FOUR: Vancouver Venue Invasion

After millions of dollars and months of preparation, the biggest production in rock is now off and running — sort of. In truth, they’ve already hit some snags. A logistical snafu means they have no way to fly to their first tour stop in Canada, where they’re expected to perform in a matter of hours. Keith Richards has relapsed following his recent detox, and his personal pharmacy makes traveling through border control a stressful nightmare. An international incident of one kind of another appears immanent. Against all odds, they arrive at the arena on time, only to find it swarmed by thousands of ticketless rioters hell-bent on taking the venue by force. The Rolling Stones’ tour kickoff was bound to make news, but these explosive headlines were more than the STP crew bargained for. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Stones Touring Party is a production of iHeartRadio Welcome to Vancouver, Canada.
It's June third, nineteen seventy two, the opening night of
the Rolling Stones tour of North America. Despite months of
careful preparation, things are not going smoothly. As the Stones

(00:21):
take the stage inside the Pacific Colisseum, the venues besieged
by more than two thousand angry youths. They're just a
small fraction of the unlucky majority, unable to acquire highly
sought after tickets to this the hottest show on the planet.
Some have fallen victim to unscrupulous scalpers, turning up the
venue only to discover that they'd shelled out for fakes.

(00:41):
Regardless of circumstance, these rapacious rock fans intend to take
the venue by force. They smash plate glass windows and
fling rocks and bottles. One even tosses a Molotov cocktail.
Seven policemen are taken down before the Mounties are dispatched
to subdue the rioters. This is the stones first show

(01:02):
on the continent since their disastrous gig at the Ultamont
Speedway in December nineteen sixty nine, which culminated in the
stabbing death of a young fan. The last thing anyone
wanted was more violence, and now their worst paranoias were
coming true. For a time, most inside the hockey arena

(01:25):
were blissfully unaware of the battle raging. This is especially
true of those traveling as part of the Stones inner sanctum,
breathing the rarefied though somewhat smoky air of the backstage
brandishing their Stones touring party laminates, guarded by a failings
of security guards and watching from the wings while the
world's greatest rock and roll band performs for their pleasure

(01:47):
just a few feet in front of them. Trouble seemed
miles away for these fortunate few, But then trouble came knocking. Bang,
a kid hits the back door of the arena with
everything he's got. He bursts into the backstage area before
getting punched and thrown back out.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Bang.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
The doors slam shut. Wham it opens again, and two
more kids try to fight their way in. Then it's
slams shut again and someone screams, Chang for the door,
Chank for the door. No sooner do they padlock the
doorway than thirty or forty kids hit the roll up
corrugated metal door. The metal buckles and starts to fold,
like an old fighter going down from a hard right

(02:28):
to the gut bang a bang bang. The doors are
being kicked rapidly in succession, the tattoo of boots against
metal like small arms fire. It's like an authentic battle
situation as some beleaguered outlying post. Those words come courtesy
of Robert Greenfield, the legendary rock journalist who is Rolling

(02:49):
Stone Magazine's anointed Stones correspondent. As a twenty something in
the early seventies, he accompanied the band on their historic
trek across the US in the summer of seventy two,
bringing tracks from their moody double disc Opus exile on
Main Street to the masses as the Country Threat and
that come Apart at the Seams. Moreover, he's also a

(03:10):
veteran of the Backstage Invasion in Vancouver in addition to Greenfield,
and has never before heard tapes of The Stones in
their seventies exile era. Glory will also be joined by
his friend and fellow STP tour mate Gary Stromberg, the
band's pr supremo who's represented a whole jukebox of the
twentieth century's greatest artists. Consider this show an all access

(03:35):
pass that takes you from the front road to backstage,
and from the private jets to the private after show affairs.
We're going on the road, but the greatest rock and
roll band in the world, on the tour that showed
us what it means to party like a rock star.
Each episode will stop in a different city, taking in
the sites, sounds, riots, bombings, drug busts, and other assorted

(03:58):
mayhem from this pivotal moment in American history. My name's
Jordan Runtogg and Welcome to the Stones Touring Party. June
nineteen seventy two showtime. At long last, the Stones were

(04:20):
off to their first STP tour stop, Vancouver, a lovely town,
to be sure, but not exactly a music industry hotbed.
You'd be forgiven for wondering why this, the largest tour
in rock history, started in Canada's fourth largest city. Well,
short answer, it's proximity to the La tour headquarters made
it just close enough but also far enough away, you know,

(04:43):
in case of emergencies or bad reviews. It all made
perfect sense to Robert Greenfield.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
This is the brilliance of the Stones. You always go
out of town. The tryout is always in Hartford, Connecticut
before you go to Broadway. You don't open on Broadway.
And what they always did with the opening show of
every tour was play everything, we try this, we try that.
I mean, at one point the tour they played can't
you Hear Me Knocking? Once didn't work, you know, they

(05:13):
didn't play it again, and I don't have the set
list in front of me. They played a couple songs
that night that didn't come back in, but that's why
they opened up there. They wanted to get it right.
Seattle also was like, okay, you know, we're still in
protracted rehearsal. Once they got to San Francisco and were
at Winterline and then they knew they were coming La

(05:33):
It's on, and then they were in the groove. Then
they were just hitting it every night.

Speaker 1 (05:37):
The two month track was twice as long as their
previous American tour in nineteen sixty nine. With an entourage
that was also doubled together, they formed a well oiled
ultra professional machine, more akin to a military campaign than
a rock and roll road show.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
The thing about the first day of the tour is
it really wasn't a first day because there was so
much pre production, you know, like you were working on
the film before the first show, and so I was
living in LA, but I definitely spent at least two
weeks with the band as they were setting up what

(06:13):
was coming. When they toured in England, you know, it's
so informal, so relaxed, and then a year later it
becomes Sherman's March to the Sea. It's gotten so organized
and fascist in its own way. You couldn't do what
they did in England and America.

Speaker 1 (06:33):
It was unseasonably cool that foggy morning in La when
the Stones touring party minus the actual Stones themselves, piled
on the bus to the airport. It felt like the
first day of summer camp, when you're thrown together with
dozens of kids you've never met, knowing full well, but
in just a few days you'll be sharing life secrets
with one another. It's peak experience time with grown ups

(06:54):
getting knacked like kids, all the name of the Rolling Stones.
But tour manager Peter Ruh saw it a little differently.
To him, they were heading off to battle the man
described by Keith Richards as the four star general among
the anarchists burnt off his nervous energy by bouncing in
and out of his seat and repeatedly declaring the one
and all, We're about to hit the beaches. We're about

(07:17):
to hit the beaches. To be sure, wearing an STP
badge is to be part of a small army, And
on second thought, it wasn't so small. The Stones entourage
had swelled to nearly forty people, an unprecedented size for
a rock tour. The supporting cast are minor players in
the tour movie. Few know their names, and the audience

(07:37):
never sees their faces. These are the people who would
go through the cruelest and most drastic transformation on the tour,
wooshed up from the relative normality of their everyday lives
and into the eye of the rock hurricane, close enough
to the sixth center of it all to share in
all the adulation and worship it gets directed to the Stones.
And when it was all over, the comdown was harsh,

(08:00):
but we'll get to that for now. They were just
getting elevated. A joint makes its way down the aisle
of the bus and back up again. It reminds Robert
Greenfield of the opening scene in a World War II
drama where the light of the last cigarette is used

(08:22):
to illuminate the faces and introduce the members of the platoon.
There's the makeup man, hired by Jagger eight hours before
the tour bus was scheduled to leave. And there's the
guitar maker, compulsively clad in a stetson, caring for each
of the twenty seven guitars along for the ride. And
there's the accountant. It's not actually an accountant at all,

(08:43):
but a twenty year old rookie who by the end
of the tour will have paid out some one hundred
and ninety two thousand dollars in cash. There's the baggage guy,
the doctor, and a few folks whose roles were a
little more nebulous. And of course there's also the stones
horn section, trumpet player Jim and sax man Bobby Keys,
the ladder of whom is mournfully studying the bag of

(09:05):
pot he's just been advised to ditch before hitting the airport.
The long tall Texan was a party in human form.
Here he is talking to Robert Greenfield in nineteen seventy two,
courtesy of our friends at the Northwestern University Archive.

Speaker 3 (09:19):
There's never been any organization on any tour that I've
ever been on, to compare any way with the Stones,
the organization like Treble. Sometimes there's a little bit overly organized. Overly.
I know she's a Mecca. Those guys are there, you know,
good old rockers like Mecca's a good business man and

(09:42):
god damn, I've got drunk with Jagger, been in a
whorehouse with Jagger.

Speaker 2 (09:48):
Don't know, it's really I don't care.

Speaker 3 (09:53):
It's not news to anybody.

Speaker 4 (09:54):
I'm sure.

Speaker 3 (09:56):
Gee though, would say, really is my best friend overborn
in the same day, same year, each other.

Speaker 4 (10:04):
Very strange.

Speaker 1 (10:08):
The joints passed of a small man standing in the
aisle of the bus, a video camera obscuring his face.
In one smooth motion. The man takes the joint, hits it,
puts it in front of the camera, lens, films it,
then passes it on. But he's forty seven, easily the
oldest person on the tour. He's just established his STP
credentials by demonstrating the crucial ability to indulge and yet

(10:31):
still function. This is Robert Frank in photography and filmmaking circles.
He's on par with Mick Jagger. The stark visual images
of rural life and his landmark photo book The Americans
made him a towering figure of the visual arts, as
did his groundbreaking underground films like Pull My Daisy, which

(10:51):
featured the likes of Beat legends Jack Kerouac, Alan Ginsberg
and Gregory Corso. Mick himself hadn't actually seen these, but
he hired Frank Anyway as the official tour documentarian. The
Swiss board artist was also responsible for the cover art
for the Exile on Main Street album, a haunting black
and white photo collage that perfectly complimented the gritty Americana

(11:12):
of the Stones music. Who better to capture the sites
of the Exile tour.

Speaker 2 (11:19):
Frank takes his photograph It was It was in a
barber shop where it's a wall of photos at Frank
saw on Main Street in La Exile on Main Street. Hello,
That's where the title comes from. I mean, Mick is dealing.
He's always going to other artists. He obviously had seen
The Americans, the great book of Robert's photographs, you know,
and so he puts that on the cover. It's such

(11:41):
an unlikely cover, you know.

Speaker 1 (11:44):
The Stones gave Robert Frank Carte Blanche to shoot whatever
he liked, a shocking act of trust considering the documentary
of their last tour, the Mazels Brothers Gimme Shelter, captured
the murder at Altamont in graphic detail. If the Stones
hope this new doc would rehab the image after the
horrors of Gimme Shelter, they would be sorely mistaken. Frank

(12:05):
took a cinema veritae approach, dispensing handheld superrates to assorted
members of the STP crew to go off and shoot
whatever they wished in the ends. This included, but wasn't
limited to a groupie shooting up, Jagger snorting coke, Mick
Taylor spoking a joint, Keith nodding off, a likely staged
orgy on an airplane, and televisions heaved from hotel windows.

(12:29):
The final result was a hellishly hedonistic home movie, artily shot, sure,
but more than the Stones have bark and for in
years to come, they would do everything they could the
block its release, But on the tour relations were great.
This is all the more impressive considering Frank knew little
about rock and roll and even less about the Stones.

Speaker 2 (12:53):
You know it's incredible. If you think about an artist
of the stature of Robert frank that many years ago,
it's who this tour brought out of the woodwork. He
would have probably been fifty. Then. He had a house
in Nova Scotia. You know, he was tight with Philip Glass.
He came from another world. Man.

Speaker 1 (13:12):
The bonds was there from the start.

Speaker 5 (13:14):
There was a good connection with Jag.

Speaker 4 (13:17):
I mean, I could see that.

Speaker 5 (13:20):
He would accept what I did because he respected me
for what I was.

Speaker 6 (13:24):
And I was surprised how quick he made up his
mind that I should make a film. You know, you'd
never seen a film of mind. But he I think
he went much more by the personality, by the certain.

Speaker 2 (13:36):
Way I work.

Speaker 5 (13:38):
Well, of course, they are like a legendary, like something
dead that comes to perform, you know, it descends from
heaven to perform here and to disappear again. Besides the
performance and traveling across the country, there were two very
important things on that tour.

Speaker 4 (13:58):
One was dope and one was sex. I felt there
shouldn't be a way of showing it.

Speaker 1 (14:04):
Somewhere The bus dumped the STP crew at a decidedly
unrock and rolled transit terminal populated largely with elderly women
and floral blouses clutching their handbags and their husbands busy
scouring the sports page for the oakland A's score. But

(14:24):
heads turned when the Stones themselves arrived. Like a great
splash of watercolor and the dull and empty waiting room canvas,
they were a vision in silk, coduroy and studded blue jeans.
Keith entered first in a black and white striped suit
made out of a silvered sailcloth that must blow in
the dark. Huge silver shades hit his eyes looped around

(14:46):
his neck as a three foot string of bright yellow
Tibetan prayer flags. In his hand, he carries a small
black doctor's bag contanning his own private pharmacopeia. Mick followed
in a faded blue workshirt open to the waist, tight
white pants. The middle aged straights in the room were
distracted enough to lower their papers and hissed to their wives,

(15:07):
Good Lord, Martha, do they look like that all the time?
How the hell are they some sort of band? A
decade into their career, the Stones still knew how to
outrage with a mere entrance.

Speaker 2 (15:22):
Mick always was mister Fish, you know, Chelsea you know,
he always had the boots from an yellow and David
and Brian Jones they were so hip Mick, not Keith.
I mean where Keith got his outfits? You know, I
mean he's wearing less. Well, he was wearing a Tibetan
scarf around his neck, that yellow schmata with the red

(15:42):
writing on it. It hung in a window. He had
an eye. He's put together combinations of clothes that no
one else would have ever thought of wearing it. At
work for.

Speaker 7 (15:53):
Chris Jagger had his own designers, correct stuff.

Speaker 1 (15:56):
It was all well thought out.

Speaker 2 (15:57):
Everything was made to order for Mick. Yeah, and Keith
just was I going through the garbage bin looking for
something to wear.

Speaker 1 (16:05):
Mick and Keith were flanked by their two imposing security chiefs,
Stan the Man More and Big Leroy Leonard. Word on
the street was the Hell's Angels had a hit out
on the Stones, specifically Mick, revenge for the murderous outcome
at Ultamont during their last tour. This was the era
of assassinations, with the deaths of Martin Luther King and
Robert Kennedy still fresh in the popular consciousness. As a

(16:29):
result these threats on the Stones, the little more than
rumor were taken very seriously. Over the next two months,
Stan and Leroy would be the Stone's constant shadow, scoping
out the concert venues, staying in the suite's next door,
and even sitting with them on stage just out of
the spotlight.

Speaker 2 (16:47):
Leroy was a foreboding forbidding. Large man was a cop
and he was more the muscle. And Stan, who had
been an officer, a lieutenant detective.

Speaker 1 (16:59):
You know, these guys were really good.

Speaker 7 (17:01):
They were very quiet, but you just knew that you'd
you're not going to fuck with anybody on it.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
And they were guarding, they were carrying, they were both armed,
and Stan would always show the cops you know, I'm
a cop, and the hotel security like arm in charge,
I'm a cop.

Speaker 1 (17:16):
The constant supervision may have been in their best interest,
but it made Keith uncomfortable.

Speaker 8 (17:22):
I always feel it's unnecessary to bodyguard walking right next
to you know, I always feel a bit stupid about
but I understand that I'll put up with it because
other people that have been involved longer in setting the
tour up feel it's necessary. I'll give them the benefit
of the doubt that it maybe it is you know,
because it's really not my job to say whether it's necessary.

(17:46):
And you know, I can say I don't like it though,
but I don't want to fight them at doubt.

Speaker 4 (17:53):
About the security thing, because they've been.

Speaker 8 (17:55):
Working on the two of A not too and they
they've heard it out. What the as was threatened to
do is that they thought it was necessary.

Speaker 1 (18:06):
With the exception of drummer Charlie Watt's wife Shirley, none
of the band's significant others were invited on the track.
You could argue this was due to safety concerns or
just garden variety sexism. Mixed wife Bianca wasn't happy about this,
but at least she was afforded one small revenge. The
couple had a habit of sharing clothes, and Mick and

(18:27):
borrowed a scarf of hers without her knowledge, to take
with them on the road. When Bianca discovered this, she
demanded it back, forcing him the rummage through each and
every one of his packed suitcases until he found it.

Speaker 4 (18:39):
I found it very difficult to travel with anyone. I mean,
Bianca is.

Speaker 9 (18:43):
Much easier than now that some people, but it's very
I mean I'm just completely alone.

Speaker 4 (18:51):
When it comes to being on too.

Speaker 9 (18:53):
And you know, it's nice to see you know, your
old lady and occasion, which is all I did see, but.

Speaker 4 (19:01):
I just have to.

Speaker 1 (19:06):
So far things were going great, and then suddenly they weren't.
You could sense something was amiss as the STP tour
management squad gathered like storm clouds on a sunny horizon,
all whispers and scowls. The Stones were doing Vancouver in
a matter of hours to perform their tour kickoff for
eighteen thousand fans, but now they had no way to

(19:30):
get there. The Rolling Stones hadn't even made it out
of La when their tour hit a major stumbling block.
Their charter jet obtained at great expense, and due to

(19:52):
take off in mere minutes, has been denied permission to
land in Vancouver for that night's concert. This substantial problem
sent the STP tactical squad into def Con five. Tour
manager Peter Rudge, who bore the awesome weight of the
whole venture on as increasingly tense and sweaty shoulders, circle
the wagons with associates Joe Bergman and Alan Dunn for

(20:13):
an emergency conference. What could possibly be the problem. The
front page of the day's newspapers bore lurid details of
not one, but two separate skyjackings that had occurred the
night before. Did that have something to do with it?
The real answer was more mundane. The Stone's touring party,
despite all their planning, had forgotten the file a flight

(20:36):
plan early enough to receive international clearance. It's a rookie
move for those dealing with private air travel, but the
consequences were big. While the rest of the touring party
mills around in blissful ignorance, the stp tax squad swarms
a bank of payphones, jams the receivers in their ears,
and starts punching keys. After many minutes of moving mouths

(20:56):
and furrowed brows failed to solve the problem, Marshall Chess,
president of the Rolling Stones record Company and wheeler dealer extraordinaire,
decides to take a different approach. Well the others piss
around with travel bureaus and aeronautical boards, he aims straight
for the top. Yes, operator, gimme Ottawa, Pierre Trudeau, the

(21:20):
Prime Minister. Yes, and my credit card number is Apparently
all takes is some rock and roll HUTSPA and a
major credit card to talk to a national leader of
your choice. Hello, this is Marshall Chess of the Rolling Stones.
We have a concert schedule for tonight a Vancouver. Eighteen
thousand people are waiting for us, and our plane has
been denied permission to land in Canada. If we don't

(21:41):
show up, those kids are going to be aroused. Unfortunately,
the Prime Minister's hands are tied, so the crew begin
hatching alternate schemes. Ultimately, they decide to land at a
small airport in suburban Washington and then shuttle everyone over
the border and Limos. On one hand, it beats Walker,
but the downside of this plan means the Stones and co.

(22:03):
Have to pass through normal, everyday roadside customs, a prospect
that doesn't make Peter Rudge very happy. So they make
their way to the rented plane, a Lockheed Electra customized
with a lapping tongue emblazoned on the side, a cultural
mashup of Mick Jagger and the Hindi goddess Kylie. The

(22:24):
Stones first used the symbol for their nineteen seventy European
tour before adopting it as the band's permanent logo. A
rebellious answer to the McDonald's arches or the Pepsi swirl.
A cynic might say this signaled the professionalization and corporatization
of rock. The private jet also did a pretty good
job of this, but according to Robert Greenfield, everyone was

(22:44):
having far too much fun bawling out to care about
the implications.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
The fund was being on a plane because everybody was
relaxed on the plane and everybody in my memory, the
map was at the back of the plane. It was
a map of where the were going, like World War
Two when you'd followed. I didn't do this, but you
know the pins where the Allies were, and so I
think they would track and put a pin in every city,

(23:10):
and you know, like keith Am, they would be standing
up a lot on which was shocking. I'd never flown
on a proper let. Let's be honest here. It wasn't
a small jet. You know, you didn't have to sit down.
That was shocking. You could walk around and people would
be drinking and you didn't need seat belts and smoking.
I don't remember any doping, so I'm sure dope was

(23:32):
smoked on the plane. And there were two stewardess for
this whole tour, the same crew and we get to
the plane like one a right at night. You didn't
want to stay in that city, you know. And again
we get whenever we arrived at the black limos are waiting,
So it doesn't matter.

Speaker 1 (23:47):
Man tour manager Peter Rudge had planned everything with military
precision to accommodate the massive entourage. Aside from the flight
plan snafu, the efficiency was unlike anything that the Stones
were used to on the road. Even Keith Richards had
to marvel.

Speaker 4 (24:02):
When there's so many people, it's you go to the organist.

Speaker 8 (24:05):
If you're only carrying a band and a couple of people,
it doesn't matter if he is an organizer. You can
make your own plans every day and change them.

Speaker 2 (24:13):
The jet didn't even land where other jets and the
limits were right on the tarmac. You came down the steps.
There are great anti photographs of people coming down those
steps into the limo.

Speaker 1 (24:26):
For reasons related both to safety, luxury and PT Barnum
level showmanship, Rudge took great pains to ensure that the
band engaged with the outside world as little as possible.
This strategy was even baked into the structure of their concerts.

Speaker 2 (24:41):
The interesting thing about the Stones not taking encourse is
here's the brilliance of Peter Rudge. Backstage at every venue
was parked a camper and I can't describe that in
current terms. This is like nineteen seventy two, a box
like Baylor camper that even your grandparents wouldn't take to Yosemite,

(25:05):
like so nondescript, perfect like Cia, you know, like this
is where all the stuff is. And when the Stones
had finished playing Rip dis Joint or Bye Bye Johnny,
whatever was the final number, they would run directly off stage,
go get into the camper. Because Rudge's genius. You put

(25:26):
them in limos, girls will be you know, spread eagle.
You see that shot from inside the limo. The girl
is screaming and then she rolls off the limo as
they accelerate. Well, you're just telling everybody, hey, Stones, they're
right here, mo mob. No. So the crowd is still screaming,
they're standing on their feet. We don't leave yet because

(25:48):
we're not them. They're in this camper and they're out
of there before before the house lights are up, or
before the crowd even knows they have to go home,
they're out. They're gone to back at the hotel.

Speaker 1 (26:01):
We was so insular.

Speaker 2 (26:02):
You have to be all in, and Gary was and
so was I. You don't do anything else? But where
are we going? How are you? What's happening now?

Speaker 10 (26:10):
Hey?

Speaker 1 (26:11):
Great?

Speaker 2 (26:11):
What's gone? There's no other reality.

Speaker 1 (26:17):
They moved like a pirate nation, doing whatever they wanted,
complete with lawyers and attendance. One of the few times
the tour bubble was punctured was when they passed through
customs into the Great White North. This was cause for
no small amount of anxiety, because, simply put, the gang
was holding big time. A bus would ensure that the

(26:38):
tour was basically over before it had started. But Nick
and Keith giggled like school kids as they answered the
customs hut, thoroughly freaking out the man behind the desk,
who'd never seen people look or act like this, these
visions in silk and velvet and ruffles. Keith even hams
it up, leaning oh so casually next to a poster
reading patients please, a drug free America comes first. They're cooperative,

(27:01):
but smirking at defiant, as if to say, we're playing
a little game here, but it doesn't really apply to us.
Even before the law, the stones are laws and to themselves.

Speaker 2 (27:12):
We couldn't get into Canada. We had to land in Bellingham,
Washington to go through customs, and we all sat in
the tiny airport and then we got in limos and
they drove us across the border. That's where the great
photograph that Ethan Russell took. You know, patients, please a
drug free America and is up to you, I said, Ethan,

(27:33):
look at Keith. Keith was posing. I love him and
he knew it. You know how brilliant the juxtaposition was.

Speaker 1 (27:41):
Last week checked in with Keith. He was fresh off
at detox in Switzerland immediately prior to the tour rehearsals.
Being hooked on heroin is less than ideal for a
cross country tour, especially in America in nineteen seventy two,
where sympathies for the devil of drug addiction were non existent.
In his twenty ten memoir Life, he wrote about the

(28:02):
disarmingly practical anxieties he faced each day in the depths
of his struggles. One day you wake up and there's
been a change of plans. You've got to go somewhere unexpected,
and you realize the first thing you think about is okay,
how do I handle the dope? The first thing on
your list isn't your underwear or your guitar, It's how
do I hook up? Do I carry it with me
and tempt fate, or do I have phone numbers where

(28:24):
I'm going, or I know that it's definitely there with
a tour coming up. It was the first time it
really hit me. I didn't want to be stuck in
the middle of nowhere with no stuff. That was the
biggest fear. I'd rather clean up before I went on
the road. This meant going through the dreaded withdrawal and
experience Keith compared to being only marginally better than having

(28:45):
your leg blown off or starving to death. As he writes,
the whole body just sort of turns itself inside out
and rejects itself for three days. It's going to be
the longest three days you've spent in your life. Why
you're doing this to yourself when you could be living
a perfectly normal, rich rock star life. And there you

(29:05):
are puking and climbing the walls, your skin crawling, your
gut's churning, and you can't stop your limbs from jerking
and moving about, and you're throwing up and shitting at
the same time. But even that doesn't stop a reasonable
man from going back on the dope. And on the
STP tour he did.

Speaker 11 (29:23):
You were healthier when you came from Switzerland, La, right, Yeah,
healthier than.

Speaker 4 (29:28):
You've been anathon they had been for a year.

Speaker 2 (29:31):
I mean, how quick is that going?

Speaker 8 (29:34):
What the hell? Yeah, well, my health stands out. I mean,
it never actually breaks down you. I mean, you see,
for people that are going up on that stage every
night and sweating it out and now you can take
a lot more of that shit. First of all, because
they're getting that constant exercise every night in sweating it
out and religiously, they're pushing themselves to that limit, and

(29:57):
their expections are pushing themselves to that limit. But for
people that are just hanging around and getting stoned and
just you know, watching the show getting stone, that's another thing,
because you haven't got any point of release.

Speaker 4 (30:10):
It seems to go on and on, you know, without
there being a high point to the day.

Speaker 1 (30:14):
You know, micking Keith breathed easy in large part because
of the presence of their own private position, who's protected
status as a medical professional made him the ideal bag
man and tricky legal situations. He's a crucial character amid
the STP cast, but he's also a shady one.

Speaker 2 (30:32):
No name, no name, no name, no name, yeah, intentionally
no name.

Speaker 4 (30:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:37):
Yeah, we're not naming the dark Okay.

Speaker 1 (30:39):
Can I give his first name?

Speaker 2 (30:40):
No, not even the first no, doctor l We're gonna
call him doctor Field Good.

Speaker 7 (30:46):
Oh, doctor Field, doctor Field Good. That's how we got
away with this stuff too, because the doctor would hold
the drugs and doctors were not searched, so they wouldn't
search the doctors. He has a little black back medicine bag.

Speaker 1 (31:03):
The not so good doctor's role was rooted in responsibility,
At least initially, Mick wanted a physician on hand in
case everyone's worst Nightmaress came true and the Hell's Angels
took a shot at him. Technically, emergency medicine was doctor
feel good specialty, but his real specialty was having a
good time and making sure everyone else did too. He

(31:24):
may have graduated from Yale, but his most important credential
was his rumored licensed to import cocaine from Merrick Labs
in Switzerland, the wagou of white powder on the off
chance that he didn't have something. In the mobile pharmacy
of his briefcase, he could simply write a prescription for
it at any time in any city. Once medication had
been properly administered, the one and all, the doctor spent

(31:46):
much of the concerts scouting the audience for women who
struck his fancy. To each of these lucky ladies, he
handed a business card, on which was printed his name
and the rather lofty title position to the rolling stones.
On the back he would write the the name of
their hotel and the sweet number to call, which meant
that his personal after party was all sorted. Many would
help themselves to his medicine bag when he was otherwise indisposed.

(32:11):
There were some who resented the doctor for being just
a bit too blatant when taking advantage of his place
in the STP chain of command. Keith Richards was not
one of those people.

Speaker 8 (32:22):
He didn't bug anybody, he didn't keep anybody waiting, and
without him there would have been a few moments where
it would have been a dream, you know. I mean,
he was thrown in the deep end like a lot
of other people, you know, really just because those people
knew what to expect and knew what was going on

(32:42):
and been on previous to us. I don't see that
it's necessarily the reasons of bad mean somebody that has
never done it before and that's no idea of what
to expect and.

Speaker 4 (32:51):
Gets carried away.

Speaker 8 (32:52):
I don't really think.

Speaker 4 (32:53):
It's his fault that he got crazy.

Speaker 8 (32:55):
He's still kept us full of vitamins and sort pills
and things which nobody else would have thought for anything, which.

Speaker 4 (33:01):
Because he was a lot more important than people realize,
because you were walking at the point with his bed.

Speaker 8 (33:08):
He was very liberal in his bag, which was very nice.
I don't know that against him too.

Speaker 4 (33:14):
I think a lot of people think that he used
his position but to get to get laid good luck too.

Speaker 2 (33:23):
But there's one point one night. I think it's in
the STP. It's a book I wrote, you know, in
case you don't know Ava Amazon. No, I'm not selling man,
It's okay, don't have to buy it. Keith Keith like
browsing through the doctor's back Yeah, because he knew more
about He knew the PDR, pharmaceutical director, he knew. Keith

(33:44):
knew everything, and he was looking for what the special
was that night. You know, what do I feel like
having you know, so casually taking all the time in
the world. You're very interested taking out you know, syringes
and packets and ampuols and.

Speaker 7 (34:00):
And that's where we went from Canada to the US
with doctor holding all the goods, so that customs never
even found anything.

Speaker 1 (34:11):
So in the end they got into Canada just fine,
but they found a fight waiting for them when they
got there.

Speaker 2 (34:28):
We might as well go to the great moment, the
opening night. Right we're in Vancouver, and Peter Rudge went
to Cambridge, brilliant human being, you know, mad driven. He
was obsessed with security and Jagger's personal safety and the
safety of the concert. So the greatness of planning as

(34:50):
opposed to touring is that shit happens, you know, it
absolutely does.

Speaker 1 (34:58):
Stone's tour manager, Peter Budge hadn't had a good night's
sleep in months, as he did his best to plan
for every conceivable crisis on the road. Perhaps more than
anyone else, he deserved an easy opening night. Unfortunately he
wasn't going to get it. The reason was, in essence, capitalism.

(35:19):
Tickets to see The Rolling Stones on the nineteen seventy
two tour costs between six and seven US dollars steal today. Indeed,
it was a good deal then, but this was the
age of utopian hippie communalism. Woodstock had been free, although
that was purely because the organizers hadn't been able to
get the fences up on time. Altamont was also free,

(35:40):
but well, let's not talk about that. Hippies began to
feel entitled to free concerts and that just wasn't in
the cards for the Rolling Stones, who you'll remember were
still struggling to rebuild their bank balance after years of
financial mismanagement. Tours were supposed to be a big money
maker for bands, but it seldom worked out that way
for the Stone. Sometimes this was as basis Bill Wyman

(36:03):
points out purely for practical reasons. Here he is talking
to Robert Greenfield in nineteen seventy two, courtesy of our
friends at the Northwestern University Archives.

Speaker 11 (36:12):
But as I say, on tours is the huge overhead
of taking the stage around, the crew, lights, transportation, before
even you considered the hotel bills. Thinks you know, it's
such a huge production. And these the first two Australian
tours we lost money. Well, the only place we make
money is England because of their traveling expenses alone, we

(36:33):
don't make much because the places are small and America.

Speaker 1 (36:38):
For Keith Richards, it was less an issue of logistical
costs and more problem of poor impulse control.

Speaker 8 (36:45):
So much fun, you know, just the fact that you're
on the road able to start. You're not in the
best head to work out whether you should.

Speaker 4 (36:54):
Be blowing a bread on that or not. You know,
you just say yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:05):
This was part of the reason why Bill Wyman's cut
for the band's recent tour of Europe was less than
one might expect.

Speaker 11 (37:11):
As we did that European tour in the spring of seventy,
I came out of it with three Persian carpets.

Speaker 4 (37:20):
Because that was my money. That's God's truth, man.

Speaker 1 (37:25):
Total.

Speaker 11 (37:25):
That is the total money I made on.

Speaker 4 (37:28):
In four weeks because of the overheads that we pay.
Did everybody in the band get that same amount of money, Yeah,
I don't think they made five.

Speaker 11 (37:36):
I think I got a little bit more than I
should have.

Speaker 4 (37:39):
But that is it.

Speaker 2 (37:40):
No cash.

Speaker 1 (37:42):
Nick meanwhile, was too cool to admit to something as
bourgeois money worries, but he also didn't make out well
on the European tour.

Speaker 9 (37:50):
I'm not saying we didn't make any money. We didn't
make very much, right, I made a thousand dollars. None
believes me. I mean I made a million, and there
was a cool ripoffs and that we were charging too
much to the door and we made a thousand of
fox age.

Speaker 1 (38:06):
The band's year as tax exiles in France had done
little to refill their collective coffers, which is why the
primary objective of the STP tour was to be as
professional and profitable as possible. Hence, while the tickets weren't free,
this didn't sit well with many of the youths of Vancouver.
This was the era when the word ripoff was just
coming into vogue as the most vicious insult to a

(38:27):
band's integrity, so thousands of ticketless Stones fans descended on
the Pacific Coliseum Hockey Arena to make their displeasure known. Earlier,
Rolling Stones's record's chief, Marshall Chess, had tried to prove
a street cred by distributing his limited stack of comps
to a group of kids waiting outside. He was instantly mobbed.
They tore at his hair and eyes until a cop

(38:48):
had to dive into the spinning brawling whirlpool of long
hairs and wrestle them out. Marshall then simply flung the
pile of tickets into the air and made a run
for it as the kids threw elbows like peasants scraping
for the last few crust of bread. Marshall's giveaway may
have been well intentioned, but it had the effect of
blood and shark infested waters. As the show began, all

(39:09):
of tour manager Peter Rudge's paranoias came true. Robert Greenfield
was one of those who found themselves on the front
line of an invasion.

Speaker 2 (39:17):
I'm backstage mine in my own business. I'm not doing
anything Stevie wonders on and the arena, because I've been
outside a right now I've come in. It's surrounded by
and it's Canada. You know. They all have maple leafs
on their underwear, you know, Like, I don't know what
they're upset about, but there are I don't know what
to call them. What do you call them? Malcontents? The

(39:40):
music should be free. They don't have tickets every show
a couple hundred maybe more. They're milling about, you know,
you know, listen, I've been to the demonstrations. I was
at Columbia when it blew up. I've seen stuff and
this stuff is roiling and going on, and then you
know find it. They're outside and we're inside. All of
a sudden, you know those big corrugated metal doors, loading

(40:05):
doors like in a loading dock, which is a day
you load in and the back stay, I'm like the
closest guy to it. Rudge is standing forward and close.
So they have broken the lock. They must have had crowbars.

Speaker 1 (40:19):
The door flies up.

Speaker 2 (40:21):
Okay, it's like a bad movie, and here are these raging,
raging youth man. Okay, and they start charging and they're
gonna overrun the show. They're gonna come in the back stay.
They're gonna set fire whatever fantasy, gonna have your worst nightmare.
And so I jump on the door, okay, the inside

(40:43):
of the door. I'm holding the door trying, and all
of a sudden, Rudge is next to me and he's
hanging on the effing door and he's screaming, we're.

Speaker 1 (40:51):
Blind here, we're blind.

Speaker 2 (40:53):
We need help, man. So we're eventually, I mean, it's
just absurd. It's like a circus scene, like five of
us all hanging on this It's like tuggle war. They're
trying to push it up, We're trying to pull it down. Okay,
I finally we get it down, and god knows what happened.
They padlock it and Rudge comes off the door, the

(41:16):
only one I ever saw on the whole tour, a
legitimate total meltdown, like he's been planning that, how could
this happen? Right, screaming it was nobody's fault. But after
that the ante was upped.

Speaker 7 (41:33):
What's interesting, I think is the juxtaposition of what you're
just describing now, of all these events and the chaos
that is occurring at the back end of this tour,
contrasted with beginning of the tour with Rudge laying out
the game plan and how everything is going to be
planned and coordinated.

Speaker 1 (41:49):
It's all under control, here's what we're gonna do.

Speaker 7 (41:51):
And step by step he's got to and then it's
not only goes out of control, but so does Rudge
as it moves along, became more and more frantic and
out of control. I think as we went along, especially
in the latter parts of the tour, as I.

Speaker 1 (42:06):
Recall, kids were always going to be out of control
at Rock concerts, that much was a given, but the
cops could be worse. The following night and a gig
in Seattle, Robert Greenfield witnesses police using handcuffs to hogtie
a young black teen who seems to have had one

(42:27):
too many. As soon as he's out of sight of
the general public, he's dragged face down more than one
hundred and fifty feet across the asphalt parking lot. Then,
in the shadow of a police fan, the cops give
him the works, beating him with feet, fists, and knees.
According to Stone's basis, Bill Wyman was an all too
common sight.

Speaker 11 (42:49):
There's always thirty ounces that beat up kids for nothing,
always beat up the wrong one. There was a lot
of it on this tour to man and like palling
kids out just because they were being pushed forward from
the back, and because they were the one in front,
they would be hold off them. And because they would
hold off, all the cups in the line that were
taking them out would.

Speaker 4 (43:09):
Think they've done something so that they will give them
a bang, you know, and they'd get beaten up at
the outside.

Speaker 2 (43:14):
It was terrible in retrospect, the tour was really run.
It was life during wartime, right, there's enough with the
kids outside angry violent. I remember most pointedly Vancouver and Seattle.
It's interesting that there were selected cities where people kids

(43:36):
took this personally that they couldn't get in and wanted
to break in. But it's a constant theme. You know.

Speaker 1 (43:44):
Mick, who long since abandon his pose as a street
fighting man in the wake of the global riots of
nineteen sixty eight, was less sympathetic to the plight of
unruly kids who seemingly would stop at nothing to experiences
banned live and in person.

Speaker 9 (43:59):
You know that if you throw stones and smash windows
in sound colisey and tucking in wherever the police are
going to chase.

Speaker 4 (44:08):
I mean, that's the idea, and that's why you do
it in the first place.

Speaker 9 (44:11):
You know what I mean, you know you may not
get in, and.

Speaker 4 (44:15):
You know you know for certain that your cops couldn't chase.

Speaker 9 (44:18):
There was a lot of pros backstage, but in the
wholes generally, there wasn't really that many problems, considering I
don't think they were.

Speaker 4 (44:25):
I mean that I'm sure that people.

Speaker 9 (44:27):
Will say, oh, here, I got my smashed in by
a copy I'm sure it happened. You know, Yeah, I
don't know if Stones Copers are really that worse than
anyone else's in.

Speaker 1 (44:36):
Thee But admittedly Mick at other things on his mind
besides the tense relationship between cops and fans. Despite all
the technical assistance, all the innovation and stage technique, and
all the rehearsing, not to mention the dozens of people
on hand whose primary objective was to make this the
greatest rock and roll production in the world, Mix still

(44:56):
face the primal fear that they'd hit the stage and
nothing what happened, the audience would just sit there stone
still like an old class photo. Despite the overwhelming ticket
demand and the avalanche of media interest, they were going
on the road with basically the same kind of show
they'd done three years earlier in nineteen sixty nine. How
would the kids react to it? The Stones were about

(45:17):
to be thirty or older. Their audience was would be fourteen, fifteen, sixteen,
some younger? Would they dance? Did they know who Chuck
Berry was? By the summer of seventy two, glam was
the new game in town. Lead singers were working half
naked with snakes twined around their midriffs. And their hair
dyed burnt Sienna, flaunting their OMNo sexuality as helicopters dive

(45:40):
bombed their audience with skyloads of paper panties. The Stones
played it straight, second generation English rock with no frills.
There was something almost punky about the sparseness of their presentation.
Fifteen songs and an hour and a half. It couldn't help,
but wonder would this be enough? This question heavily on
the band. He sequestered in their dressing room just before showtime.

(46:05):
They burned through their nervous energy in their own unique ways.
Keith would tune and twang his guitar, Charlie would sit
buddhas still and twirl the sticks, and Mick jack nibe
through ballet poses.

Speaker 2 (46:19):
Jagger would be so nervous, Mick got stage fright. He
would be beside himself. You didn't talk to him. He
usually wouldn't come out, maybe the last one out, but
he They'd be inside. There were two dressing rooms to
be the outside dressing room. Then they'd be the musicians
where they would play together before the show. You didn't
go in there because they were all sitting and playing

(46:39):
a Keith. I don't think Keith could have walked in
off the street direct to the stage and picked up
the guitar and started playing.

Speaker 7 (46:46):
Right before every show, Jagger would seclude himself, usually just
right alongside the stage, where he would then take as
much cocaine as he could possibly take.

Speaker 1 (46:56):
In that brief moment.

Speaker 7 (46:58):
It was like the band was performed the intro or
Chipmunk was making the announcement the intro, and just before
he would hit the stage, he would snort the biggest
line of cook that he could possibly get up his
nose and then jump onto stage, so that that rush,
that cocaine rush was coming on as he was getting
onto the stage. I remember really admiring him for the

(47:19):
ability to do that and to like not have anybody around.
He could always like isolate himself away from him because
he had handlers and people that were around him, you
know always, and right before he go on, he just
go off by himself and just do a blast and
then hit that stage voy it was just an explosion.
He would explode onto that stage and I always, I mean,

(47:40):
it was great to see the energy that he had to,
you know, to open a show with. It was mesmerizing.

Speaker 1 (47:51):
Finally, it's time. Months of work and millions of dollars
have led to this moment. Seventeen thousand people wait in
the pitch black and it says stage manager Chipmunk, the
famous voice of Woodstock, delivers the introduction in an age
of breathless rock and roll. Hype man. It's elegantly understated,
like announcing royalty adjectives are superfluous. Ladies and gentlemen, the

(48:17):
Rolling Stones.

Speaker 7 (48:28):
It was dark and chipped, ladies and gentlemen, the Rolling Stones,
and a downbeat of brown sugar. And then Jagger explodes
onto the stage in a spotlight and the place we're going.

Speaker 2 (48:41):
Saying it was pretty theatrical.

Speaker 7 (48:49):
And Jagger was high, very.

Speaker 2 (48:52):
And he was wearing the white jumpsuit and.

Speaker 1 (48:55):
Sparkling and spinning like a top.

Speaker 2 (48:57):
Pretty good. That was good, Pretty good for a low tech,
no screens.

Speaker 1 (49:03):
No pirate technics.

Speaker 2 (49:04):
Yeah, it was none of the frills.

Speaker 7 (49:06):
It was Jacker.

Speaker 1 (49:09):
He strides across the double serpents painted on the stage,
singing amid the flicker of their tongues, illuminated by shafts
of heavenly white light from the eight super Trooper spotlights.
Mick looks both very real and surreal. He's one of
rock's greatest dramatists, teasing the audience with a blend of
alluringly afeat seduction and hyper masculine bravado. As a young performer,

(49:34):
his hero had been Little Richard, the androgynist, outrageous piano
punishing rock pioneer who commanded rooms with an unholy whale
and truly killer eyeshadow. Soon after joining the Stones in
nineteen sixty two, Mick was nearly fired because his endearing
enthusiasm couldn't mask his crippling lack of skill. But now
a decade later, the skills are on full display. He's

(49:57):
created the template for generations of frontmen. Terry Southern, one
of the famed writers covering the tour, describe to Mick
is possessing the most dramatic qualities of James Brown, Rudolph Nuriev,
Marcel Marceau. Robert Greenfield is a similar assessment.

Speaker 2 (50:13):
A couple things about Mick. Absolutely the greatest onstage performer
that anyone had ever seen. If you've seen Charlie as
my darling, Mick goes to America come back, he's dancing
like James Brown, doing the exact James Brown move man.
I saw it every night at the Apollo when I
was there. He's doing that like sideways pony that James

(50:34):
did and the Ronettes could do. And he's a great mimetic.
He's a mime. He can do other people. And if
you look and you can see the photographs, he's already
well aware of David Bowie America, isn't you know. I
think he's made hunky dory, but he's known in London

(50:54):
and McK knows him. Mick always has an eye for
the competition. He's always looking sideways and backwards, so who's
coming after me? And so on that tour, Mick is
wearing I don't know what to call it. You know,
the revealing jumpsuit, you know, the white showing a lot
of cleavage.

Speaker 1 (51:12):
You know, Mick warr selection of a lur jumpsuits on
the STP tour, crafted by designer Ozzie Clark, frequently left
open to his navel. The stage uniform was skin tight.
The audience would be shocked to learn that he was
in fact wearing underwear underneath.

Speaker 2 (51:27):
He's working the unisex, unisex leotard. And I've said this
before to other people. Uh, just a bozo on the
bus I'm just on tour. I'm writing down what I see.
We get to Minneapolis and I see all these seventeen
year old Scandinavian blonde guys wearing dresses, and I think, oh,

(51:49):
there's something going on here, Like dude wearing Minnesota. It
can be hip not running down Minnesota. But I was
blown away. It wasn't New York, it was on the
Lower East Side. It wasn't CBGB's. And yet Jagger has
already anticipated that's a big change in rock and roll.
Boys looking like girls. Yeah, and Jagger's doing it. He's

(52:13):
doing it on that tour. He had his own makeup
artists on the tour who there were great photographs that
and he's taken Bianca watching as Steve Goki makes Jagger
look a movie star esque. Yeah, like glittery. I would
venture to say that no other rock band ever toured

(52:34):
with a makeup artist before this Kiss. No, they weren't
out yet. I mean, Jagger's like so far ahead in
terms of theater cinema production. He sees the bigger picture
and that androgynist look too, well, that came more naturally to.

Speaker 7 (52:49):
Him and Bowie and Mark Bowling.

Speaker 2 (52:52):
Yeah, this is happening in England, but not so much
in America yet. And I don't think people were conscious
of it during the tour because the music was so good.
But he's affecting that's what's incredible, you know, he's affecting
the way people look at each concert.

Speaker 1 (53:09):
Mick consisted that the first Batcher rows were filled with
everyday fans rather than VIPs or photographers. This was partially
to ensure that John and JANEQ public got a good
look at his still slender physique maintained through his new
daily jogging regimen. But more importantly, he wanted to make
eye contact with his audience. He fed off their energy
and their responses or sometimes lack thereof.

Speaker 2 (53:32):
So the genius of me still but back then so
sensitive to the house. I saw it in small arenas
in England on the English tour. You know, they played
before eight hundred people two shows a night. Jagger could
see twenty five rows back and if he saw somebody
who wasn't up, he'd work to get that person up.
I mean, he was a genius and he would do

(53:52):
different things on stage every night. It wasn't always the
same stuff, but you know, physically a performer when they
would do a mid Nightbler, he was acting out psychodrama.

Speaker 1 (54:04):
Off their nineteen sixty nine album Let It Bleed. Midnight
Rambler was the show piece of the STP tour set,
as Mick went into full body theatrics, reaching for his
black hinestone studded built to whip the stage. The punishing
physicality would overwhelm lesser front man. Even Mick admitted that
it could sometimes be difficult to transform himself from that

(54:24):
nervous guy in the dressing room to a superhuman singing
shaman on command.

Speaker 4 (54:30):
Well, yeah, but that's all.

Speaker 9 (54:32):
Right because you after a why you can It's all right,
you can do it, and when you get up there,
you really.

Speaker 4 (54:37):
Do have to fake an the time you get.

Speaker 9 (54:39):
On stage, you feel like all right, you know, because
if you can't, if you can't get up by that,
then you aren't going to get up by anything so
much as we'll forget it and start living.

Speaker 2 (54:48):
You know, they are performers and once you hit the stage,
the energy comes to you off the house. Keith always
talked about this, and so did Mick, that you are
interactive with the crowd and they push you, they make

(55:09):
also you take everything personally. I mean, if you're not up,
if I haven't gotten you out of your seat, like
why aren't you dancing? And that's the way the Stones
always were. I mean I saw shows in England where
they were pissed off and they played harder and they
got people to react. In America, the reaction was there
because it's group think, like every you know, you've seen

(55:30):
it all of a sudden, why is everybody standing now?
When you go like, dude, nothing happened yet, well, everybody's up.
You know, they didn't have to work to get people up.
But I think it goes back and forth. That's the difference,
you know, and that becomes the real addiction. You know,
the rush of being on stage. It's bigger than any

(55:52):
drug for if this is what you do for your living,
that's your joy and you're you know, and you're a musician.
I mean, this is the point to be made is
they played their asses off every night.

Speaker 1 (56:08):
And we'd remiss if we didn't mention the human riff.
Keith Richardson, there.

Speaker 2 (56:12):
Aren't that many guys who are as You have to
have a right hand to be a rhythm guy. You
have to understand that music in a deeper part of
yourself that you can play that without having to think
about it, you just feel it. And then playing leads
are a whole different issue. But he could do both
and did. Mick Taylor came in, So Mick was handling
the leads some, but on the real songs, the old songs,

(56:36):
oh it was Keith. He's playing Satisfaction. That's his riff.
You know, he invented it.

Speaker 1 (56:45):
For guitarist. Mick Taylor still considered the new guy after
joining three years earlier. The STP tour marked the point
where the band truly started to coalesce as one musical unit.

Speaker 10 (56:55):
Yes, it's more enjoyments on stage on the sixty nine
to it was literally a new band.

Speaker 4 (57:03):
None of us have played together. We were all a
bit sort.

Speaker 5 (57:06):
Of timid, and we were feeling our way.

Speaker 10 (57:08):
Thereas only reason to. Everybody was much looser and more
trump You. Once you get up on stage and start.

Speaker 9 (57:14):
Playing, you know that's why you're doing it.

Speaker 10 (57:17):
Who leads up to that moment when you're actually going
up on stage to play for an audience.

Speaker 2 (57:23):
Back then, no backup singers correct think about this. Nineteen
seventy two tour, Keith singing harmony. Nobody else, Jim Price
playing trumpet, Bobby Keith's playing saxophone. The music you heard
was Charlie Bill Wyman, Keith and Meck and Mick Taylor

(57:45):
and Nicky Hopkins too. We forgot the great Nicky Hopkins
was Ian Stewart would be playing the blue stuff and
honky Tonk women, and then Nicky would take over for
the complicated stuff. And Stu, who was an incredible phrase maker.
He called a lot of what NICKI played diamond tiaras,

(58:05):
and he had a Scottish accent, you know. Now, Nicky
was to my mind, the greatest piano player in rock
and roll. Astonishing musician. Yeah, and they're killing it, I mean,
and they're playing eighteen thousand seed arenas and the acoustic set,
the house would be dead silent. You could hear every note.
They're sitting there playing these three lovely guitars. Pretty intense,

(58:26):
you know.

Speaker 9 (58:30):
Well.

Speaker 1 (58:30):
Ostensibly promoting Exile on Main Street, the set list was
a mud of material. They opened with two titles from
their previous album, Sticky Fingers, Brown Sugar and Bitch, giving
those tracks their American debut, with an unbeatable one to
two punch. Tracks from their nineteen sixty nine album, Let
It Bleed, Gotta Workout, And they also stacked the set
list with instant standards like jumping Jack Flash, you can't

(58:52):
always get what you want, and Gimme shelter.

Speaker 2 (58:55):
If you look at the set lists from the tour,
they did two or three unks from Eggxile on stage.
And the point, the reason that was legitimate was they
had never toured behind Sticky Fingers in America, so America
deserved to hear Bitch and Brown Sugar and the greatness
that was in the Sticky Fingers.

Speaker 1 (59:17):
Here's what setless.

Speaker 7 (59:18):
What do you got, Kara, tell me Brown Sugar, Bitch
rocks Off, gimme shelter, Happy Tumbling Dice, Love in Vain,
Sweet Virginia, you can't always get what you want? Down
the line, Midnight Rambler, Bye Bye, Johnny, Rip this joint,
and jumping Jack Flash.

Speaker 2 (59:31):
The Hankonky Talk women always got people up dancing. It
was irresistible, and so listen. Part of rock is the
brilliance of your set. Construction wise, you have to go up,
you have to go down, and them doing the acoustic
thing in the middle, calm the house down. Then you
bring them up slightly and then when you three songs
from the end, you go to the next level so

(59:53):
that they're screaming for you to come back, and you'll
there were masters at that. Yeah, yeah, they knew how
to do that. Yeah. It' the crowd. Yeah, it killed,
It killed. Coming out of the box, the.

Speaker 1 (01:00:04):
Band barreled on like a runaway train, playing faster and
fiercer than ever before. After the acoustic interlude, it was
all rock, all the time. Keith ripped through a cover
of Bye Bye Johnny like a long lost cousin of
Chuck Berry. Allward, faster and harder, with all down the line,
Rip this joint and jumping Jack Flash. It all builds
the street fighting man as Chipmunk's rig works its magic,

(01:00:27):
dissolving the stage into a shower of light and rose petals.
With that, the stones vanish and a haze of feet back.

Speaker 2 (01:00:47):
They weren't awful. They didn't dog it. You know. It
wasn't like Jack. Oh yeah, saw Mick. You couldn't sing.
That's why they're the quote unquote greatest rock band in noise.
They show up and they kill it, and you have
gotten your money's worth and you go home thinking I
just saw the greatest show of the tour.

Speaker 1 (01:01:08):
The audience may have felt that way, but the Stones
are perfectionists. They always consider the first show a dress rehearsal,
one final opportunity to work out the Kinks. Keith blows
out two guitars and is immensely frustrated. There's also a
heated discussion of a production designer, Chipmunk's innovative new mirrored
lighting design, which some feel improperly illuminates Mick, who is,

(01:01:30):
after all, the very reason for the show. The bands
stay up until four am making changes to the set,
discussing which songs to drop, which to keep, and what
order to play them in so much for after parties.
As Bill Wyman a tests, they definitely put in the work.

Speaker 11 (01:01:45):
But this is the first tour I've ever come off
stage the night after night, he just could not even
sitting order a capeteo be I just out on the
bed in a stranger.

Speaker 1 (01:01:58):
The next morning or manager Peter Rudge reaches for the papers.
He finds a three column bold type headline Stones fans
battle police. The wire service has picked up the story
and suddenly it's national news. The phone calls come flooding
in what the hell is going on? Up there, Peter, geez,
that's only Vancouver, and already the damn thing's out of
control and on the front page. Garnering headlines have been

(01:02:22):
the primary objective, But as far as Keith Richards was concerned,
the papers had missed the point. There is something far
more special going on inside the arena. The tour was
off and running now, no telling what type of mayhem
might ensue. There would be a lot of that, But
to Keith, the music trumped all funnily enough.

Speaker 8 (01:02:43):
To the musicians, the most important thing is the show,
which I mean isn't bullshit.

Speaker 4 (01:02:50):
I mean anybody can say that. But thinking the band's
playing better than ever.

Speaker 8 (01:02:59):
UTIs is keep getting bigger and better, and the shows
keep getting bigger and better.

Speaker 3 (01:03:03):
And.

Speaker 4 (01:03:05):
So why quit?

Speaker 8 (01:03:06):
You know, mean, nobody's just got the designs to quit
because you're still getting the satisfaction out of it.

Speaker 4 (01:03:13):
But you need to produce and create and keep going.

Speaker 8 (01:03:17):
You know, it's an all mighty asswoman to keep this show.

Speaker 4 (01:03:21):
On the road, you know, because yeah, you know it's
all but I mean, can't quit now.

Speaker 7 (01:03:39):
Stone's Touring Party is written and hosted by Jordan Runtalk
co executive produced by Noel Brown and Jordan Runtalk. Edited
and sound designed by Noel Brown and Michael Older June.
Original music composed and performed by Michael Older June and
Noel Brown, with additional instruments performed by Chris Suarez, Nick
Johns Cooper and Josh Than.

Speaker 2 (01:03:58):
Vintage Rolling Stones audio Curtis of the Robert Greenfield Archive
at the Charles Dering McCormick.

Speaker 7 (01:04:03):
Library of Special Collections in Northwestern University Libraries. Stone's Touring
Party is a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 1 (01:04:19):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your favorite shows.