I,ve always been curious as to why there was no tour behind ER,Undercover,DW.Was it because of Jaggers mid eighties solo projects?

Well, they were going to tour DW until Jagger decided to do the solo thing instead...which is why the band broke up.

well, they didnt "break up" but they almost certainly would have had they toured behind Dirty Work

Jagger's solo album came out around the time that the DW recording sessions were getting under way. That in itself didnt stop them touring

Keith wanted to tour behind Dirty Work but Mick refused. Relationships within the band were terrible as was the health of certain band members (ie, Charlie - who had developed a heroin problem). Mick thought it would be a huge mistake to go on the road under those conditions. In hindsight, he was right.

Gazza is correct - the band was fractured, dispirited, its members not in great health - Charlie strung out on heroin & speed, Ron still dealing w/ freebase problem, Mick distracted. And Stu dead, 12/85.
BTW they never 'broke up,' tho many (including some Stones) expected them to.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2005-09-11 20:17 by john r.

But what about Undercover?No tour?Emotional Rescue?No tour

??

well, with Emotional Rescue, they were back in the studio soon afterwards to finish Tattoo You..


I also dont think band relationships were that good after Undercover either

The thing is, its a different era. Back then, albums came out far more frequenty than they do now and there wasnt the same 'obligation' to follow a new album with a world tour. Dont forget, whilst they toured after the releases of Sticky Fingers, Goats Head Soup, Black & Blue and Some Girls, in each case it was a short tour and only in one market

Ok, I had always heard they broke-up...even remember hearing it on the radio at the time...though radio folks often don't know what they're talking about.

Wasn't Charlie's heroin thing very short-lived, maybe a month or two?

Charlie's heroin/amphetemine habit: No, more like 2 years. He's discussed it in recent years, most notably on "60 Minutes" interview w/ Ed Bradley.
And in the '80s the Stones always (in the US) had top-10 hit singles & AM/FM airplay on each new album, & didn't need to tour to promote it. Remember "Tattoo" came out a mere year after ER, Undercover (11/83) around 16 months after the '82 Euro tour ended. The mid '80s was when the solo projects began to get serious: Mick ('85), Charlie ('86) and finally Keith ('88) all had solo debuts (as opposed to films, record-producing or guest-shots).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2005-09-11 21:39 by john r.

Not really wanting to split hairs Gazza, (and that is quite difficult to do), but I've always considered the '72-73 tour to be essentilaly one outing. Same 'stage design'/light show. GHS emerged just before the 'European leg'.

75-76 was one tour really - the same set again - and again, they completed an album before hitting Europe.

My biggest regret is that they didn't do Europe in '79 or '80 after the 'American leg'. That probably indicates that the fractures had already begun, or that Mick had interests elsewhere - and so Ronnie and Keith, who did want to continue working, got the Barbarians together.

I wish they had toured Europe in '79 because their next album might have been a double, combinig the best of ER and TY - a great basis for an '81-'82 tour. Most of ER was recorded in early '79, wasn't it? Large gap before its final release, (because of Barbarians, I guess).

I think Mick and Keith's 'marriage' probably began to break down in '79. I cannot understand why they didn't take SG to Europe.

This will be serious matter when they finally come before my Court. (Summons were issued in 1980).

Also not wanting to split hairs but I think a studio album makes it a different tour - so EU '73 has GHS material, plus generally a different sound & even personnel (Billy not Nicky, most noteably); ditto '75 (IORR latest) vs '76 (B & - pretty different setlist, & I believe also Billy lost the wig in '76, no?

What was the '72 tour stage like?

The band was scheduled to tour in the spring of 1984, The Undercover Tour....I even have a T-Shirt that shows the cover of the album and says US Tour 1984. Who knows ?

What is fact is that KR and MJ started to keep 2 camps during the Tattoo tour and were fighting a lot and continued into the Undercover sessions. When they signed the CBS contract and KR found out about Mick's secret solo album deal, KR HIT THE ROOF. He felt that Mick was attempting to hijack the Stones ( and arguably Keith's work) reputation for his own good. This was late 84/early 85. MJ's solo album came out and Mick was heavily promoting while KR and RW were working on what would become Dirty Work. As mentioned above, Charlie was a mess, Bill was almost invisible as was Mick. Keith said that the Dirty Work songs were written to be performed live (which we will never hear due to the majority of Jagger/Richards/Wood credits on the album. (Notice how "One Hit" was left off of "Jump Back"?)

Again, Like mentined above, Mick refused a Stones tour which made KR even more pissed. Then in 87 Mick went on tour in basically Japan (embarressing) and played mostly Stones songs......which caused KR to make Talk Is Cheap. The rest is history, but Mick learned a lesson (even though it took 5 years to sink in) that people would only really accept him as a Stone. When "Talk Is Cheap" came out people who did not really follow the band all of a sudden realised how important KR was to the Stones and how much of the bands sound was him, as much as MJ was.

A mid life crisis, in several different ways, is basically why the Stones did not tour for 7 years. How they wish they could get those 7 years back now.

Milo, NYC
Hours are like diamonds, don't let them waste (and for 7 years they did)

A mid life crisis, perfectly put! Individually & as a band...
At least they didn't, unlike John & Paul, break up when they married strong women!

Mick's Japanese tour was actually March 1988 Milo (and the Australasian/Indonesian shows a few months later) but what you say is pretty much correct.

I've always maintained that if Mick's mid 80's solo albums had been the huge hits that he (and Walter Yetnikoff, who gave him the contract on top of the one that CBS had offered the Stones) thought theyd be, the Stones would have been history shortly afterwards.

So, whilst your right in talking about seven wasted years, to look at it from another perspective, as a result of getting that "mid life crisis" out of the band's system, we've now had almost two decades more of the band than many of us could have dared hope for around 1986-87.

johnr,

I think the personnel change during '72-73 was minimal. Mick used essentiall the same clothes too. I think '72 (and Australia '73) might have had a few more Exile songs (or Berry numbers) and that '73 had some Soupies - but the Stage show was identical. Giant mirrors behind stage, large collumns either side in Europe - not sure about the states.

75-76 tour had the same stage and personnel. I'm sure '76 would have been planned to happen in '75. Again, it was different cos of the B&B numbers replacing some of the IORR (eg Luxury) and GHS (eg Heartbreaker) numbers.

But.....does anyone know if they ever planned to do Europe in '79?

And if they did, why they didn't. Nothing to do with Jerry Hall, I hope!

I see it the same way Four Stone sees it re. the tours. The 72 USA tour was a self contained "unit" ,true but that 73 tour really picked up with much of the same vibe. Don't forget that the Nicaragua show and the Australia tour was in between to bridge the gap. They hardly ever stopped. They changed horns and clothes a little. And added the GHS material. And got, if possible even hotter, as we all dig those famous boots. Then in 75 to 76 even more it seems like the same tour. All they really did was add the B&B material. You know, I just thought of soemthing: where was Ollie on the Euro leg? Was he there? Seems like he is more in te background.

yes he was indeed on the European tour and on the El Mocambo shows in 1977

hes on the Love You Live album

Yes thanks Gazza, I can hear him on the LYL album. I just can not picture him in my head in Euro 76 photos. He was oviously in the You Gotta Move photo ops.
I just was thinking about my previous post. While right off the top of my head I can not remember the exact dates I have always thought of those tours as one homogenized long tour.
But in 72 they ended on Jagger's b'day, right? Then they take a break and go do the WINTER tour. That's already at least 4 months break. The end it and don't begin in Europe until Sept 1. So you guys are right; there is a big gap.
In 76 they began in April in Frankfurt I think. But I can not recall when they ended in 75. probabaly towards the end of summer, no?

US "TOTA" June 1 - August 8, 1975, then off to the Faces & completing "Black & Blue", EU tour April 28 - June 23, '76, Knebworth in August....

Maybe it was because Undercover, Dirty Work and Emotional Rescue sucks balls.

JumpingKentFlash

Maybe, but ER sold pretty well and spent several weeks at the top of the charts.

You're right. But so did Britney Spears and she sucks too.


JumpingKentFlash

My point was that the reason not to tour behind ER was not due to poor sales. Whether Britney Spears has anything to do with it, I can not say.