A British writer is looking for stories from concerts from the Stones early concerts in 1964 and 1965. Richard Houghton is putting together a book of memories from people around the world who attended any of the Stones early concerts.

Here's one of the stories I came across, with links to another one at the bottom. If any of you want to share your stories with the author, you can contact him at: richardmhoughton@gmail.com.

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1965: When your grandmother assaulted the Rolling Stones

You look at a lady today in her mid-60s to mid-70s, and if you’re fortunate to be like us, you try not to make any generalizations, the most common of which would be, “Well, there goes another one of those people who used to terrorize cops and throw their panties and bras at rock stars.” That’s just so unfair, because many of them didn’t engage in that sort of behavior.

Nevertheless, if you cast your memory back to 1965, or rummaged around in the archives which, though dusty and murky, are sharp as a saber point compared to our memory, you’d find that the behavior of these grandmas was so licentious and lascivious when they were teens that they made Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, a man not famous for his coy modesty and celibacy, hit his peak of panic.

We wrote on Monday about a British writer seeking recollections of people who attended the Stones shows in Long Beach in 1964 and 1965 at, respectively, the Municipal Auditorium and the Long Beach Arena. Some of these memories have reached our desk, and our favorite so far is from retired Long Beach policeman John Turley, who was active in the department in 1965 when the Stones got scared by girls.

“I was one of the officers in charge of the outside security at the concert,” writes Turley.

After the show, “We ran with the Stones to the exit and got them into their limo. There was already a large group of kids there.”

Not “kids,” contradicts the May 17, 1965 Press-Telegram with the headline “Teen Girls Mob Rolling Stones” and the jump head, “Singers Barely Escape Howling Girls at Arena.”

The Press-Telegram wrote more or less the same story that Turley told, but as we all know, newspaper writers are a lot better at storytelling than cops (although the reporter covering the event called the Stones “Liverpool lads” and was a bit snitty with quotation marks, terming it a “Rolling Stones ‘concert.’”

“Through the air flew jars of cosmetics, shoes, lipsticks and even some underclothing,” wrote the uncredited reporter. “Face powder filled the air.

Now back to Turley’s report: “In order to move the limo, I sat on the hood and used my feet to push the kids away,” he writes. “We finally made it to the foot of Linden Avenue and the driver, who must have been panicking, drove really fast up the hill to Ocean. I was still on the hood when he made a hard left on Ocean. I had nothing to hold on to except my fingernails in the grooves of the hood.”

Here, you can imagine it as a scene from “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.”

“At a high rate of speed, he drove east on Ocean, not stopping for signals at several intersections. At Golden Avenue, he made another sharp turn to go down a grade to where the helicopter was waiting on the beachfront,” continues Turley. “My intention was to drag the driver out of the car and do whatever to him, however I had to hustle the Stones to the helicopter.”

The newspaper noted that seven girls were taken to St. Mary Hospital with minor injuries and a policeman suffered a cut hand and was also rushed to St. Mary for emergency treatment.

The article also noted that the policeman was “spattered with makeup.”

[www.presstelegram.com]

[www.presstelegram.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015-03-30 17:21 by latebloomer.