Trust me I was present with decent seats on what was supposed to be one of the better nights of the six they played at Earls Court and they were dreadful. An unpleasant mix of Jagger's exposure to an urban funk soul sound and Keef's heroin problems. Earls Court is no one's idea of a funky venue and heroin is notoriously bad for creative focus (!). Have you heard the Parisian sides of "Love Me Live" that were taped a week or so later? Well it was like that but with even less sonic finesse.
Keef was by all accounts out of his mind on smack through the London run and Jagger couldn't be arsed to remember the words or to sing without slurring songs in his ludicrous mid 70s Motown voice ("da hand of fate izonmenowah. whoa! do da hussle people mumble mumble sha la la la woaah yeah, handafaayte y'all" etc).
Charlie, Ron, Bill and Billy Preston's excellent keyboards held it all together as best they could while the principals pissed about and pissed their live rep up the wall. Ian Stewart sat in as well giving them a two piano assault which helped make up for the major problems in the guitar dept. Tuning being a fairly serious one. The 22 05 bootleg is probably the best of the bunch if you want to check those shows out.
Since then I have heard boots from both 75 and 76 tours and it would seem that the 75 US tour was much much better than Europe 76. That was another reason for British audiences to be pissed off as there had been massive coverage of the US tour inc a squillion page Rolling Stone feature. The level of expectancy was huge.
The Billy Preston solo slot mid-set and the sheer number of tunes from Black & Blue (5) and It's Only Rock & Roll (3 sometimes 4 when they did Fingerprint File as well) did not help.
In their defence the acoustics woked against them. People today would not believe how bad the live sound could be at 70s arena shows and this was especially dreadful. Like setting up an Alba stereo system in the middle of a railway tunnel, turningit up to 11 and then covering it with a duvet. This was not just a Stones problem. Live sound science was in its infancy over here.
I am not sure if Knebworth happened before or after Keef got another "cure" (and he lost a child in the interim which one presumes would have been sobering) but I think you are right that three months later it was a much better received show. I think they had even dispensed with the never-quite-fully-erect inflatible cock prop by then. There's a metaphor for the Stones of 75/76 if ever there was one!
I saw them again in 1990 and it was a different band altogether. really good, brooding psych blues rock. Probably as close as they ever got to the halcyon performances with Mick Taylor in 69-73.
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