Definitely 1978. I'm a fan since 1974 but 78 was just like boooom!!! The great album, the bootlegs (Garden State arrived first in Europe). SG is still one of my favourites.
'78 for me. I didn't get to see them, didn't even know about them, but once I had Some Girls, I bought up their catalog, and then got me some bootlegs.
I spent many long hours listening to those live shows from '78:
A Summer Romance, 2 LPs, from Memphis, Detroit, etc. (with Hound Dog!) An American Affair, 2 LPs, Passaic, NJ
and A Blind Date, the Canadian benefit concert, which was actually '79
They could have been just another obscure blues act but they really came into their own with style and a wealth of material that they have never rivaled or surpassed.
1972 - waiting up late at night as a teenager to listen to the debut play of Tumbling Dice on Radio Luxembourg - the magic came through loud and clear, even though I was listening on a crappy little transistor radio. That moment has stuck with me forever.
Nineteen hundred and seventy-two. "Exile on Main Street" comes out. Their triumphant and completely debauched tour of America begins. Rock and roll has been going downhill ever since. The Stones set the bar too high.
1968 to 1973 Beggars Banquet, Through the Past Darkly, Live in '69, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, and Exile On Main Street and Brussels A fair and Rotterdam............