The Rolling Stones Archive / Brussels Affair gig downloadable

The Rolling Stones have announced stonesarchive.com a new website devoted to sharing some of their incredible archive, full of music, film and memorabilia from their almost 50 year career. Fans will be able to listen to unheard music, view unseen photographs and films, and look at rare merchandise. There will also be the opportunity to buy items such as signed lithographs, deluxe box sets, even personalized merchandise and tour gear in our shop.

To kicks things off the band are releasing a download of a legendary 1973 concert, recorded at the Forest National in Belgium that they are calling The Brussels Affair.

The original bootlegs of this concert were sold under such titles as Europe 73, Bedspring Symphony and Brussels Affair, were cobbled together from assorted radio broadcasts, including the syndicated radio programme King Biscuit Flower Hour, and usually contained songs performed at other venues. The new edition, pulled exclusively from the two Brussels gigs, was taken from the original multi-track masters recorded by Andy Johns on the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio. Longtime Stones collaborator Bob Clearmountain applied the final mix.

It can be downloaded as 256k MP3s for $7 or lossless FLAC for $9.

This is an interesting move from The Rolling Stones and fans are sure to be excited about what treasures are likely to be unearthed in the months and years to come.

Paul McCartney hinted of similar things to come when he announced in May 2011 a private cloud-based digital library for his archive, with the technology being provided by HP, but nothing has been heard of this since.