This post is a bit late, but just a very few years ago I saw my very first Rolling Stones show at the Superdome in New Orleans. Van Halen, The Doobie Brothers and the Rolling Stones on their Some Girls tour. What a night!!!!!!! That show started something that hasn't lost steam in the last 27 years. Thank God for the Rolling Stones.......see ya in Boston!

What a night that changed my life forever! Wish the memories were clearer. Still I will never forget that feeling they gave me.
Fred Hardin
SAV/GA
Pleased to meet you........

Hey! Tell us your every memory! I wanna hear from Stones fans that were at the shows! I played Seattle '75 the other night and was happy to remember I attended the show and the in-betweenies Mick said like, "I think this scarf's in the wrong group", when somebody threw a tartan wool scarf on the stage during the band intros. I remember it visually and audially. The bootleg captures the lazy excitement that builds to some really tight, hard rock and roll.

One of the better '75 shows!

"The wonder of Jimi Hendrix was that he could stand up at all he was so pumped full of drugs." Patsy, Patsy Stone

As I've mentioned here before, I wish Eddie VH and DLR can put aside their differences so the REAL Van Halen could get back on the road (no offense to Sammy, I like him better as a solo artist).

"Hey! Tell us your every memory! I wanna hear from Stones fans that were at the shows!"

Cleveland Stadium - 1975: The best of shows. Waited in the heat through Joe Vitale, Tower of Power and J. Geils Band. Stones came on about 7pm in the daylight. My girlfriend and I agreed neither of us was a "huge" fan as the Stones were already a twelve year old ensemble and we were teenagers. The band strolled on jauntily and casually, Keith lighting a cigarette. He placed the cig' in the strings by his tuning pegs and started to slam out the riff to HTW. He seemed to hit that riff forever as Jagger suddenly appeared (perhaps through the floor, this was not a lotus petal stage show) and began running from one side of the stage to the other blowing kisses and bowing to the audience. When Mick was finally ready Keith played the HTW chord sequence and we were off to the races. The show was a bit longer than others in '75 as I learned years later studying set-lists. We were treated to "Luxury'" (a much derided song I've always loved nonetheless) and "Dance Little Sister" along with the other '75 hit list. Keith's guitar kept coming unplugged during "Happy" and he would stop mid-verse to retrieve the cord rather than let Ronnie cover for him. This happened twice as I recall. Didn't matter because Mick sang most of it anyway. Billy Preston's segment was a hoot as he was a big star back then. His doing "the bump" with Jagger was a highlight but his afro wig seemed over-the-top in retrospect. There was no encore (SFTD was not played) and the show ended shortly after dark with fireworks. We were stunned. A lifetime obsession began that night. Only bad part was Mick's wireless microphone which had a tendency to cut-out.

I greatly enjoyed Ollie Brown's percussion and wish to this day the band would return to a similar format.

Cleveland 1978: The WORST of shows. After wearing out the grooves to a copy of "Some Girls" all spring I was pumped beyond words to return to the site of the greatest show I'd ever seen. The day was dank and rainy. We suffered through Kansas, an inexplicably popular new band of the era and Peter Tosh whose performance was fine (the highlight was Mick's cameo) but lessened by the hostile reaction of the audience. I was reminded later that we were entertained by a highwire walker for awhile as the Stones kept the audience of 90,000 waiting while they apparently snorted too much coke. When they finally appeared about 5pm the weather was still rainy and gray. Jagger appeared emaciated and ridiculous in that oversized red cap. His voice was a horse croak either from the weather or the alkalyde based stimulates he'd been ingesting - or both. His microphone cut-out just lke '75 but this time the silence was a nice respite. Ronnie and Keith appeared to be on different planets. They started with "Let It Rock" (the sound was bad, people thought it was "Johnnie B. Goode) and followed with an uninspired segment of hits including a maudlin "Love In Vain" which did not carry over to an outdoor crowd of 90,000. Then came the "Some Girls" segment wherein "Far Away Eyes" stiffed for the same reason. A finale segment contained the usual warhorses and that was it. No encore or fireworks. I don't think the show lasted much more than an hour. We were back in Toledo (nearly two hours away) by 7:30pm. Years later I found an LP bootleg from the show called "Shattered In Cleveland" wherein the booter sold the beginning and ending hit segments of the show as one LP and all the SG tracks as a seperate LP. Listening to those rough recordings confirmed to me the show was easily the worst show I'd ever seen by the Stones - or anybody.

# # #

"I wish Eddie VH and DLR can put aside their differences so the REAL Van Halen could get back on the road "

DLR is a paunchy hair-plugged old queen now. A far cry from the lithe'n'lively heartthrob he was in his VH days. And Eddie simply can't stand him.

Everyone has different opinions of Jagger's 78 tour outfit, but I loved it. He was so camp. The dancing was much more exaggerated and goofy than the strutting days of 1972. We had 80,000 that day at the Superdome. Van Halen was the first act to appear. They were basically an unknown band. As soon as they played Running With The Devil, we all knew who they were. A very good performance and Eddie Van Halen was incredible. The Doobie Brothers then came on and performed a greatest hits set that I believed had a chance of upstaging the Stones. Before the Stones hit the stage at 11:00 p.m., a 12 year old girl came out and did a tumbling act. She was booed off the stage. The crowd was restless and anxious. It had been hours since the Doobie Brothers left the stage. We had been standing at one spot near the stage since the doors opened earlier that afternoon. There was a lot of pushing and shoving.......I thought, my God this Altamont....where are the pool cues? When the Stones hit the stage all was forgiven. I remember the sound was incredible. The audience was intense! Jagger climbing the scaffolding during Street Fighting Man. During Star Star I discovered the bleeped out words on the recorded version to the Tricks with Fruit verse. Some Girls was #1.....Miss You was #1.....the Stones were smoking that night. I always feel bad for the people at the Cleveland show, but the New Orleans show was pure rock and roll!

I saw DLR in concert a couple years ago. Visually, he looks older (obviously) and he has a receding hair line. However, he can still sing well. Actually, I think he was singing better than the three times I saw him when he was with Van Halen (81,82,84). He actually stuck to singing the songs as opposed to screaming and skipping the lyrics.
Apparently Eddie can't get along with anyone. In an interview earlier this week with Sammy, he said Eddie was drunk for alot of the shows and the last show of the tour in Tuscon (I think), they had to literally be separated at the end of the show. Sounds kind of Spinal Tappish.

French magazine Best sept 78 about the New Orleans show at the superdome ( i did the translation myself ... so be indulgent)

And the Stones make a hit again… without transition and in a kind of serene improvisation, your prefered extremists move up from the atmosphere of the small hall to the frenzy of huge arena. It’s the 1978 American Tour and Gilles Riberolles manage to rejoin it.
At the New Orleans’ Superdome the spectator number 80173 is seeing for you the always youngest-greatest-rock’n’roll-band-by-the-world, new look.



In New Orleans, shade is a precious commodity ; the atmosphere is so muggy, hot , that we just want to do like those groups of negro : find a little place under the shade, to drop, a radio close the ear, just waiting for the sweat to evaporate ; me, I find a better way : a flipper room, and in addition they sell beer !
New Orleans ; this old southern, the missisipi, the ferryboats, this colonial architecture, the little streat of the french quarter colored by thousands of tropical plants proundly exibited at the balconies . Who couldn’t catch the blues spirit, the rhythm, walking along Basin Street ,on the same street than Allen Toussaint, Dr John, Clifton Chenier…. ?
… I, cause the guy who just put his hand on my « close encounters » has his arm covered by tattoo, chain on his leather jacket, and is at least two head higher than me. Fortunately, I score not so bad, so he laugh and put 25 cents in my flip. From ball to beers we came talking about serious things : The Stones.
However, who doesn’t speek about the Stones today in New Orleans ? They came for the first time in this city, and young peoples are going mad : one can see cars painted with those few words : « Rolling Stones in New Orleans » .
T-shirts stick out huge tongue, while jukeboxes bring up the bitter taste of the Brown Sugar.
The big black woman who sell beers call me « baby », I can see cookroach appearing behind the split cane walls, it smell rotten banana.
My Hell’s angel « he told me his first name, but i’ve forgot it » him, is drinking his sixth Budveiser, but can still do intelligibly phrases ; The Stones don’t played concert in USA since 1975, and he was about to crack up ; so he mounted his bike toward atlanta, and since have seen most of the shows from the south and east coast : Philadelphia, Lakeland, Atlanta, Dallas, Washington… « sometimes they played in small halls like in Atlanta or Washington, and it’s great, we can see Keith’ pupil, or in other times they played in very huge places like in Philadelphia (90,000), it was really crazy, some girls were falling down, and the guys don’t even care and goes on jumping like kangaroo, arms up in the air ; they even played ‘Satisfaction’, but Mick was sick and had trouble with his voice, and he run out just as the last song ended ; and there was this surprise concert at the NY Palladium, I couldn’t go into cause it was a huge magouille to get some tickets : the day before they tell at the radio you had to call a phone number the next day ; when the guys phoned, one told them to go in such a place at 07:00p.m, and there they could buy a ticket for the Stones’ concert that have to begin one hour later ; it was at the Palladium, hey guy, it must have been really hot ! » (general burst of laughter)
80173
At 02 :00p.m, I take the road to the superdome where the concert take place, and there, two surprises : the place is indescribable : a Superdome , in comparison with, the ‘Palais des Sports »(in Paris) seems a proton ; second surprise : there’s already a huge crowd, one sell t-shits, dope, one already clamour for the Stones ! still six hours before the show, and around the Superdome it’s already a disaster area, due to the traffic jam, police van, clouds of fans. I take the risk of a huge sweating, but I walk back to the hotel.
At 07:00p.m, is the start signal and I ask to myself, what the Stones are doing : already in place to bite one’s nails ? doing some shoots ? wavering between two lipstick ?
Critics have a private box at the top of the dome, and it’s when taking place there, that I realize that exist something still more spectacular that the big colorado canyon : what a kind of huge arena, it’s colossal, and the spectator at the top seats are at an altitude of 150 metres ; on every of the Tree stage there is coca, T-shirts, hamburgers sellers, policeman ; hanging at the ceiling, five gigantic screens broadcast cartoons. And the stage, with a central protuberance, like a fleshy tongue, topped by a gigantic red mouth.
Desire, consummate, @#$%&, consummate.
A big electronic screen placed under the stage notice 80173 spectators, and the light went down at last.
I waited for Peter Tosh, but it’s Van Halen as first act ; forty minutes of abdominal waves, and a David Lee Roth very relaxed among all those hysterical girls…
Then, the Doobie Brothers…
It’s now 10:45p.m., the first were there at 2:00p.m. ; 6 hours under the sunbeams, 2 hours of music and wait for the rest ; and this big mouth that don’t still move his lips to susurrate us that the greatest rock & roll band by the world will be soon going to slip between his two lips .
The announcer comes again for the x time and gravely says : « We’ve been warned that a few policeman are in the crowd … so if you have some drug by you, throw it onstage and the Stones will did a good use of it ! »
Still a quarter before a voice shout oneselfhoarse « THE ROLLING STONES »
160,000
spots illuminate 160,000 little arms and from my perch, I can see this teeming crowd, whistling, yelling. It’s at this moment that an inebriated bearded man throw at me yelling « THE STONES ! ! » , « Yeah, yeah, I see, I see ! ! »
Jagger has a new look ; he wear plastic pants, a white leather jacket with rolled sleeves and just a silver bolero under ; his red leather cap placed back let show his mid-ear haircut.
The five Stones + the two Ian are under over-pressure and goes on with « All down the line », a steam machine . Jagger dissapear and Keith is at the front stage scratching the strings of his Telecaster with the first chords of « Honky tonk woman » : he’s wearing a black leather jacket with turn-up collar, hairs in the eyes, more than ever he looks like a hood ; Ron wood : white satin pants, matched bolero, and a black tie.
He’s Keith’s spiritual brother, he’s a joker but clean, and he ‘s with Jagger in all the gesture and stereotypes that make Stones’ picture. And once again the Stones give this impression of a depraved gang.
« She blew my nose and then she blew my mind… » It’s smell coke, New York. No more gadget-symbol, no more comments between the cuts, just : « All right » or « Ho do you feel ? » no more flashy that made the Stones scintillate in the jet-set… and narrowly missed to destroy them.
« @#$%&, » and Jagger run all the way of the stage, tireless ; he can’t refrain from being present and sometime doing too much. Jump on an amplifier or run forward the crowd but stop in time to prevent peril.
Despite the years on the road, Mick Jagger is still the king of the showmen, mixing provocation and achievement.
Then the atmosphere change : Jagger grab a Fender Stratocaster, and with three guitars they play « When the whips come down, » from the new album, seven of their new songs will follow ; Jagger move less cause of his Fender he hold low on his thigh, but sing well the new cuts.
16
« Beast of Burden », « Lies, » …. Then « Miss You » (already a big Hit in the United-States), and don’t says me the Stones doing disco ; « Miss You » is the summer’ Hit, and what ? it’s better than « Angie » didn’t it ? and it’s really black like « Black and Blue » , it’s isles, summer, and that’s all.
« Just my imagination, » « Shattered, » (Love and hope and sex and dreams Are still surviving on the street / Look at me, I'm in tatters! I'm a shattered), the Stones talking about dope, New York, streets, sex , they talk from themselves, not of a dream in degoulinascope (sic) for frigid little girls.
« Respectable », then, Ron Wood on steel guitar, Jagger on piano : « Faraway eyes » on the desert highways, and the only american rock band doing Hit in his own country ended the presentation of his new album. Jagger take off his jacket and guitar and sing the blues : »Love in vain» ; then back to the swing with : « Silver Train. »
Keith chew away at Happy’word, and Jagger still running. « any less sixteen girls here ? » « Sweet little sixteen », « Brown sugar, » « JJF, » and the enthusiasm come back, but they play since two hour and Jagger’s voice getting hoarse, then they leave the stage and soon come back to play « Street fighting man ».
Jagger is now alone on stage doing the hindu-salute , the audience cheers.

Gilles Riberolles – BEST magazinne

i wish there was a video tape of the concert 14 june,78 in passaic new jersey,
that was my first bootleg on casette, they sounded great, still on off my fouverit bootlegs, listen to " lies "

Kingdome,Seattle '81,second show.I was 16 and my friends and I drove down from Victoria(Canada).Spent hours wandering around the Kingdome trying to buy some pot,hash,anything-finally we were sold some stuff that I think turned out to be henna or something-didn't do anything for us.I don't remember much about the first opening act Greg Kihn.We had one 1oo level(main floor ticket)which we took turns using(the rest of the tickets were way up on the 300 level).I got to use it for the J. Geils Band set and they were really great!I was already a fan but they,and Peter Wolf in particular,blew me away.I was so stoked to see the Stones but I have to say at the time it seemed like a bit of a letdown-the sound was awful and they just seemed a bit sluggish.Of course,in the ensuing years,I've heard the show and watched the dvd(looked for myself up in the 300 level camera shots-no luck)and decided it sounded pretty damn rockin'.I do remember that my next door neighbor was right up near the front of the stage with a big Canadian flag and that when Jagger gave a shout out to the Canadians that came down there was a pretty big response as there were something like 20 busloads (this having been the second show which was added and tickets were much easier to come by).

I was also at the Cleveland 78 show. Seems like it has become almost legendary as one of the worst Stones' shows. I pretty much agree with R's account above. I have the second disc (Some Girls' songs) of the boot he mentions. It does indeed document a really lame performance. The whole experience was pretty bad beginning with the weather, the long wait (it being all General Admin seating we got there probably 5-6 hours before the Stones came on), Kansas, and the fact that after a toilet break I lost the people I was with. And they had the weed! Also, it was near the fourth of July so it seemed like everybody in the dam place had M-80 fireworks. The quarter-stick of dynamite things. I was sure I was going to lose either my hearing or a limb. To top it off I had a bad hangover from the previous night's stay in Akron (I spent a week in Akron last night!). I wish I'd found a Devo show instead!!

Karl

i thought the worst stones show ever was 6-17- 78 in philly ...jagger was known to hav 102 fever & they were lame.... the papers said that their equipment got ruined from beer bottles hittin them......then on july 4 ,78 i went to buffalo N.Y. to c them & they were incredible ,,i thought @ 1 point jagger was goin to fly off the stage...

chippy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> i thought the worst stones show ever was 6-17- 78
> in philly ...jagger was known to hav 102 fever
> & they were lame.... the papers said that
> their equipment got ruined from beer bottles
> hittin them......then on july 4 ,78 i went to
> buffalo N.Y. to c them & they were incredible
> ,,i thought @ 1 point jagger was goin to fly off
> the stage...


I was at the Philly show too. Close call, but Cleveland was probably worse.

my regrets on that cleveland show....worst than philly ,WOW,

July 11, 1978 was my 1st stones show, they played keil opera house (holds around 3500) was one of only a few theaters they played that tour. Peter Tosh opened for them, Stones showed up around 11:00pm and played till around 12:30-12:45am. Those were the days when a concert was a party. 78 boot "satisfaction guaranteed" has 10 songs from the show on it plus songs from buffalo, oakland, chicago & greensboro.

Ever since this show was mentioned I can't get it out of my mind. Good Grief, "Aint talking bout Love", then "China Grove" with knowing knowing knowing the boys were up next must of been something.............fred

July 4, 1978, Buffalo Rich Stadium was an outstanding performance by the Stones. Had to admit i was pretty excited about this tour with the success of the SG album. We had 2 busloads of people from London, Ontario, Canada, prodomenantly Friends and also my 2 older brothers. They held us up at the border so we were spared listening to Atlantic Rhythm Section(remember them?) and countless others.Joan and myself found our way from the nosebleeds!! down to the football field carrying one of those pail-size beers they used to sell there. we worked our way down near the front, and lo and behold a fisbee came out of nowhere and knocked my beer out of my hand. Holy Shite!!! All i remember down there is it was loud and Jagger's red oufit. Cool

I met the lead singer of the Atlanta Rhythm Section after a show in Pensacola a few years ago....cool guy.....and a great singer.

Shawn: Yup, saw ARS at Spinnaker's in Panama City in the early 90's. I still remember when the stage lighting fell down and killed the drummer back in the 80's. Very sad day in the music world as WXRT in Chicago said.

What about Kansas? Years ago I worked with a guy that saw Kansas and the Boys in Montana. What cha think????????????

I was not aware of the drummer being killed......wow! I'm probably showing my age, but some of the groups that are opening for the Stones this time around is puzzling. The Black Eyed Peas!!!!!!!!!

Hi Shawn....I have a killer poster from that show in New Orleans...limited edidion litho....know what I'm talking about ?.....pstupar@aol

The ARS accident happened during the 80's. I can't remember when. Opening bands? Well the Canadian folks will really like Tragically Hip and I hope some US dates (MSG) will happen.

No, you arn't showing your age. Those were good shows and we need to talk about em.

Peter, Is the podster the one done by Peter Max? Has a bust of Mick with some color swooshes going thru and across it? I LOVE that poster. I saw one on ebay several years ago I would loved to have had but it went for a lot more than I could fork out for it.
Fred Hardin
SAV/GA
Pleased to meet you........

also on that 78 tour Journey was on the bill in buffalo ,, but i slept thru them

buffalo 7-4-78

Re: the New Orleans poster from 1978....Yes...your description of the poster is correct however I do not think it was done by Peter Max...I have never been able to read the artists signature or have been able to find out its origin...but it was available at an Art Gallery in LA soon after the show in 78...my numbered print is in perfect condition & 984/1000 made...the artists first name is Danny...I have never seen another one in 25 years...for sale or in any book...I would sure welcome anyone who has any info...the piece is stunning, I think.....Peter Stupar.....pstupar@aol.com