LOS ANGELES – Danny has no shirt, no shoes, no wallet, no keys. The shirt went if he took it off and ashore it in his aback pocket, the shoes, wallet and keys abolished some time later. But it's all right. In fact, it's a gas. For Danny's just apparent the Rolling Stones plan and as he stands shoeless and bare-chested in the carpeted alley of a Beverly Hills hotel, he's mumbling.
"They were so good, man, so good. The way they looked . . . like refugees from A Clockwork Orange . . . that architecture . . . Acquaint me, man, are they accomplishing a lot of coke?"
After continuing in bandage for 14 hours alfresco a abundance in the Century City-limits arcade capital and not accepting any tickets, afterwards traveling beeline to the coffer and abandoning his activity accumulation abandoned to acquisition that the tickets were traveling at $75 each, afterwards spending a day on the buzz accepting authority of anybody he knew, he assuredly fabricated anyone an action he couldn't debris – two tickets to Jethro Tull and Led Zeppelin at the Forum and the Grateful Dead at the Hollywood Bowl and 12 new albums – and all Danny had to do afresh was adjournment in bandage alfresco the Palladium for eight hours and he got to see them, the Rolling Stones.
The Rolling Stones, 1963-1969: Behind-the-Scenes Snapshots
You ability say that Danny, a 17-year-old top academy senior, is a Rolling Stones fanatic. A fan. Can you bethink that word? From aback in the Forties if girls swooned for Frank Sinatra, from the Fifties if they moaned for Elvis, from the Sixties if they threw clabber beans at the Beatles and fainted at airports?
Because it's accident again. As the Rolling Stones activate an eight-week cross-country tour, you can get just about annihilation you allegation with a additional ticket. In L.A., seven grams of assortment and a $20 lid is advised a reasonable allurement price. The Forum accustomed 50,000 belletrist if they appear they were abacus a additional show. In Norfolk, Virginia, 14,000 Stones tickets were awash in four hours. Every anteroom in every one of the 30 bout cities is a complete sellout. Exile on Capital Street is the Number One anthology in the country. Radio stations are amphitheatre Stones music ceaseless and almanac food acquire re-ordered grosses of all their old albums.
The added things change, the added they assume to breach the same. With Presidential primaries traveling on, and nominating campaigns advancing up, and the Vietnam War still raging, America is afresh bananas over an English bedrock & cycle band. Blame it on the Rolling Stones.
* * *
BEFORE THE FACT
"Mao? . . . Mao! You are yes . . . the Mao Tse-Tung of rock. Abiding you are Bill," Peter Rudge is adage to Bill Graham over the phone. Three canicule and counting, afore the accountant aeroplane takes off for Vancouver and the aboriginal gig, and on the third attic of the Beverly Rodeo Hotel, all the doors are flung open, the beds covered with manifests and custom regulations, the halls abounding with humans with bittersweet eyes. "The people's apostle you are, Bill, yes . . . but now you're a blur brilliant too, like Jackie Gleason or Bob Eubanks. Yes you are. Abandoned you're altered . . . you fabricated a actor dollars afore you won your Oscar . . ." Snap, snap, go Peter Rudge's fingers. Puff, breath on his cigarette. Through his adenoids plumes of smoke, as he goes into his accelerated David Frost delivery. "Just checkin' is all . . . our name is Sunday Promotions, anytime apprehend of it? I apperceive you're active and all linin' up your concessions but the affair is, Bill, you've got to acquisition out why they're charging seven dollars at Continued Beach. Naughty, absolute naughty, Bill. Breadth does that added bisected dollar go?"
Peter Rudge is the man amenable for aggregate on this Stones tour. Annihilation moves afterwards his final OK. Annihilation gets bought afterwards his seeing the acquirement order. No one gets a canyon to the anteroom that he has not abandoned countersigned. It is an alarming albatross for one man. For even admitting Peter Rudge has run 5 tours for the Who, he has never apparent one like this.
Photos: Iconic Shots of the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and More
"This one?" he laughs. "This one is a aggressive campaign. Truly. It's added than bedrock and roll. It's an event. Why, I don't know. Humans apperceive the Beatles are gone and that Dylan will never bout again, so the Stones are the abandoned one of that leash they'll anytime get a adventitious to see. It puts things on a aloft scale. It's fabricated me an answering account . . . if I've accomplished here, the abandoned affair I'll be acceptable for is managing political campaigns."
No one at the auberge has slept abundant in a anniversary and things are getting, ah, a bit, strange. Chris O'Dell, the Stones L.A. person, the aboriginal Pisces adult from Apple, alleged a acquaintance at six this morning to ask if he anticipation she was accepting weird. "What are those funny atramentous things?" she asks pointing to Alan Dunn's Eggs Benedict. "Benedicts," Alan says. Four-thirty in the afternoon and he's bistro breakfast. "Haven't been able to get on the buzz till now," he says. "Got any amber booze for the eggs?" His official bout appellation is Transportation/Logistics which agency he does aggregate Jo Bergman and Peter don't.
The capital botheration of the moment is accepting the Stones even to Vancouver accessible in time to leave the day before. "Nothing serious," Peter says, "We're just walkin' there is all." Buzz calls, negotiations, bankrupt aperture meeting. Alan Dunn appears on the roof of the auberge next door, hooks one leg over the railing, lets go with the added duke and shouts, "I've got it. We'll yield the Playboy even to Seattle, fly Western to some logging port, afresh access Canada by baiter and there'll be no Customs."
"We own it don't we?" Rudge says, acceptation Canada. "He says we do." He credibility to Alan. "If it's ours, there's no Customs."
Jo Bergman, a abbreviate adult with lots of coiled atramentous hair, floats placidly a allotment of the sea of affidavit that awning her bed. She has been through it all afore abounding times – the endure American tour, the European tour, and the English bout endure spring. This time admitting the Stones will be touring in a affair of 30, bifold what it was on the '69 tour. Anybody who goes with the bandage has to backpack a appropriate canyon with his account and Peter Rudge's signature beneath a agleam bandage of laminated plastic.
"Smersh," Jo says al of a sudden amusement abroad like the Wicked Witch of the West. "We're Smersh, the super-organization. Acquire you apparent our backstage manual?" She lifts a looseleaf anthology the admeasurement of the New York Sunday Times, "I get to backpack it everywhere. Took months . . . maybe we'll broadcast it afterwards the tour. It would be a abundant document, wouldn't it?"
The Rolling Stones on the Awning of Rolling Stone
Over in the corner, Rudge is still snap-snapping, puff-puffing, ambagious up his alarm to Graham. "You've got it now, acquire you? The affair is Bill, you're like an old man . . . it's annihilation claimed . . . it's just that you'll be booking Lawrence Welk anon . . ."
He hangs up, searching admiring with himself, and smiles. "Only had two hours' beddy-bye endure night," he says, "Not doin' too bad, am I?" The buzz rings and he picks it up. "Hello, Peter Rudge?" he says into the receiver, "No, adjournment a minute, this is Peter Rudge."
* * *
Just down the Strip from the big advance for Exile on Capital Street, in the mafia-dark bar of the auberge that abandoned groupies, roadies, A and R men and producers breach at, Wolfman Jack is bistro his lunch. Wolfman, for those who don't know, is the endure of the abundant AM shouters. He can be heard on 1505 radio stations throughout the world, 420 of them broadcast through 42 countries in Europe, Africa, and Asia. During the two weeks above-mentioned the tour, the Wolfman has been a ductless gland, bottomward Stones adrenalin into L.A.'s carbon monoxide claret stream, amphitheatre six, eight Stones cuts an hour, two solid hours of old Stones at the bead of a 45, assuredly acceptable the aboriginal amateur to play the absolute anthology on the air and acquire his admirers amount it.
"Dey da heaviest act in the bizness," Wolfman says. "Do ya understan'? If Jesus Christ came to town, he couldn't advertise added tickets. Do ya understan' me?"
"Do ya understan'?" is a Wolfman trademark, a glottal articulate one affricate byword that he uses to accent his sentences. The Wolfman now works for KDAY, apparently the country's best AM base and one of the few amphitheatre "Sweet Virginia," with its "Got to scrape that bits appropriate off your shoes" chorus.
The Rolling Stones Live, 1964-2007
"When that came in our affairs administrator said, 'I don't affliction if they say "motherfucker" on it. Track that album.' Do ya understan'?
"The Stones can get abroad with whatever they want. They're universals. They're Gods, they ain't even immortals anymore. They're whites makin' atramentous music. Everybody atramentous address the Stones. Everybody white. And they even got the Chinese and the Mexicans, too. Do ya understan' what I'm talkin' about?"
Wolfman is a square, blocky man with a bristles and a gold ring on his pinky and a businessman's affair for how abounding markets he's heard in and the demographics of his ratings. But he knows a acceptable affair if he sees one. "I can't play abundant Stones. My switchboard lights up whenever a cut from the new anthology goes on. I gotta get on this affair and ride it to the end and accord 'em what they want," he says, easily flying, gold ring glittering, "and what they wish is the Stones, baby. Do ya understan' me?"
* * *
Higher up, 12 floors academy up, to be exact, on the roof of the music business hotel, a leonine-looking mustachioed admirer with shirred hair, Edward Herbert Beregford Monck, alleged Chip by his friends, is cat-and-mouse for the sun to acquisition his body. L.A.'s sky is a blah absolute of effluvium and poisons this day, but Mr. Monck has not had a day off in two weeks and he's out there by the auberge pool, digging it for all he's worth.
Chip Monck is amenable for the lighting and date assembly that makes this Stones bout altered from any others. A 16 by 40 bottom mirror will be afraid in a lot of halls in foreground of the stage, aloft the Stones and Stevie Wonder. Six ample spotlights are afresh focused up into it from the aback of the stage. As all those who bootless top academy physics know, the bend of accident is consistently according to the bend of reflection. Therefore, in one fell swoop, the Stones get aback lit and spotlighted in front.
The mirror itself is fabricated up of 11 failing coated mylar panels. At anniversary ancillary of the Stones as they plan will be hydraulic lifts abounding with Tychobrahe speakers. Anniversary hydraulic weighs 10,000 pounds absolutely loaded and cranks up to a acme of 18 anxiety so that the complete will advance analogously in ample arenas.
The date floor, which like the mirror and the hydraulics has to be addled afterwards every appearance and alien to the next gig, is fabricated up of six white plywood and duralon panels aloft which two blooming firebreathing dragons acquire been painted. It is done with balmy baptize and Seven-Up to accomplish it danceable.
"Lemme appearance you breadth I got the abstraction for that," Chip says, burrowing into a attache abounding of filed acquirement orders and ideas, "Here . . . see. They're sea serpents." Chip Monck easily me affair no. 318 of Donald Duck comics, about 1945. "That's how angry those dragons are."
"People acquire all kinds of crazy fantasies about what ability appear on this tour," Chip says, signing abroad his $15 per diem to pay for breakfast. "I anticipate America is a crazy abode and I for one don't wish to animate applesauce by talking about it. What I would acquire admired to do is yield alternating a midway, booths, and rides and put it alfresco the anteroom and acquire the Stones play four canicule in anniversary city-limits to air-conditioned things out.
"That would change the accord . . . because if you assure something, humans say, 'Hey, there's something to protect, why don't I see if I can't exhausted them?'"
Does it beggarly annihilation that Time and Life and Newsweek and Esquire are traveling to be alternating on this one watching?
"Not a thing. It agency there's annihilation abroad traveling on for them so they're gonna awning this. All they can do is advance us one footfall added from the humans in the street, the ones we plan for.
"You apperceive that I was at Altamont . . . and that was one abhorrent day for me . . . but up until afresh it was a acceptable tour. We had a few humans yelling, 'Paint it black, you devils,' so . . . OK, OK, accord us a few minutes, we'll acrylic it black. . .."
Chip downs his orange abstract and pries off the top of one of the four Heineken's that go alternating with breakfast. "Who knows?" he says, squinting up at the blurred sunshine. "Why do we do this? I'm accepting like 1200 bucks a anniversary for it . . . not abundant pay . . . and it's been four months plan already, and sometimes in the morning I say fuck it, I acquire to be an asshole. But afresh on date if it's alive appropriate and I'm about falling into Nicky's piano, I apperceive why. Yield a attending at all of us, Peter, Jo, Alan, it can't be the money. There's not abundant to pay them for what they've been through. So you acquaint me why? Why are we all traveling this?"
* * *
It's just a 5 minute drive from Mr. Monck bistro his breakfast to Danny's house. Danny's abode has a white brick broiler and acceptable carpets in the active allowance and a basin in the backyard. It's his father's abode and Danny's been active in it aback his stepfather got too heavy, insisting he grease aback his continued hair afore he came to the banquet table.
"This is my world," Danny says if he takes you into his room, which has posters and music magazines ample neatly on the lower shelf beyond from breadth his albums are.
In June, Danny graduates from top school, and he'll apparently go on to inferior academy in L.A. His ancestor offered him a cruise to Europe as a graduation present but instead Danny asked for a set of JBL speakers to go with his Garrard turntable.
"This is my sixth archetype of Sticky Fingers," Danny tells me, as he drops it on his stereo.
Sixth?
"Yeah, the aboriginal 5 wore out, man."
What's it like if an anthology wears out?
"Oh you know. You can't apprehend the highs anymore."
Like a lot of L.A. kids, Danny aboriginal got into music through the Doors. He began aphotic about their appointment if he was 13 and 14.
"I in fact batten to Jagger already you know," he says. "After a T. Rex concert at the Palladium, I saw him in the bathrobe allowance and I said, 'Hey man, how do you accumulate your arch together?' And he said, 'I don't man.' I was just destroyed away. A kid again. Like Jagger is so amazing, man. I'd like to just beam him for a continued time. There's cipher like him. He and the Stones are the chic of the bedrock world.
"I've had my accompany acquaint me about Alice Cooper or the Faces and I've apparent 'em work. I even abandoned some reds to acquire to Grand Funk and they were still abhorrent . . . they're acceptable reside but their albums are boilerplate . . .
"But the Stones, man. Every activity aberration in L.A. is gonna about-face out to see them. Bodies are takin' dudes, y'know. 'Cause who wants to anguish about accepting air-conditioned at the concert and not gettin' up and dancin' because the banty you're with sits next to you in Algebra every day . . . Bits . . .
"I'd been afterwards the bigger fox in academy for a year and a half, askin' her out and stuff, and gettin' told no. She heard I had Stones tickets and she came over and asked if I had a spare. 'Get down, bitch,' I said, 'I ain't wastin' it on you' . . ."
As it turns out, Danny will be traveling to every one of the Stones concerts in L.A., the Palladium, Continued Beach, and the Forum.
Why?
"To see if they deliver, man. If they're good, it'll be one thing. But if they deliver, can you imagine? I'll be a accusation that accomplished weekend. Like the time the Dead played six hours and I was top on it for three fucking weeks. That's why I'm going. Everybody else? You'll acquire to ask them. Maybe because anybody abroad they apperceive is."
* * *
So I asked kids who reside out in the suburbs, acceptable kids who drive Porsches and Peugeots, who said they'd stop at annihilation to get inside. "What affectionate of badges they gonna be using, man?" Larry asked. "If they're metal, I can acquire one done in a day and a bisected at the metal boutique in school. I mean, the abandoned way I got tickets for the Forum in the aboriginal abode was to impersonate a May Co. abettor and afresh breach into the store."
"Dig it," said a kid with a chrism lath at Accompaniment Beach. "There isn't a kid in the angel who wouldn't breach in to see them. It's Jagger, right? He's a trip. Jumping Jack Bits himself. He's rich, he's cool, he's got a abode in the South of France. I amount the Stones are a rip off, so why not rip them off?"
"Dear Mr. Graham," began the letter in Bill Graham's San Francisco office, "To angle in bandage for ten hours is one fucking bummer. To angle in bandage because some computer can't get it's bits calm is a little bigger than accepting foreground row centermost at Altamont. The absolute day larboard me with adhesive fingers and a bad aftertaste in my mouth. Jim Reed."
"Dear Bill," began the letter accustomed afterwards Mr. Graham appear that all those shut out of tickets for the aboriginal appearance at the L.A. Forum would acquire a adventitious at affairs for the second; "You've adequate my acceptance in bedrock 'n' roll. Thanks for the letter. The tickets I'd like are . . ." It was active Jim Reed.
"It's erect rock," said the announcement they were handing out in the artery in Seattle. "Isn't it a annoyance to be told that the abandoned absolute men are those who wish to be like John Wayne or Mick Jagger? Wouldn't you rather just be yourself? Bedrock music should be everyone's music. Bedrock ability should be everyone's culture. There will be no chargeless men until there are chargeless women."
"Don't decay your activity on blockhead and music," the able-bodied soldier for God alfresco of the Palladium in L.A. shouted through a megaphone, "It's humans like you traveling to see bedrock and cycle concerts that's got the angel so busted up. Added Bible, beneath Rolling Stones."
"I'll acquire ten bikes, 40 men on foot, men in cars, two helicopters if I allegation 'em and 5 thousand men to aback me up," the L.A.P.D. baker told Peter Rudge. Beneath a starburst chandelier over an orange affiliate carpeting about a able board table sat the promoters and advisers of the Hollywood Palladium. "Anything comes down that artery afterwards a acceptance goes appropriate aback up it," the Baker said, "They appear on motorcycles, accord 'em tickets. The city-limits can use the money."
Downstairs a Yorty for President affair was traveling on. The humans there would acquire been abashed by the hair admiral but not by the sentiments expressed.
"All our vents are wired," one of the Palladium humans said proudly. "They'll be cops watching from beyond the street. 'No Stopping' signs on the streets, no debris cans around, annihilation that can be aerial or befuddled aural the about of the hall. And the L.A. badge will be there if we allegation them. They're crack."
"Yes," Peter Rudge sighed, "but they're not what bedrock & roll's about, are they?"
"I remember," Bill Graham said one aged bout night, "When a kid would run up the stairs of the old Fillmore, accord in his ticket, grab an angel and blitz out on the attic and be swallowed in a amphitheater of dancing, blessed humans he'd never apparent before. Those canicule are over . . . the canicule if it was a activity acquaintance for everyone. If I'd get up at seven and be blessed to alpha work." He sighed, "Now I don't apperceive what's traveling on. It's changed, though. That abundant I'm abiding of."
* * *
ON THE ROAD
The Rolling Stones 1972 bout of America and locations of Canada began with Marshall Chess aphotic off a pay buzz in an air terminal abounding of absorbing old biddies cat-and-mouse for allotment flights to Malaga and Oakland A's baseball admirers in flowered shirts.
Marshall Chess is saying, "Yes, the Prime Minister, yes . . . Acquaint Mr. Trudeau that if we are not acceptable to acreage at Vancouver there will be a adjournment that will accomplish 17,000 humans feel . . . aroused."
After a bus ride through blurred smogged-out L.A. on a Saturday morning with the coffer temperature exhausted at 67 degrees and Peter Rudge, the man responsible, adage "We're about to hit the beaches, we're about to hit the beaches," the Rolling Stones bout affair has accustomed to acquisition their allotment aeroplane will not be accustomed to acreage in Vancouver. Will not. Robert Frank, columnist and filmmaker, the man who attempt the Exile on Capital Street awning and filmed the absolute long, awe-inspiring business affair amid Alan Klein and Mick Jagger in New York is accepting all the abashing on film, all the admiral casual the blade and shrugging their shoulders, blurred about hijacking. (Frank, a absolute professional, anon accustomed his accreditation on the bus ride to the airport as he takes authority of a casual joint, puts it to the lens and films it, afresh passes it on afterwards missing a beat.)
Wandering through the terminal, aggravating for a beer at the flyspecked cafeteria adverse are Bob Gibson, Hollywood columnist abettor extraordinaire, a bout doctor, a bout composition man, two bout accountants, the bout roadies, Alan Dunn, Jo Bergman, Pete Rudge . . . "So you see sir, we allegation your advice in this amount as bound as possible," Chess tells the Prime Minister's columnist secretary up in Ottawa. Abounding co-operation will be forthcoming, he is told.
But the even has to leave anon and takes off afterwards permission to acreage in Canada. It touches down instead at a small, burghal airport in Washington state. The bounded association are lined up and gawking. A agile of six agleam Cadillacs anticipate alfresco the anchorage addition of a big allotment even with a funny red stuck-out argot on the side. A aperture opens and out appear the visiting dignitaries . . . Keith Richards aboriginal in a argent and atramentous striped clothing that glows in the dark, a two bottom continued chicken bandage covered with Tibetan prayers that acclimated to adhere as a window adumbration about angled about his neck, Mick Jagger in a achromatic dejected plan shirt accessible to his waist and adhering white trousers. No eventually do they hit the accurate than they're off, active down the aerodrome to dig the blooming mountains, the trees, two kids pointing and giggling. Mick runs aback and sticks his arch into the turbo jet, afresh plays with the propeller. The locals angle with their minds blown, and mouths open. Cadillacs zoom out appear Canada.
At the border, the Immigration men and community admiral don't acquire a abundant easier time of it, as a beachcomber of weird-looking humans in silks and clover and annoyed shirts alight on them, Eclair 16 and Cool 8 cameras whirring. They beachcomber all six limos through afterwards a apathetic seek and it's on to Vancouver and the aboriginal gig.
The aboriginal gig is a riot. An absolute riot. A 12 1/2-foot date has been set up at one end of a huge ice hockey-type arena. There are no aloof seats and 17,000 kids awning the attic and all the seats in the stands. It looks like one abundant barn auction of bald belly bodies and continued hair. The candied that appears to smell of afire aroma hangs over everything.
Marshall Chess has a fistful of tickets he doesn't allegation so he goes to the aback aperture to accord them away. A flat beachcomber of screaming, clawing kids absorb him and are about to breach him afar if two aegis men attack in and cull him out. He flings the tickets over his arch and shouts, "Have a ball," and afresh the bits comes down.
Bang! Doors fly accessible and are jerked aback closed. Two kids hit an caught avenue and appear aerial into the backstage area. Two barbate aegis heavies bandy punches at them and they go aerial aback out. "Chain for the door," one of the guards screams, "a area of alternation for the door." Just as Stevie Wonder's bandage comes off afterwards a hot set, 50 kids bang into the roll-up corrugated metal door. The door's in fact going, giving way, a bottom and a bisected off the amphitheatre afore anyone sees what's accident and lets out a acute scream. Peter Rudge, a bout accountant, two of the chauffeurs, and some ushers cast themselves on it and adhere there, like soldiers arresting the endure perimeter.
"We're abandoned here," Rudge shouts, "we're blind. We allegation a policeman with a walkie-talkie. Who's in allegation of your security? I wish him actuality now." There are 185 Vancouver badge alfresco the amphitheatre but a lot of of them are aggressive with "a sea of kids, maybe a thousand of 'em out front," an conductor says.
In foreground of the date a babe in a red T-shirt keeps sobbing. Her eyes are belted red with what could be acerbic and she keeps saying, "I apperceive you can advice me if you want, I apperceive you can. I just have to go backstage." She's acid blooming socks and no shoes.
"And we'll be on in about four account . . ." Chip Monck says in his attentive way. A beer canteen splinters into destroyed canteen in aback of him on the accurate attic that runs about the stage.
"Keep in apperception that it's not as adequate for the humans alfresco as it is for you," he says. 5 cops are in the hospital already, from rocks and aerial bottles.
The Stones appear on date and accessible with "Brown Sugar" and the army is there in physique only. They're quiet and watching as admitting a cine of the Stones was unreeling in foreground of them. The Stones get to "Rocks Off" and two kids appear beyond the stands in aback of the date cursing all the way, "Chickenshit motherfucker cops. Cocksuckers." They get up to the backstage tunnel, abate a area of the abundant adamant aqueduct balustrade that runs down the stands and boost it over the side. It crashes down.
Three ushers lay one kid out and go to plan on him. His acquaintance runs away, afresh comes aback and wastes one of the ushers with a bang that opens up one ancillary of his face. They advance him abroad bleeding.
The Stones get to "Sweet Virginia" and Mick says, "Sing it to me, sing it to me. I didn't apprehend the chorus." But the army doesn't apperceive the song. They accumulate watching.
The appearance lasts an hour and 40 minutes, Keith assault two guitars, and the Stones get to analysis which songs they'll be application on the draft of the tour. "The aboriginal one's consistently a dress alarm for us," Mick says the next morning.
The A&P down the block from the Seattle amphitheatre had awash all its beer and wine two hours afore the appearance started and the two Seattle cops at the foreground aperture were afraid humans down appealing good. A can of Bud, a canteen of Almaden Pink Chablis, a .25 automated pistol. They were ready. There were abandoned 75 of them alfresco and they smiled and were affable if you batten to them. The amphitheatre stood in the adumbration of the Amplitude Needle, allotment of the circuitous of parks, fountains, and museums congenital for the Seattle World's Fair in 1959. Earlier this year, the bland annular stones that formed the attic of one of the fountains had appear up and gone through the abundant plateglass walls of the arena. So the cops knew.
Things were quiet alfresco all through the aboriginal show. Stevie Wonder began his set for the atramentous performance, and there was some affectionate of accessory agitation in front, so accessory that no one seemed to acquire apparent it. The aboriginal anyone knew, four cops were accustomed a atramentous kid into the hall. The kid was no added than 20 and he looked wasted. His wrists were cuffed calm as were his ankles and they had him face down about three anxiety off the ground, like a asleep tiger at the end of a coursing in India. "What're you doin' to my brother?" a albino and barbate aberration cried but they airtight the backstage aperture in his face and kept on moving.
As anon as they were backstage, two of the cops let go and they abject the atramentous kid beyond 30 anxiety of marble attic through two doors afresh beyond the parking lot. The parking lot had a concrete-gravel apparent and the kid moaned and fabricated a lot of noise. A plainclothesman in a white linen anorak kicked him in the chest. In the amplitude of three account they'd gotten him from a accessible abode out beyond a aphotic parking lot to the aback of a paddy wagon. No one was watching as a uniformed policeman formed him over, his accoutrements advancing down like a scythe ten times or added on the kid's aback and groin. It was too aphotic to see what he was using. Afresh they threw the kid in the wagon and arrested him.
What did he do?" one of the cops was asked. "He angered a policeman," was the reply. The Stones were in addition allotment of the building, affability up guitars, accepting accessible to go on. They saw none of it. Amid into their show, just afore "Sweet Virginia," Mick asked the crowd, "Who go' chargeless today? Angela Davis go' chargeless today. Fu'in' great."
* * *
It was not until the additional appearance in Seattle that the music outdistanced the artery fighting. As lights animation off the mirror and aces up Mick Jagger continuing in the aperture of two serpents on a pearl-white stage. "Brown Sugar" first, with Bill Wyman's bass and Charlie Watts' drums hitting like a sledge hammer. Then, quickly, afore the admirers has a adventitious to recover, appropriate into "Bitch" and "Rocks Off" from the new album, the three songs an aperture apparatus gun bang of bass curve and advance guitar.
Then Keith starting "Gimme Shelter" as Jagger congenital up the song to "Oh Children, it's just a attempt awaaaaaay, a attempt away, a attempt away" and Mick Taylor spins abrupt agee leads. The song ends with Keith falling aback into the amps. Afresh he has to chase advanced to the mike in time for the alpha of "Happy." Mick animated at one ancillary of the mike, closing in to bark the choir in accord with Keith, Keith demography those little banty accomplish of his to one ancillary to play the advance afresh charging aback to the mike to sing. Aback and alternating and aback and alternating as Mick wails "Bay-baay, will not ya accomplish me hapaayyy!"
"Tumblin' Dice" follows. Mick is blood-soaked with sweat. It gleams off his chest and darkens his plan shirt. "Tumblin' Dice," although it is the individual from the album, slows the set every time the Stones do it. "Gonna do a dejection for ya now," Mick says, as Keith begins "Love In Vain," with Charlie sitting quietly, spinning his drumsticks until the aboriginal chorus. Afresh he starts laying down a pumping adaptable exhausted as Mick Taylor takes off into two solos that get tighter and cleaner anniversary time he plays.
Then "Sweet Virginia," with Keith and Mick Taylor perched on stools acrimonious on acoustic guitars, Keith chopping and damping at his strings as Jagger plays a candied harp abandoned over the top.
"You Can't Consistently Get What You Want," with Keith amplification a apathetic admirable aperture aces as Jim Amount comes in on trombone and Bobby Keys on acute sax, and Nicky Hopkins picks up the accent on piano. "Midnight Rambler" follows and is still the showpiece of the act, the one that gets the active bobbing and the backwoods of easily clapping, as Mick hams it all the way, bottomward off his plan shirt to acknowledge a authentic white jumpsuit underneath, acrimonious up the atramentous rhinestone-studded belt to whip the date as the six cool troopers cascade bittersweet ablaze down on him. If it is over, the white spotlight picks up Mick all abandoned for the aboriginal total-scream-madness acclaim of the tour.
After "Midnight Rambler" it's all bedrock and roll. Authority on to the amps and about-face off the lights. "Bye Bye Johnny B. Goode," with Keith amphitheatre through the break like the adulterine son of Chuck Berry. "All Down the Line," "Rip This Joint," and "Jumpin' Jack Flash" with Mick leaping top in the air, battlefront two feel pistols into the house. As always, catastrophe with "Street Angry Man" in a brume of feedback, all out dancing, and a battery of rose petals.
Essentially, it is the aforementioned date act the Stones acquire consistently done, the one they apperceive the best, with Mick introducing the bandage as "Beautiful but brittle Mick Taylor on guitar, our bashed Methodist Bobby Keys on sax . . .Nicky Hopkins on piano. Angle up lad, an' le' 'em 'ave a attending at ya." If it all went right, and it did in Seattle and afresh at Winterland, it was outta site. It was account the amount of admission.
* * *
Everyone was still top from the additional appearance in Seattle as they boarded the even to San Francisco the next day. Charlie Watts stood in aback of the aide demonstrating the able use of the activity anorak and pointing to the emergency avenue amid at the rear of the cabin. Mick chinned himself on the baggage rack, afresh afraid upside down like an orangutang. "Used to be able to do that wi' one hand," he noted, uncoiling himself on to the floor, "till my strength-to-weight arrangement changed." Down the alley Bobby Keys was saying, "Ah came aback to mah allowance endure night to get some beddy-bye and there's a gayngbayng goin' on. In mah bed. Banty looked like Joe Palooka."
"Loik what?" Mick inquired, with aloft eyebrows.
"Lahk a bus mechanic." Mick's eyes narrowed to slits and he laughed. "This is the a lot of analytical allotment appropriate here," he said bitter down on his lip, "The ability turn. If it's gonna appear . . . " He bankrupt his eyes and acclimatized into his seat.
Bill Wyman told anyone they'd acquire to get a bold of adventitious traveling during the even rides. "I even acquire acclaim cards," he said.
A altercation afresh began on the assorted accessories Mick ability use on stage. Balls of armament that you can ablaze and float over the audience. Guns that shoot cord chrism from amid one's legs.
"A rope, Chawlie," Mick said, "We could beat on date over the amps."
"You could," Charlie said.
"I would," Mick answered.
"I know," Charlie smiled. He hadn't slept able-bodied the accomplished few nights. Auberge apartment accomplish him jumpy. "You abutting the aperture and there you are alone. Afresh what?"
Champagne and orange abstract is authoritative the circuit and there's a table of yogurt and raw vegetables in the galley. Bisected of the plane's seats acquire been ripped out so there's allowance to drape on the floor, airing around, and laugh. "Jack Nitzsche," Charlie says, "He's the funniest man I know, Jack is. Played tambourine on 'Satisfaction,' y'know. Ee'll ask you somethin' afresh say 'Well, if that's your assessment of it. If that's how you really feel' . . . Will not see 'em for months an 'Gimme a beer' '11 be the aboriginal affair he'll say. You've got to accommodated him, honestly."
The even comes in through the San Francisco dusk and acreage at a clandestine air terminal and the Stones are aerated into boondocks by those all-knowing atramentous limousines. There follows a continued altercation about whether to breach in the auberge apartment they've been accustomed in a low dormitory-like architecture that aswell houses the Japanese consulate.
For the next four days, the Stones see San Francisco as they consistently see a town, traveling out al of a sudden on chauffeured raids to places abandoned they can get into. Bill Graham throws a affair for them at the Trident on the night if it's usually closed. Frank Werber, its buyer and above administrator of the Kingston Trio, gets permission to breach out that night until midnight afore accepting to address aback to bastille to serve time on his book for control of marijuana. Two nights later, there's a plan accepted to bolt the Isley Brothers at a club beyond the bay. The Stones associates files out through the lobby. Limo bent in the accomplished San Francisco mist. Eye games. Is it OK to get into this one? Who's that person? What's your action here? Who's a afterpiece acquaintance of which Stone? As always, the amateur go on about the Stones. They absolutely acquire little to do with any of it.
When alternating comes a man talking loudly, cogent Bobby Keys, "If you knew as abundant about mouthpieces as you anticipate you do, you'd draft some that wind into your horn . . ."
Like a arctic wind acid through the parking lot. Humans caster around. Who is this man who dares to allocution that way to a affiliate of the band? Groupies shiver in the night. He gets into a car and is gone and the limousines cycle abroad one by one into the night, abrogation those not quick abundant behind.
But Bill Graham's throwing addition party, this one in a French restaurant city-limits and it promises to be a quiet evening, what with the boys off and gone to dig the Isleys. The French restaurant is all gold and bittersweet silks aggregate at the beam and mirrors on the wall. Ah, algid white wine. Ah, escargots. Gilt and continental service. Ah, four atramentous limousines that cull to a stop alfresco the aperture and drop Mick, Keith, and the absolute gang. "The Isley's weren't on," Keith explains, biconcave boring into a armchair at the arch of one of the tables, "so 'ere we are."
Bill Graham is at addition table, bright like a appreciative uncle. Beyond from him Tommy Thompson of Life annual is talking to Mick. Tommy is a tall, prosperous-looking man who wears loafers with chains on them. "I talked to every kid who came out of the concert," he says, "and they all said they could see you and there were no hassles, and that's what it's all about, isn't it?" Mick looks red-eyed and weary. "I bethink action her on a bore in your bathroom," anyone tells Bobby Keys. A guy at the end of Keith's table is about to nod into the framboise and beginning cream.
"Are you active in the South of France?" Tommy Thompson asks Mick. "I bet the Chancellor of Exchequer is blessed about that."
"Demiiiiiiii-taaaaaaaaaasse," moans the guy next to Tommy into his coffee authoritative added faculty than anyone abroad in the room. It's the stranger, from the parking lot, audacious by the adorned account and the affable conversation.
"Bill," the stranger's articulation booms out. "Bill, don't absolution the film, huh? Don't let it out. I beg ya."
"In years to come, Jack," Bill Graham tells him, "When you anticipate of this moment . . . be absolute careful."
He gets up to leave and says, "Billll, don't let that blur out, huh, willlya?" "Whew," Tommy Thompson says afterwards he's gone. "I anticipation you handled that well," he congratulates Graham, "What's his name?"
"Nietzsche," Bill Graham says slowly. And from just alfresco the door, you can apprehend Jack's final animadversion on the evening. "A bifold stinger, please," he says politely.
The Stones played four concerts in San Francisco and they were all good. The endure time they formed the city-limits was at the Altamont Speedway in November, 1969. The time afore that was at the Oakland Coliseum if the guitars blew, the complete was bad, as were the vibes.
Bill Graham did a job at Winterland that should argue any who still agnosticism it that he is the best at his business. Added Rent-A-Cops than had anytime afore been assassin by Winterland patrolled the streets alfresco and kept anybody moving. Those afterwards tickets did not get abreast the hall. Those central had affluence of allowance to ball and all the shows went off on time.
Which is not to say it was all altogether bland on the streets. It never is in America. A guy accustomed a bisected gallon of Red Mountain Vin Rose and acid addition on his T-shirt has his easily cuffed abaft his aback by two atramentous clandestine cops.
"Hit me motherfucker," the guy keeps adage drunkenly, "Just cull aback my shades and hit me. I ain't got no almanac but if you wanna hit me, go ahead. Abandoned cull aback my shades first."
The cop all-overs his arch and says, "Now I'm a motha fucka, huh? I ask you 5 times to move and you doan listen. You be quiet a second, we still let you go."
"Hit me mother. Cull aback my shades and hit me." The guy insists as they bassinet him into a badge car.
At 4:15 on the day of the aboriginal show, the Stones trooped down a attenuated accurate alleyway out of the sunlight into Winterland. Nicky Hopkins brought up the rear accustomed for some acumen a tray set with tea, account for two.
Later, the Stones were amphitheatre a bifold arch in "Bitch" because Keith was accepting off on it, and the army was captivation on and dancing.
Halfway through the set, joints began to fly on stage. Bill Wyman, who never moves on stage, leaned into the abode and took a ablaze from someone, afresh activated it to one Keith had ashore in the bend of his mouth. He smoked it all the way through "Midnight Rambler" bouncing and jamming and rooster-stepping beyond the stage.
The additional appearance that night was a bitch, a rock rocker. The Stones did their aboriginal acclamation of the tour, what Mick afterwards alleged "A minute-40 of 'Let It Rock.'"
Outside the hall, on the final night, the cops acclimated two-foot board clubs to appearance they meant business. "If you ain't got no ticket, don't appear down this street. You Move! Now!" All of it was done with the mouth. There were no casualties.
Someone did alarm the Fire Department to say Winterland was traveling up in flames. 5 engines, including two angle and ladders came assimilate the sidewalk, agreeable sirens and aflame lights, which did wonders for those beneath the access of hallucinogenics.
Bill Graham stood at the ancillary aperture shouting at guests, "Who do you anticipate you are, Johnny Superstar? Foreground door. Do you accept English? Foreground door, like anybody else."
John Lee Hooker came backstage, drank up the best and larboard the draft and sang the "Stones Boogie" while Keith picked. They threw roses at the Stones for the additional appearance and they lay on the white attic beneath Mick's anxiety as he danced. Keith, in amethyst jockey silks, bargain at his guitar with the abounding arm continued motion that Pete Townshend adopted and fabricated into the windmill. Nicky Hopkins tinkled bank chords like a madman. They went off afterwards a analgesic set and came aback with "Honkey-Tonk Women." The Stones had assuredly gotten to play for the San Francisco they'd abandoned heard about before.
"It's true, y'know," Mick Jagger said some canicule after. "It's something to go to places you've been like Seattle, which we haven't played aback '66 and see it bigger now than it was then. Added humans came to see us there than if we formed there last.
"San Francisco . . . was . . . the humans were just . . . cartel I say, the accordance were just so good. We've consistently had aberrant times there. Altamont, yeah, anybody knows about. But Oakland too. It was just the alpha of the bout afresh and we played ailing and Keith blew two guitars . . . but this time we just had fun.
"So far, the abandoned botheration on the tour's been with the monitors. I can't apprehend what I'm singin' or what the band's doin'. We'll accumulate on changin' the affairs all the time admitting to breach interested. But ya can't absolutely acquaint yet what's gonna happen, can ya?
"I mean, California doesn't acquire annihilation to do with the draft of America, does it? The accuracy of it is . . . the bout hasn't even absolutely started."
This adventure is from the July 6th, 1972 affair of Rolling Stone.
From The Archives Affair 112: July 6, 1972
