What Makes the Rolling Stones the Greatest Rock & Roll Band in the World?

The phrase keeps coming back to haunt them, but here's why they live up to it.

By Robert Palmer
December 10, 1981


The World's Greatest Rock & Roll Band. That phrase keeps coming back to haunt the Rolling Stones. Reviewers wield it like a rusty razor when the Stones are sloppy and dispirited, as they were at John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia in 1978. That was one of their worst shows. At JFK Stadium this past September, for the first show of their current tour, the Stones were sloppy and spirited, and that made a difference. But the phrase still seemed overblown, inappropriate. Keith Richards laughed it off in his recent Rolling Stone interview, suggesting that "on any given night, it's a different band that's the greatest rock & roll band in the world." That makes sense. And on October 26th, at the 3,933-seat Fox Theatre in Atlanta, there was no question about it: The World's Greatest Rock & Roll Band was the Rolling Stones.

Okay, what makes them the greatest? It isn't consistency. Scores of bands can knock off the same letter-perfect set night after night, every note and nuance frozen firmly in place, right down to the guitar player's grimaces. In fact, the Stones may be the only band on the stadium circuit that's loose enough to make mistakes, the only band that isn't afraid to start a number without having the vaguest idea who's going to take a solo. When was the last time you saw a guitar player yell, "I've got it" and plunge into a solo, only to realize that the other guitar player was soloing, too? It could only happen in your neighborhood bar or at a Rolling Stones concert. And if it doesn't happen at least once or twice, you aren't at a rock & roll concert.

To play rock & roll, you need a rhythm section, and the Stones are the great rock & roll rhythm section of our time. Everything Keith Richards plays, from the simplest handful of notes to the most monolithic riff, pushes the music forward. Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts catch Keith's momentum and swing with it. Watts brings his ear for jazz to the Stones; like a first-class jazz drummer, he provides lift without ever overplaying. Wyman meshes so tightly into the grooves that much of the time you don't even hear him; if he dropped out, however, you'd notice right away. Ron Wood can be a ferocious rhythm player too, and let's not leave out Mick Jagger, whose sure sense of time enables him to punch out phrases and repeat little vocal riffs like an instrumentalist.

Sure, there are other factors. Jagger and Richards have been rock's most challenging and elemental songwriting team for years, Mick's a master of stagecraft, and so on. But the Stones are special primarily because they understand that a great rock & roll band never takes too much for granted. A great rock & roll band gets the feel of an audience and then goes for the audience's throat. A great rock & roll band plays the right songs and the right solos in the right tempo at the right time. A great rock & roll band rocks out. At the Fox, the Stones rocked so hard, they jerked you up out of your seat and kept you dancing for two hours, and made you like it. Only rock & roll? You could've fooled me.

The curtains parted at 10:35 to reveal Keith Richards, looking muscular and fit, banging out the opening chords to "Under My Thumb" from the very edge of the stage. You could tell it was going to be one of those nights the minute Jagger started singing, because he was singing – finding new notes, rearranging the melody to suit the mood of the moment, hitting those notes right on the head and enunciating, in case you missed the words the first few hundred times around. Richards, who has been known to let an hour go by before he feels his way into the evening's first guitar solo, stepped right out and played a blistering break that was entirely chordal, an extension of his definitive rhythm playing.

"When the Whip Comes Down" followed. Ron Wood can be a spotty soloist, but at the Fox, he could do no wrong; his improvisation on "Whip" was incisive and barbed. Jagger again reached for notes that weren't there before, and hit them all. He built up enough confidence to make alterations that were even more dramatic in the melody to "Let's Spend the Night Together," and then Keith came in on harmony vocals, shouting so lustily, Mick had to redouble his efforts. "So that's why Mick's singing so much better," I scrawled in my notebook. "With Keith Richards yowling behind him, it's sink or swim."

Richards' revitalization has had an astonishing effect on the Stones. His guitar riffs are the frames on which the songs hang; they are also the core of the band's onstage momentum. The other players have always looked to him for cues, and he's always come through, even when he was obviously in another world. But the man's style used to have more to do with pulling the irons out of the fire than it did with burning up the kindling. In Atlanta, Richards was calling the shots, and he didn't care who knew it. He was all over the stage, telegraphing every rhythmic nuance with expressive body English, goading Wood into one spectacular solo after another, encouraging Watts and Wyman to pour it on and, yes, giving Jagger a run for his money.

His hand is evident in several new arrangements, too. "Shattered" wasn't much more than a droning riff tune on the '78 tour. In Atlanta, Richards and Wood unveiled a lovely, chiming, two-guitar break that sounded like pure Stax-Volt soul, with Keith chopping like the Memphis Horns and Ronnie nailing down sharp, edgy lead lines like Steve Cropper. The new break somehow made the rest of the tune coalesce around it. Suddenly, "Shattered" was a real song.

For "Neighbours", the Stones brought out tenor saxophonist Ernie Watts, a Los Angeles veteran whose years as a recording-studio denizen haven't dulled his fire. He isn't Sonny Rollins, but he plays clipped, percussive Junior Walker-style figures with a swaggering sound and utter authority; he's just right for the Stones. "Black Limousine" followed, careening furiously like a South Side blues band in a Rocket 88. It was so hot that, by the next tune, "Imagination," everyone got a little carried away; Wood and Richards were soloing at the same time, and it was a little chaotic. But nobody minded. In fact, everyone onstage was grinning from ear to ear.

Jagger announced that the next number was going to be "a bit like the Stray Cats," the solid rockabilly band that opened the concert. It was Eddie Cochran's "Twenty Flight Rock," and it gave Wyman and Watts the chance to lay down a wonderfully idiomatic, in-the-pocket walking shuffle. Charlie, who'd been slouched behind his drums, playing impeccably, suddenly sat bolt upright and played like a man whose life was on the line. He propelled the band out of each of the song's stop-time breaks with kick figures so kinetic, they had half the audience jumping up and down along with them.

At first, "Let Me Go," from Emotional Rescue, was a letdown, but Richards wouldn't let it die. He turned to Watts and began jerking in time to the rhythm. Charlie sat bolt upright again, the music shifted gears, and Keith took a stunning solo.

"Time Is on My Side" doesn't always work in concert, but it did in Atlanta. The band fought the inevitable tendency to play oldies faster and faster by taking it at a deliberately slow clip, and Jagger turned in a vocal that was the essence of soulful understatement. Some folks think the man mugs and grimaces and cheerleads too much, and if you go to Stones concerts primarily to watch him, maybe he does; some of his gestures seemed exaggerated in the relatively intimate confines of the Fox. But the folks who think they're supposed to keep watching Jagger don't always listen to him. Being a great rock & roll singer means getting the feeling right, and "Time Is on My Side" was right as could be. Keith's vocal backing was a high, lonesome Appalachian baying, and his guitar solo said more with three or four notes than most rock guitarists say in half-hour workouts.

I could go on, but I don't think anyone would be that interested in a list of song titles (most the same as the band's arena shows) and a series of notebook jottings that runs increasingly to rows of exclamation points and brilliant musicological analyses on the order of "great guitar solo," "rocks like crazy," "@#$%&' A!" Some details, then. In "Waiting on a Friend," Charlie Watts found a new rhythmic direction, a kind of samba with rumba overtones, and inserted fills, using his snare and a choked cymbal, that splashed prettily over the chiming of the guitars. By the time the band rolled into "Let It Bleed," Keith and Ronnie were soloing at the same time and making it work, Keith playing twangy clumps of notes and Ronnie embroidering them. Keith started "You Can't Always Get What You Want" alone, and his playing, which was just two chords — I to IV and back again — was so utterly right, so spectacularly on the money, that the rest of the band let him play for a while. On the record, he plays his opening figure and then kicks the song in with one of those distilled-to-the-bone phrases of which he is the undisputed master. At the Fox, he got the same kick-in effect with half the notes, rendering a musical statement, which was already spare, practically Zen. Mick gave this greatest of Stones lyrics everything he had, and Ernie Watts got so inspired, he blew what must have been one of the most transcendent, heartfelt saxophone solos of his life.

By the time the Stones got to Keith's "Little T&A," the sixteenth song of the set, they were rocking harder than I'd ever heard them rock before. Was it meaningful? Did it have cultural resonances? Was it the rallying cry of a generation? If any of the people there had thought to ask these questions, they would have seemed singularly dumb. At this point, being at the Fox was like being at a Little Richard concert. It wasn't about cultural resonances, it was about stomping the joint down to the bricks. Of course, that has cultural resonances, but what's more fun, cultural resonances or great sex? The Stones were in the homestretch after "Little T&A," and every song was like great sex. There were miracles. Mick sang "Tumbling Dice" so clearly, you could understand the words. "All Down the Line" and "Hang Fire" hit with hurricane velocity. "Miss You" topped them. Maybe it used to be disco, but it isn't disco anymore. It's a relentless rocker, with Mick adding a third chugging guitar part and the steam building and building. "Miss You" as a rock & roll apotheosis? "Miss You" as the climax the band used to get out of "Street Fighting Man" and "Jumpin' Jack Flash"? If you'd told me, I wouldn't have believed it, but I was there and heard it.

Keith cranked up "Honky Tonk Women" with one hand, the other one dangling loose at his side, a look of satisfaction on his face. Again, the band let him play that gut-simple rhythm part for a while, and he might have played it all night if Ronnie hadn't bounced up to the lip of the stage and, er, pretended to stick something up Keith's nose. Well, it's in the lyrics, right? Bobby Keys came out to blow saxophone on "Brown Sugar," duplicating his solo from the original record, but it was a solo worth duplicating. On "Street Fighting Man," Mick's voice started to go, but the band was raging, and wherever that voice went, he found it again for the concluding "Jumpin' Jack Flash."

Ian Stewart and Atlanta-based pianist Chuck Leavell (of Allman Brothers and Sea Level fame) had been kicking each other off the piano bench all night, Ian MacLagan had been zapping Jerry Lee Lewis runs on electric piano, and the groove hadn't faltered. The show was that loose, and that tight. The Stones really are getting better and better. The only question that remained to be answered was whether the band would be able to pull off the same kind of performance in a huge arena.

A little more than a week after the Atlanta show, the Stones played the first of three concerts at the Brendan Byrne Arena, a futuristic new structure in New Jersey's Meadowlands sports complex that was designed for rock as well as for hockey and basketball. The show in Atlanta was all music — no fancy stagecraft, no theatrics. But the show in New Jersey was a show, with a fabulous hydraulic stage, a riser for the drums and amplifiers that revolved so everyone could get a good view, platforms that went up and down, dramatic lighting effects and so on. And it was spectacular, with Jagger running from one end of the stage to the other, riding around on the cherry-picker crane he unveiled at the tour's first outdoor dates and working every part of the crowd he could get close to.

The band's playing was even faster and more ferocious than in Atlanta. Richards' guitar intros sounded like sheet metal being sheared in two – and "Down the Road a Piece," in the spot that had been occupied by "Twenty Flight Rock" in Atlanta, rocked so hard it was almost over before it began.

The Byrne show was a powerhouse, and the staging was effective, though at times it got in the way of the music: The sound was muddy, the guitars weren't distinct and solos weren't always audible. Most of the people who saw the concert, however, thought the Stones were in peak form. But this wasn't Atlanta. Keith Richards once remarked that everything the band does, onstage and on records, begins with the five of them playing together in a small room. Atlanta was as close to that small room as any of us is likely to get.

This story is from the December 10th, 1981 issue of Rolling Stone.

.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2017-09-25 06:31 by exilestones.

Quote
tomk
Is the indoor stage in Kansas City, 1981, different than that other indoor stage?

It looks a lot different.

Are there pictures of the Atlanta show on this thread?

I never knew they did a theatre show on this tour...was that the only one?

Pecman

HOUSTON




October 28, 1981 (Jagger with red belt/sash)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2017-03-06 18:06 by exilestones.

Quote
Pecman
Are there pictures of the Atlanta show on this thread?

I never knew they did a theatre show on this tour...was that the only one?

Pecman

The ATL 81 show is easily the best Stones show I ever saw. The Fox was a great place to see a abnd. Saw Keith there too. Went to New Orleans, and also saw them in ATL. Big difference. Although NO was also great.

'

Quote
Pecman
Are there pictures of the Atlanta show on this thread?

I never knew they did a theatre show on this tour...was that the only one?

Pecman

There's not much for Atlanta 1981. Tom Hill took photos at this Fox theater show. I have some Tom Hill 1981 but can't verify that they are from Atlanta or where they are from.

[stonestocry.blogspot.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2017-03-03 18:17 by exilestones.

Quote
exilestones

KEITH RICHARDS with New York Police fans about 1980. Photo Vinnie Zuffante

Probably a lot later, 1985-ish looking. I know it says around 1980 .

1986?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2017-03-03 21:03 by Redhotcarpet.

I agree...1985 looks about right to me.

Pecman

Quote
exilestones
What Makes the Rolling Stones the Greatest Rock & Roll Band in the World?

The phrase keeps coming back to haunt them, but here's why they live up to it.

By Robert Palmer
December 10, 1981


The World's Greatest Rock & Roll Band. That phrase keeps coming back to haunt the Rolling Stones. Reviewers wield it like a rusty razor when the Stones are sloppy and dispirited, as they were at John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia in 1978. That was one of their worst shows. At JFK Stadium this past September, for the first show of their current tour, the Stones were sloppy and spirited, and that made a difference. But the phrase still seemed overblown, inappropriate. Keith Richards laughed it off in his recent Rolling Stone interview, suggesting that "on any given night, it's a different band that's the greatest rock & roll band in the world." That makes sense. And on October 26th, at the 3,933-seat Fox Theatre in Atlanta, there was no question about it: The World's Greatest Rock & Roll Band was the Rolling Stones.

Okay, what makes them the greatest? It isn't consistency. Scores of bands can knock off the same letter-perfect set night after night, every note and nuance frozen firmly in place, right down to the guitar player's grimaces. In fact, the Stones may be the only band on the stadium circuit that's loose enough to make mistakes, the only band that isn't afraid to start a number without having the vaguest idea who's going to take a solo. When was the last time you saw a guitar player yell, "I've got it" and plunge into a solo, only to realize that the other guitar player was soloing, too? It could only happen in your neighborhood bar or at a Rolling Stones concert. And if it doesn't happen at least once or twice, you aren't at a rock & roll concert.

To play rock & roll, you need a rhythm section, and the Stones are the great rock & roll rhythm section of our time. Everything Keith Richards plays, from the simplest handful of notes to the most monolithic riff, pushes the music forward. Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts catch Keith's momentum and swing with it. Watts brings his ear for jazz to the Stones; like a first-class jazz drummer, he provides lift without ever overplaying. Wyman meshes so tightly into the grooves that much of the time you don't even hear him; if he dropped out, however, you'd notice right away. Ron Wood can be a ferocious rhythm player too, and let's not leave out Mick Jagger, whose sure sense of time enables him to punch out phrases and repeat little vocal riffs like an instrumentalist.

Sure, there are other factors. Jagger and Richards have been rock's most challenging and elemental songwriting team for years, Mick's a master of stagecraft, and so on. But the Stones are special primarily because they understand that a great rock & roll band never takes too much for granted. A great rock & roll band gets the feel of an audience and then goes for the audience's throat. A great rock & roll band plays the right songs and the right solos in the right tempo at the right time. A great rock & roll band rocks out. At the Fox, the Stones rocked so hard, they jerked you up out of your seat and kept you dancing for two hours, and made you like it. Only rock & roll? You could've fooled me.

The curtains parted at 10:35 to reveal Keith Richards, looking muscular and fit, banging out the opening chords to "Under My Thumb" from the very edge of the stage. You could tell it was going to be one of those nights the minute Jagger started singing, because he was singing – finding new notes, rearranging the melody to suit the mood of the moment, hitting those notes right on the head and enunciating, in case you missed the words the first few hundred times around. Richards, who has been known to let an hour go by before he feels his way into the evening's first guitar solo, stepped right out and played a blistering break that was entirely chordal, an extension of his definitive rhythm playing.

"When the Whip Comes Down" followed. Ron Wood can be a spotty soloist, but at the Fox, he could do no wrong; his improvisation on "Whip" was incisive and barbed. Jagger again reached for notes that weren't there before, and hit them all. He built up enough confidence to make alterations that were even more dramatic in the melody to "Let's Spend the Night Together," and then Keith came in on harmony vocals, shouting so lustily, Mick had to redouble his efforts. "So that's why Mick's singing so much better," I scrawled in my notebook. "With Keith Richards yowling behind him, it's sink or swim."

Richards' revitalization has had an astonishing effect on the Stones. His guitar riffs are the frames on which the songs hang; they are also the core of the band's onstage momentum. The other players have always looked to him for cues, and he's always come through, even when he was obviously in another world. But the man's style used to have more to do with pulling the irons out of the fire than it did with burning up the kindling. In Atlanta, Richards was calling the shots, and he didn't care who knew it. He was all over the stage, telegraphing every rhythmic nuance with expressive body English, goading Wood into one spectacular solo after another, encouraging Watts and Wyman to pour it on and, yes, giving Jagger a run for his money.

His hand is evident in several new arrangements, too. "Shattered" wasn't much more than a droning riff tune on the '78 tour. In Atlanta, Richards and Wood unveiled a lovely, chiming, two-guitar break that sounded like pure Stax-Volt soul, with Keith chopping like the Memphis Horns and Ronnie nailing down sharp, edgy lead lines like Steve Cropper. The new break somehow made the rest of the tune coalesce around it. Suddenly, "Shattered" was a real song.

For "Neighbours", the Stones brought out tenor saxophonist Ernie Watts, a Los Angeles veteran whose years as a recording-studio denizen haven't dulled his fire. He isn't Sonny Rollins, but he plays clipped, percussive Junior Walker-style figures with a swaggering sound and utter authority; he's just right for the Stones. "Black Limousine" followed, careening furiously like a South Side blues band in a Rocket 88. It was so hot that, by the next tune, "Imagination," everyone got a little carried away; Wood and Richards were soloing at the same time, and it was a little chaotic. But nobody minded. In fact, everyone onstage was grinning from ear to ear.

Jagger announced that the next number was going to be "a bit like the Stray Cats," the solid rockabilly band that opened the concert. It was Eddie Cochran's "Twenty Flight Rock," and it gave Wyman and Watts the chance to lay down a wonderfully idiomatic, in-the-pocket walking shuffle. Charlie, who'd been slouched behind his drums, playing impeccably, suddenly sat bolt upright and played like a man whose life was on the line. He propelled the band out of each of the song's stop-time breaks with kick figures so kinetic, they had half the audience jumping up and down along with them.

At first, "Let Me Go," from Emotional Rescue, was a letdown, but Richards wouldn't let it die. He turned to Watts and began jerking in time to the rhythm. Charlie sat bolt upright again, the music shifted gears, and Keith took a stunning solo.

"Time Is on My Side" doesn't always work in concert, but it did in Atlanta. The band fought the inevitable tendency to play oldies faster and faster by taking it at a deliberately slow clip, and Jagger turned in a vocal that was the essence of soulful understatement. Some folks think the man mugs and grimaces and cheerleads too much, and if you go to Stones concerts primarily to watch him, maybe he does; some of his gestures seemed exaggerated in the relatively intimate confines of the Fox. But the folks who think they're supposed to keep watching Jagger don't always listen to him. Being a great rock & roll singer means getting the feeling right, and "Time Is on My Side" was right as could be. Keith's vocal backing was a high, lonesome Appalachian baying, and his guitar solo said more with three or four notes than most rock guitarists say in half-hour workouts.

I could go on, but I don't think anyone would be that interested in a list of song titles (most the same as the band's arena shows) and a series of notebook jottings that runs increasingly to rows of exclamation points and brilliant musicological analyses on the order of "great guitar solo," "rocks like crazy," "@#$%&' A!" Some details, then. In "Waiting on a Friend," Charlie Watts found a new rhythmic direction, a kind of samba with rumba overtones, and inserted fills, using his snare and a choked cymbal, that splashed prettily over the chiming of the guitars. By the time the band rolled into "Let It Bleed," Keith and Ronnie were soloing at the same time and making it work, Keith playing twangy clumps of notes and Ronnie embroidering them. Keith started "You Can't Always Get What You Want" alone, and his playing, which was just two chords — I to IV and back again — was so utterly right, so spectacularly on the money, that the rest of the band let him play for a while. On the record, he plays his opening figure and then kicks the song in with one of those distilled-to-the-bone phrases of which he is the undisputed master. At the Fox, he got the same kick-in effect with half the notes, rendering a musical statement, which was already spare, practically Zen. Mick gave this greatest of Stones lyrics everything he had, and Ernie Watts got so inspired, he blew what must have been one of the most transcendent, heartfelt saxophone solos of his life.

By the time the Stones got to Keith's "Little T&A," the sixteenth song of the set, they were rocking harder than I'd ever heard them rock before. Was it meaningful? Did it have cultural resonances? Was it the rallying cry of a generation? If any of the people there had thought to ask these questions, they would have seemed singularly dumb. At this point, being at the Fox was like being at a Little Richard concert. It wasn't about cultural resonances, it was about stomping the joint down to the bricks. Of course, that has cultural resonances, but what's more fun, cultural resonances or great sex? The Stones were in the homestretch after "Little T&A," and every song was like great sex. There were miracles. Mick sang "Tumbling Dice" so clearly, you could understand the words. "All Down the Line" and "Hang Fire" hit with hurricane velocity. "Miss You" topped them. Maybe it used to be disco, but it isn't disco anymore. It's a relentless rocker, with Mick adding a third chugging guitar part and the steam building and building. "Miss You" as a rock & roll apotheosis? "Miss You" as the climax the band used to get out of "Street Fighting Man" and "Jumpin' Jack Flash"? If you'd told me, I wouldn't have believed it, but I was there and heard it.

Keith cranked up "Honky Tonk Women" with one hand, the other one dangling loose at his side, a look of satisfaction on his face. Again, the band let him play that gut-simple rhythm part for a while, and he might have played it all night if Ronnie hadn't bounced up to the lip of the stage and, er, pretended to stick something up Keith's nose. Well, it's in the lyrics, right? Bobby Keys came out to blow saxophone on "Brown Sugar," duplicating his solo from the original record, but it was a solo worth duplicating. On "Street Fighting Man," Mick's voice started to go, but the band was raging, and wherever that voice went, he found it again for the concluding "Jumpin' Jack Flash."

Ian Stewart and Atlanta-based pianist Chuck Leavell (of Allman Brothers and Sea Level fame) had been kicking each other off the piano bench all night, Ian MacLagan had been zapping Jerry Lee Lewis runs on electric piano, and the groove hadn't faltered. The show was that loose, and that tight. The Stones really are getting better and better. The only question that remained to be answered was whether the band would be able to pull off the same kind of performance in a huge arena.

A little more than a week after the Atlanta show, the Stones played the first of three concerts at the Brendan Byrne Arena, a futuristic new structure in New Jersey's Meadowlands sports complex that was designed for rock as well as for hockey and basketball. The show in Atlanta was all music — no fancy stagecraft, no theatrics. But the show in New Jersey was a show, with a fabulous hydraulic stage, a riser for the drums and amplifiers that revolved so everyone could get a good view, platforms that went up and down, dramatic lighting effects and so on. And it was spectacular, with Jagger running from one end of the stage to the other, riding around on the cherry-picker crane he unveiled at the tour's first outdoor dates and working every part of the crowd he could get close to.

The band's playing was even faster and more ferocious than in Atlanta. Richards' guitar intros sounded like sheet metal being sheared in two – and "Down the Road a Piece," in the spot that had been occupied by "Twenty Flight Rock" in Atlanta, rocked so hard it was almost over before it began.

The Byrne show was a powerhouse, and the staging was effective, though at times it got in the way of the music: The sound was muddy, the guitars weren't distinct and solos weren't always audible. Most of the people who saw the concert, however, thought the Stones were in peak form. But this wasn't Atlanta. Keith Richards once remarked that everything the band does, onstage and on records, begins with the five of them playing together in a small room. Atlanta was as close to that small room as any of us is likely to get.

This story is from the December 10th, 1981 issue of Rolling Stone.

Exile, thank you. What a treat. the 1981 version of Shatrered evidently utilized that great little snippet of pop rock heaven.

1981 : October 26 : Atlanta GA : The Fox Theater



On the night of October 26, 1981, I was in the fabulous Fox Theater in Atlanta, GA, enjoying one of the greatest rock ‘n roll shows ever to grace that venue: the Stray Cats opened for the Rolling Stones.

While we regularly took in rock shows in the storied 1920’s entertainment palace – which has a Moorish design throughout, from the ceiling down – seeing the Stones with only 4600 of one’s closest friends was an unexpected treat. Up and coming modern bands like the Talking Heads, Elvis Costello, even Prince and his entourage were typically booked, but on the 1981 tour the greatest rock band in the world made an appearance. Tickets had gone on sale at about 3am a few weeks prior, without warning, and sold out by dawn. Fortunately my connections in the record store community put one into my hands (at the low low price of $16!) and gave me admittance that memorable night. The marquee on Peachtree Street read: The Cockroaches … the name used on the first night of the tour, for an impromptu dress rehearsal, carried over to many of the tour dates.

Set list was classic, and by all reports it was the first tour of the Keith Richards sober era. Stray Cats “Rocked this Town” by way of warmup but didn’t overshadow the masters. I’ve always loved the Stones’ liberal use of a damn fine horn section and keyboards, which are crucial to achieving the depth of rock n’ roll tones they produce – from all “All Down the Line” to “Miss You,” the songs’ perfection relies on guitars as well as the full band that is more than backup.

Funny to think it was 33 years ago, given the timeless nature of their repertoire and the fact that they still perform it so well.



[wherewereyou.in]





The Rolling Stones play the Fox for a second time. The Stones take a field trip to Savannah the day of the concert, but when they return to Atlanta, the city is socked in by fog and they are re-routed to Macon, 90 miles south of the city. The show starts 90 minutes late. The Stray Cats were the warm up act.

[www.dobywood.com]

Quote
Redhotcarpet

Quote
exilestones

KEITH RICHARDS with New York Police fans about 1980. Photo Vinnie Zuffante

Probably a lot later, 1985-ish looking. I know it says around 1980 .

1986?

Thanks. I was suspicious about the date.

ORLANDO



Michael Halsband













Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2017-03-08 09:02 by exilestones.

HOUSTON 2






















October 29, 1981

Jagger with blue blet/sash, yellow knee pads, yellow shirt, white socks and shoes

HOUSTON 1



The Rolling Stones returned to Houston to play two shows at the Astrodome.
But tragedy would strike during the first show, on Oct. 28, 1981.

Wesley Shelton, 22, was fatally stabbed following an altercation in the Dome’s
mezzanine level. A 16-year-old was arrested and later sentenced to 10 years in
prison for the killing.

John Hall, 18, a T-shirt vendor, was stabbed after chasing a 16-year-old who
had reportedly stolen a T-shirt from him. The teen was taken into custody.

Both incidents sparked a debate over the level of security at the Dome for
rock concerts.

The concert itself elicited a “meh” response from fans, observed Chronicle
music critic Marty Racine.

“But whether it was the laid back atmosphere, the Astrodome logistics or the
task of fulfilling great expectations, the Stones did not elicit a wild response,”
he wrote, as reported in the paper’s Oct. 29 edition. “Something was missing, and
Jagger even addressed it halfway through the show.”

Racine continued:

“The Stones, rock’s longest-living band, were good, yes. Masterful at times.
After a three-year layoff, they’ve rehearsed and geared themselves into
rock ‘n’ roll once more. But only at peak moments were they capable of
dissolving the Astrodome echo into a unified rhythm, and never did the
Dome’s audience coalesce into one great vibration.”



Rolling Stones fan overcome by heat, Houston '81.

Quote
exilestones

Quote
Pecman
Are there pictures of the Atlanta show on this thread?

I never knew they did a theatre show on this tour...was that the only one?

Pecman

There's not much for Atlanta 1981. Tom Hill took photos at this Fox theater show. I have some Tom Hill 1981 but can't verify that they are from Atlanta or where they are from.

[stonestocry.blogspot.com]

Exile, I don't think this is ATL show. Pretty sure Mick did not wear that jacket. It was very hot during show. Even though it was in winter

Quote
Palace Revolution 2000
Exile, I don't think this is ATL show. Pretty sure Mick did not wear that jacket. It was very hot during show. Even though it was in winter

Thanks




This photo is listed as Atlanta.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2017-03-08 09:36 by exilestones.

CEDAR FALLS





 
             Michael Halsband



                                                            
                                                        Michael Halsband

 




 
Bob Modersohn Cedar Falls


Jagger - blue jacket, red and black wide stripped shirt, dark blue knee pads, white football pants, thin belt (no sash), white socks and shoes

Keith - leapord print jacket, blue jeans, blue shirt, low boots

Bill - white jacket, white  and black wide stripped shirt

Ron - red jacket, shiny pants, black sneakers with skull and cross bones



[www.youtube.com]







  
One of the biggest thrills was opening 
for The Rolling Stones on a leg of their 
North American tour in 1981. 
- The Lamont Cranston Band

+++

Ray: How did that Rolling Stones tour come about? 
Any interesting stories surrounding that?

Pat: Our management team at the time were also 
the promoters of the Stones show, so they sent
 Bill Graham a copy of Shakedown and asked if 
we could open the show. They turned us down at 
first, but then the Stray Cats cancelled their 
opening spot in St. Louis the morning of the 
show, I think they wanted a raise, Bill Graham 
put in the cassette of us, played it and liked it. 

He called our management and put us on three 
shows starting that night. We just had 24 
inches of snow and had quite a time getting 
to the airport, but we all made it, except 
Jim Greenwell, who got there just after we 
got done playing. Our equipment got lost on 
the plane, so the Stones let us use theirs. 
Those amps and the P.A. sounded so good. I 
had a ball just playing on that stuff right 
and less of what the crowd thought of us. 
Well it turned out they liked us enough not 
to boo us off stage, which is what happened 
to most of the bands on that tour that 
opened for the Stones. To me it was just 
a big party with 55,000 people. We did all 
three nights and had a great time.


+++




Interesting story about the time he got a call 
from the promoter of the Rolling Stones tour who 
wanted them to open for the Stones in St. Louis 
that "same" night. The Stray Cats backed out 

at the last minute wanting more money and thought 
the promoter wouldn't be able to get anyone to 
replace them on such short notice. Pat had gigs 
at the Cabooze that weekend and started 
calling the band to get them all together. 
When he called his band, they didn't believe 
him. "Sure Pat, yeah right, we're opening for 
the Stones, call me back when you're feeling better," 
was the type of response he got with every call. 
Finally, after repeated attempts he got them to 
believe him and they made it to the airport and 
the gig barely on time. This was the night 
after a gigantic snow storm which left several 
feet of snow on the ground so their gear didn't 
make the trip. The Stones, always good sports, 
just said go ahead and use our stuff. Pat said 

it was top of the line equipment and sooooo nice 
to play on compared to what they had at the time.



[www.youtube.com]

MORE: [www.iorr.org]




Lamont Cranston Blues Band featuring Pat Hayes











One of the most popular music events 
held in the Dome was the Rolling Stones 
concert on November 20, 1981. 

For the first time a limit was placed 
on the number of people who could 
attend Dome concerts. All 24,000 
tickets were sold within hours of 
being opened to the public. 

This concert was also original in 
that condensation in the Dome 
created a rain forest-like at-
mosphere. Mick Jagger was quoted 
as saying during the concert that, 
"I didn't know it could rain inside!"

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2017-03-08 08:55 by exilestones.

UNKNOWN

Quote
exilestones
ORLANDO



Michael Halsband

See, this is another reason the Stones are untouchable in coolness: Jagger WILL flaunt that package; he probably was the first to really thrust it up there, stage center. But although mighty and present, it's not like a biology lesson like with David Lee Roth.

In the summer of 1981 , one year after graduating from the School of Visual Arts, I (Michael Halsband) was hired by The Rolling Stones to make a portrait of Keith Richards for the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, after staying with them for a month during rehearsals I ended up traveling with the band two weeks into the their North American tour. When I was finally able to make the portrait and deliver it to the magazine, the magazine decided to run with a picture they had in their files. With nothing to show for the month and a half of work I was about to head home to pick up where I left off with growing my new career when Mick Jagger asked me if I would like to stay on as Tour Photographer. It was not only a dream come true and the opportunity of a lifetime but I looked at it as an chance to make my first funded art project, immersing myself into this traveling world and recording the phenomenon of the energy within and surrounding "The Greatest Rock and Roll band in the World”. A selection of this body of work only exhibited in 1983, has not been published, a limited edition book of a personal selection of photographs from this tour and essence of the art project I set out to accomplish has been in the works for many years and should be nearing completion in the next few years. In the meantime enjoy this rare glimpse of these six photographs, a very intimate view of backstage life, which was never granted to another photographer again.








photos by Michael Halsband, LA, October 8, 1981, 3am

from HALSBAND PORTRAITS book available at www.michaelhalsband.com/store

1981 Tour Photographer Michael Halsband

MH: Then I got this offer from the Rolling Stones’ record label to go and work on a cover portrait of Keith Richards for 
a Rolling Stone magazine cover. I went up to start working on it, where they were rehearsing on a farm in Massachusetts. 
It was just Keith and I shooting and working. We kept re-shooting it, trying different things. It never really felt right. 
Suddenly the idea was to try it on the road, and I was soon on tour with them. Finally we did set up a makeshift studio in 
the middle of the night in a Los Angeles hotel room. It turned out Rolling Stone magazine published a different image that 
they had on file since they had been waiting too long. Then Mick Jagger asked me if I wanted to continue to work as their 
tour photographer since he thought I had the most comprehensive documentation of the tour so far. I thought, “Well, I have 
nothing else waiting for me back in New York. Yes! Let’s do it!” It was like a dream come true. I was aware of the work 
that other photographers had done, so I already knew what worked and what didn’t work for me. 

It was challenging, especially in 1981, when technology was at a place where motor drives were one of the most exciting 
features. The fact that you could shoot 3 frames in a second was great. It was really hard to shoot into the stage light. 
I wasn’t approaching it so much as a normal rock photographer would have since I had the freedom to move around. There 
was no pressing commercial use that limited me in any way at that time. The beauty of my position was that I was an 
outsider even though I was part of the group. I was included but I was invisible.




     Michael Halsband kept very good records of where these photographs were taken during the 
      Rolling Stones 1981 Tour except there is no location/date listed for this famous image.

[whitehotmagazine.com]

Top notch work on this thread, exilestones. Thanks for sharing!

Yes thanks exilestones - this is a GREAT thread!

Just read through last two pages (and will continue to read more), and there's so many memories.
I was at two of the 1981 L.A. Coliseum shows, as well as the ARMS benefit shows at the L.A. Forum in '83.
Don't know if you've seen these or have posted them yet, but a nice review and some great pics of the Oct. 11 L.A. Coliseum show:

Rolling Stones Los Angeles 1981

_____________________________________________________________
Rip this joint, gonna save your soul, round and round and round we go......

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Redhotcarpet

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exilestones

KEITH RICHARDS with New York Police fans about 1980. Photo Vinnie Zuffante

Probably a lot later, 1985-ish looking. I know it says around 1980 .

1986?

Wonder what's in the bag? the cops on the left seems to know what's up. Cop on the right is clueless. Lol

If I Was A Dancer (dance part 2)
If I Was A Dancer (instrumental)
EMI RSP 1

1981



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2017-03-15 01:47 by exilestones.