With the Rolling Stones beginning their “50th and Counting” tour on Friday at Staples Center, let’s reach back to the days when they were a more viable force in the rock ‘n’ roll world.
I was in the front of the crowd at the L.A. Coliseum in 1981 when the Stones played with the J. Geils Band and George Thorogood and the Delaware Destroyers. Some no-name kid opened the show wearing women’s lingerie and was promptly hit in the hand by a thrown Jack Daniels bottle while playing guitar, and then booed off stage.
The late Bill Graham came out and admonished the crowd, saying that Prince was destined to be huge some day.
Here is footage from the same tour in Tempe – You may want to cut straight to the 11:00-minute mark, where Mick is wearing a Ladainian jersey (how did he know?) and the excitement cuts loose.
I saw them June 1982 at Wembley stadium in London. We were on the field, pretty close to the stage, crushed by too many people!
Want to see the Stones perform probably the best live rendition of “Gimme Shelter” ever? I knew you did:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbhowAr7KrM
Here she is again, just as good or better:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yGFuX2KDQs
Best cover version – go to the 2:40-minute mark:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o42zmYN2_-k
Nice! Last one, not the Stones, but in the spirit of great live performances, Neil Young does “Day in the Life”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_470040&feature=iv&src_vid=U6SSR3YY-rc&v=ZCjWa7ypZMc
Neil would fit in better with the Strolling Bones Chemo Tour – he looks like an old geezer who’s lost it in that clip.
The xylophone duo at the end? Please stop Neil!
You have no clue. I’ve seen the Stones live about 30 times. The 81 tour sucked and the only one worse was 76. They are much better now then they were then falling all over the stage drunk and wasted. Ill be in the front row you be on YouTube . Ever actually been to the beach or swam in the ocean ? Didn’t think so
30 times? Wow you know how to live.
I didn’t say they were great in 1981 – I haven’t been back since. And it was booty juice who called them the Strolling Bones Chemo Tour!
Jagger is the best frontman ever, but Ronnie is carrying Keith’s jock these days.
This is a sample of what you are going to see at the show – go to the 20:20-minute mark and tell me that this is a great rendition of Gimme Shelter. The singers are good, but the rest looks like old guys mailing it in while waiting for their paycheck.
Keith’s guitar work isn’t that close to the original, is it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTIlI-621vs
I chuckled. Knock yourselves out as you can still get a pair together right up front for tonights show at Staples, or 8 together in a very desireable section!
The Strolling Bones Rockers on Walkers Tour absolutely horrible.
Can’t believe you guys! All these men are hitting their seventies, and you’re giving them grief! Keith Richards died 20 years ago. If he hadn’t been bitten by a zombie, he’d be in the grave right now! I don’t KNOW that he was bitten by a zombie. It’s just the only reason I can come up with for why he’s still “alive.” If not that, then he must be mainlining speedballs of liquid nitrogen and formaldehyde.
Jim, I’ll give you the xylophone cat lady, but Neil has dropped so much acid, his brain must look like an overheated lava lamp by now. Considering the volume of drugs these guys have ingested, the fact that any of them can remember their name is amazing to me. Putting on any kind of a show that doesn’t look like an audition for “queen for a day,” is to be applauded! Even James Taylor is having problems holding a note these days. But again, he’s done enough heroin to support the GDP of Bolivia for a year.
Next time you guys go to one of their concerts, think of the performers as people who survived a multiple fiery crashes. You wouldn’t heckle burn victims, would you?? From all the cocaine alone, these guys have cinders for brains!
Mick has, fathered, what… 70 offspring all over the world? Think of the $600 orchestra seat price as a donation to “feed the children,” and write it off. The IRS won’t bother you.