‘Faces At The BBC’ Review: The Astonishing Legacy Of One Of Britain’s Best Live Bands

John Peel brings Faces to the BBC

Faces’ early energy was caught by John Peel, who has said the group were his all-time favourite live act. “There may have been better bands, but there was never a band to make you feel so good,” Peel said in 1976. “And to give you an indication how highly I esteemed the members, they were the only band who were actually invited to my wedding, and their roadies, and they all came, too.”

“He gave the Faces our first break,” Ronnie Wood said of Peel. Indeed, Peel often showcased the band. On Faces At The BBC there are four sets from John Peel’s Sunday Concert (two from 1970, and one each from 1971 and 1972). There are also appearances on Top Gear and Peel’s 1970 Christmas Carol concert, with the band scrapping their way through hearty readings of Away In A Manger and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. Peel even appeared on Top Of The Pops with Rod Stewart and Faces, “playing” the mandolin during their performance of Maggie May.

By concentrating on the first half of the group’s short lifespan, Faces At The BBC finds the rockers largely happy and comradely. They hung out together; and even though Rod Stewart got the most attention through his frontman charisma and concurrent solo career, he knew his bandmates’ equal worth.

“I’m pretty useless without them four, and it probably goes the same way,” he told Rolling Stone in 1973. “We split everything five ways, literally everything.” The intuition between the members is audible on Faces At The BBC. Stewart will often duck out vocally for extended periods, only contributing the odd “yip” and “yeah” while his bandmates take the music to another sticky dimension.

Maybe they’re amazed: Faces’ live cover versions

Faces also had an ear for other artists’ songs, knowing what would suit their band’s energy, and Faces At The BBC features particularly interesting takes on US soul music. (I Know) I’m Losing You, originally by The Temptations, is especially mesmerising; it had featured on Stewart’s 1971 solo album, Every Picture Tells A Story, and all five Faces played on the studio version. In this BBC live take, Kenney Jones’ drumming redefines intense, and he gets a deserved shout-out from Stewart at the end.

The band also, famously, covered one of the greatest love songs of all time, Paul McCartney’s 1970 solo classic Maybe I’m Amazed. “I know it turned me on with Faces when we first heard it,” Ronnie Wood said in 2014. “We were in a garage somewhere in Los Angeles, on the beach… we got this song down midweek and we played it live on stage.” Maybe I’m Amazed remained a staple of Faces’ live set, and it appears four times on Faces At The BBC.

Different Faces: line-up changes and tensions

Faces At The BBC takes the group’s story through to April 1973: also the beginning of the band’s demise. By this point in their career, Rod Stewart had become a household name, and it was increasingly hard for the other Faces to stand in the shadow cast by his starlight.

Ronnie Lane, one of Faces’ founder members (who had also been in Small Faces, the band Faces evolved from), was the first to leave. Increasingly unhappy, the tipping point came when Lane wanted to take the woman he had fallen in love with on the road with him during a US tour. “I had the audacity to break the band’s rules,” Lane said. “No one would talk to me. So I said, ‘Fuck this! I’m leaving the group.’” Lane’s replacement, Tetsu Yamauchi, performed live with Faces, but the group’s impetus to record new studio material dissipated after 1973’s Ooh La La, the last album to feature Lane in the group’s line-up. Faces officially split in 1975, Stewart concentrating on his solo career, and Ronnie Wood joining The Rolling Stones.

Faces’ live legacy

Capturing Faces’ live performances on record has been attempted before: their second album, 1971’s Long Player, featured two songs recorded at New York City’s Fillmore East. There was also a dedicated live record, 1973’s Coast To Coast: Overture And Beginners, which consisted of three Faces originals (Too Bad, Stay With Me and Borstal Boys), with the rest comprised of Rod Stewart solo material and cover versions. (Crowd noise from the recordings would go on to provide part of the segue between Future Legend and the song Diamond Dogs, on David Bowie’s 1974 album of the same name.)

It has taken archival reissues to uncover the full breadth of Faces’ live work. The 2004 box set Five Guys Walk Into A Bar… began mapping the group’s performing legacy with several previously unreleased live and BBC session tracks, but it was only in 2023 when more BBC session recordings were issued, on the Record Store Day release Had Me A Real Good Time At The BBC.

Now, with Faces At The BBC, all the group’s existing BBC live material gets a deluxe presentation, including many sessions that were long thought lost. Amounting to eight CDs, plus an accompanying Blu-ray disc and hardback book, it’s as comprehensive as anyone could hope for.

“We played hard and fast,” Ian McLagan has said of his band. “There were no rules.” Freed from the archives, this swaggering band’s astonishing live presence can now be heard in all its peak glory.

Buy the ‘Faces At The BBC’ box set at the Dig! store.