s untimely passing 20 years ago, but for many fans, Wembley was THE ONE. Not only were the band on fire, but the audience was too, both band and crowd knew this would be the performance of a lifetime. What’s more there were no screens, no ramps, no backing singers, no props and cell phones – just six guys playing as though their lives depended on it. INXS delivered hit after hit to an ecstatic audience for nearly two hours!
The event, called ‘Summer XS,’ was immortalised in the best-selling long-form video Live Baby Live (directed by David Mallet) and partly inspired by the album of the same name.
Twenty-eight years on, Live Baby Live has been painstakingly restored over a six-month period from the original 35mm negative to 4K Ultra HD. The film is also now presented in glorious cinematic widescreen, which was created by going through the film shot by shot and repositioning everyone to get the best out of the frame.
As uDiscover Music previously reported, the full seminal live show will also be released across 3LP Deluxe, 2CD & all digital formats on 15 November. The stunning performance featuring hits ‘Need You Tonight‘, ‘New Sensation‘, ‘Devil Inside‘ and many more has been specifically remixed by Sam Okell at Abbey Road Studios for the new audio reissues. The vinyl & CD formats feature unseen imagery from the show, new essays from the band & more.
The original Live Baby Live album went Top 10 in Australia and the UK following its release in 1991, going on to Platinum status in the US and Australia. The original Live Baby Live release was a 16-track companion with tracks recorded around the world on the X-Factor Tour.
The Live Baby Live soundtrack album is out on 15 November and can be bought here.
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