The Rolling Stones' 1969 Tour of the United States took place in November 1969. With Ike & Tina Turner, Terry Reid, and B.B. King (replaced on some dates by Chuck Berry) as the supporting acts,[1] rock critic Robert Christgau called it "history's first mythic rock and roll tour",[2] while rock critic Dave Marsh wrote that the tour was "part of rock and roll legend" and one of the "benchmarks of an era."[3] In 2017, Rolling Stone magazine ranked the tour among The 50 Greatest Concerts of the Last 50 Years.[4]
This was the Rolling Stones' first US tour since July 1966, with the absence partly due to drug charges and subsequent complications.[2] Instead of performing in small- and medium-size venues to audiences of screaming girls, the band was playing to sold-out arenas with more mature crowds that were ready to listen to the music.[5] They used a more sophisticated amplification system, and lighting was overseen by Chip Monck. It was Mick Taylor's first tour with the band; he had replaced Brian Jones that June, shortly before Jones's death, and had only performed one gig (the free concert in Hyde Park) with them before the tour.[5]
The tour began on 7 November with a warm-up show at Colorado State University, and then proceeded generally west to east, often playing two shows a night. The tour's second stop, at The Forum in Los Angeles, attracted national media attention as the outing's formal opening.[7] Shows sometimes ran past midnight,[7][8] and the Rolling Stones' performance lasted about 75 minutes.[8]Terry Reid, B.B. King (replaced on some dates by Chuck Berry), and Ike & Tina Turner were the supporting acts; audiences were typically in their seats for three hours, including long delays between acts, before the Rolling Stones materialized on stage.[5]
On 23 November, the band appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. "Gimme Shelter" opened the show. The show closed with "Love in Vain" and "Honky Tonk Women." The band mimed to prerecorded tracks and Jagger sang live. The performance was recorded at the CBS studios in Los Angeles and edited into the show to appear like they were in New York.
In his review of the shows on 27 and 28 November at New York City's Madison Square Garden, Francis X. Clines of The New York Times characterized the tour as "the major rock event of the year."[8] Ike & Tina Turner were a fan favorite, and they reportedly upstaged the Rolling Stones. Janis Joplin joined the Turners on stage for an impromptu performance of "Land of 1000 Dances" at one of the Madison Square Garden shows.[1][8]
Another well-known show from the tour was the second concert in Oakland, California on 9 November, which was captured on Live'r Than You'll Ever Be, one of the first-ever live bootleg recordings.
The final show of the tour as initially planned was on 28 November in New York City, but 30 November in West Palm Beach, Florida was added as a gesture to the organiser. The band also organised and headlined the free concert at Altamont on 6 December, which was tacked on at the end of the tour as a response to the high ticket prices of the tour itself.[9]
Tour manager Sam Cutler introduced the Rolling Stones as "the greatest rock and roll band in the world", a title he had first bestowed upon them at their concert in London's Hyde Park the previous July.[10] The tour set lists were derived mostly from 1968's Beggars Banquet album and the forthcoming Let It Bleed. The performance itself featured the Stones showmanship that would become familiar: Charlie Watts businesslike drumming leavened by an occasional wry smile, Bill Wyman's undertaker persona on bass, the guitar interplay of Mick Taylor with Keith Richards, and most of all Mick Jagger's prancing, strutting, leering and preening in front of the crowd.[5][8] "Ah think I've busted a button on my trousers, I hope they don't fall down" he teased the audience. "You don't want my trousers to fall down, now do ya?"[11] At one point in some shows, Jagger motioned for the audience to rush past ushers to the edge of the stage;[7] of the group's reaction to the crowd's fervor, a spokesman said, "They loved it."[7]
The US was in political turmoil at the time, and some militant groups tried to portray the tour as a call for radical political action, especially in light of the Rolling Stones' 1968 track "Street Fighting Man".[12] The Rolling Stones themselves had no such interest, and while on tour Mick Jagger publicly rebuffed a request for support from the Black Panthers.[12] Stones media appearances during the tour featured typical banter of the time on other issues; while other members of the group affected boredom, Jagger gave non-sequitur responses to cultural questions,[8] and said of New York, "It's great. It changes. It explodes."[8]
The tour sold over $1 million worth of tickets,[8] with ticket prices ranging from $3.00 to $8.00.[7][8] This tour represented a new financial model for rock acts pioneered by Ronnie Schneider, the sole producer and financial manager of the tour. Schneider was the nephew of Allen Klein, who had been recently fired by Keith Richards and Sam Cutler.[13]
Neither Schneider nor the Stones had any money at the time to fund this endeavor so Schneider had to come up with a new business model and that meant the band getting a piece of the gross box office and demanding a 50% advance, which funded the shows.[citation needed]
Schneider's role involved securing box office receipts on behalf of the band. In this way, the band itself (and Schneider, whose interests were aligned with those of the band) was in control of all the money related to a tour. On behalf of the Rolling Stones, Schneider centralized the control, ownership and management of ancillary rights, licensing and the marketing of posters, T shirts, programs and other concert related materials—-vastly improving the group's revenue base while touring. Many other bands followed suit throughout the 1970s.
The 1970 concert album Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out!, mostly based on the Madison Square Garden shows, documented the tour, as did the Maysles brothers' 1970 documentary Gimme Shelter which, while mostly known for its filming of Altamont, also contains substantial footage of the band's performance during the tour at Madison Square Garden. Gimme Shelter also captures Jagger's famous response to a press-conference question about whether he was "any more satisfied now": "Financially dissatisfied, sexually satisfied, philosophically trying."[8]
A typical set list for the tour included the following, although there were substitutions (note the presence of "Gimme Shelter" on Live'r Than You'll Ever Be and "Brown Sugar" was performed at Altamont), variations and order switches throughout the tour.
Note: The final scheduled date of the tour was Boston, 29 November 1969. The West Palm Beach International Music and Arts Festival on 30 November and the Altamont Free Concert on 6 December were planned as separate events and added while the tour was in progress. A further four dates were completed in London, United Kingdom during December 1969; these were also separate events to the main tour.
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band formed in London in 1962. Active across seven decades, they are one of the most popular and enduring bands of the rock era. In the early 1960s, the band pioneered the gritty, rhythmically driven sound that came to define hard rock. Their first stable line-up consisted of vocalist Mick Jagger, guitarist Keith Richards, multi-instrumentalist Brian Jones, bassist Bill Wyman, and drummer Charlie Watts. During their early years, Jones was the primary leader of the band. After Andrew Loog Oldham became the group's manager in 1963, he encouraged them to write their own songs. Jagger and Richards became the band's songwriters and primary creative forces, alienating Jones who developed a drug addiction that, by 1968, interfered with his ability to contribute meaningfully.
Sir Michael Philip Jagger is an English singer, songwriter, actor, filmmaker, and dancer. He is the frontman and one of the founder members of the rock band the Rolling Stones. Jagger has written most of the band's songs alongside lead guitarist Keith Richards; their songwriting partnership is one of the most successful in history, and they continue to collaborate musically. His career has spanned over six decades, and he has been widely described as one of the most popular and influential frontmen in the history of rock music. His distinctive voice and energetic live performances, along with Richards' guitar style, have been the Rolling Stones' trademark throughout the band's career. Jagger gained notoriety for his romantic involvements and illicit drug use, and has often been portrayed as a countercultural figure.
Ike & Tina Turner were an American musical duo consisting of husband and wife Ike Turner and Tina Turner. From 1960 to 1976, they performed live as the Ike & Tina Turner Revue, supported by Ike Turner's band the Kings of Rhythm and backing vocalists called the Ikettes. The Ike & Tina Turner Revue was regarded as "one of the most potent live acts on the R&B circuit."
The Altamont Speedway Free Festival was a counterculture rock concert in the United States, held on Saturday, December 6, 1969, at the Altamont Speedway outside of Tracy, California. Approximately 300,000 attended the concert, and some anticipated that it would be a "Woodstock West". The Woodstock festival had been held in Bethel, New York, in mid-August, almost four months earlier.
Michael Kevin Taylor is an English guitarist, best known as a former member of John Mayall's Bluesbreakers (1967–1969) and the Rolling Stones (1969–1974). As a member of the Stones, he appeared on Let It Bleed (1969), Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! The Rolling Stones in Concert (1970), Sticky Fingers (1971), Exile on Main St. (1972), Goats Head Soup (1973) and It's Only Rock 'n Roll (1974).
Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out!: The Rolling Stones in Concert is the second live album by the Rolling Stones, released on 4 September 1970 on Decca Records in the UK and on London Records in the US. It was recorded in New York City and Baltimore in November 1969, just before the release of Let It Bleed. It is the first live album to reach number 1 in the UK. It was reported to have been issued in response to the well known bootleg Live'r Than You'll Ever Be. This was also the band's final release under the Decca record label and not under their own label Rolling Stones Records.
"Honky Tonk Women" is a song by the English rock band the Rolling Stones. It was released as a non-album single on 4 July 1969 in the United Kingdom, and a week later in the United States. It topped the charts in both nations. The song was on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list, and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
Meredith Curly Hunter Jr. was an American man who was killed at the 1969 Altamont Free Concert. During the performance by the Rolling Stones, Hunter approached the stage, and was violently driven off by members of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club who had agreed to prevent members of the audience from mounting the stage. He subsequently returned to the stage area, drew a revolver, and was stabbed and beaten to death by Hells Angel Alan Passaro.
Gimme Shelter is a 1970 American documentary film directed by Albert and David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin chronicling the last weeks of The Rolling Stones' 1969 US tour which culminated in the disastrous Altamont Free Concert and the killing of Meredith Hunter. The film is named after "Gimme Shelter", the lead track from the group's 1969 album Let It Bleed. Gimme Shelter was screened out of competition as the opening film of the 1971 Cannes Film Festival.
"Under My Thumb" is a song recorded by the English rock band the Rolling Stones. Written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, "Under My Thumb" features a marimba played by Brian Jones. Although it was never released as a single in English-speaking countries, it is one of the band's more popular songs from the late 1960s and appears on several best-of compilations, such as Hot Rocks 1964–1971. It was included as the fourth track on both the American and United Kingdom versions of the band's 1966 studio album Aftermath.
"Gimme Shelter" is a song by English rock band the Rolling Stones. It is the opening track on their 1969 album Let It Bleed. The song covers the brutal realities of war, including murder, rape and fear. It features prominent guest vocals by American singer Merry Clayton.
"Midnight Rambler" is a song by English rock band The Rolling Stones, released on their 1969 album Let It Bleed. The song is a loose biography of Albert DeSalvo, who confessed to being the Boston Strangler.
"It's Only Rock 'n Roll (But I Like It)" is the lead single from English rock band the Rolling Stones' 1974 album It's Only Rock 'n Roll. Writing is credited to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and the single reached the top ten in the UK charts and top 20 in the United States.
The Rolling Stones American Tour 1972, also known as the "Stones Touring Party", shortened to S.T.P., was a much-publicized and much-written-about concert tour of the United States and Canada in June and July 1972 by The Rolling Stones. Constituting the band's first performances in the United States following the Altamont Free Concert in December 1969, critic Dave Marsh would later write that the tour was "part of rock and roll legend" and one of the "benchmarks of an era."
The Rolling Stones' Steel Wheels Tour was a concert tour which was launched in North America in August 1989 to promote the band's album Steel Wheels; it continued to Japan in February 1990, with ten shows at the Tokyo Dome. The European leg of the tour, which featured a different stage and logo, was called the Urban Jungle Tour; it ran from May to August 1990. These would be the last live concerts for the band with original member Bill Wyman on bass guitar. This tour would also be the longest the band had ever done up to that point, playing over twice as many shows as their standard tour length from the 1960s and 1970s.
The Rolling Stones' US Tour 1978 was a concert tour of the United States that took place during June and July 1978, immediately following the release of the group's 1978 album Some Girls. Like the 1972 and 1975 U.S. tours, Bill Graham was the tour promoter. One opening act was Peter Tosh, who was sometimes joined by Mick Jagger for their duet "Don't Look Back". The Outlaws backed up Peter Tosh. Another act opening that day was Etta James, famous for her classic song “At Last”.
The Rolling Stones' American Tour 1981 was a concert tour of stadiums and arenas in the United States to promote the album Tattoo You. It was the largest grossing tour of 1981 with $50 million in ticket sales. Roughly 2,5 million concert goers attended the concerts, setting various ticket sales records. The 5 December show in New Orleans set an indoor concert attendance record which stood for 33 years.
Live'r Than You'll Ever Be is a bootleg recording of the Rolling Stones' concert in Oakland, California, from 9 November 1969. It was one of the first live rock music bootlegs and was made notorious as a document of their 1969 tour of the United States. The popularity of the bootleg forced the Stones' labels Decca Records in the UK, and London Records in the US, to release the live album Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! The Rolling Stones in Concert in 1970. Live'r is also one of the earliest commercial bootleg recordings in rock history, released in December 1969, just two months after the Beatles' Kum Back and five months after Bob Dylan's Great White Wonder. Like the two earlier records, Live'r's outer sleeve is plain white, with its name stamped on in ink.
Ronald Schneider is best known for being the business presence at the center of pivotal 1960s events including the Altamont Free Concert, the dissolution of The Beatles and the reorganization of their business arm, Apple Corps. Schneider managed the early US tours of The Rolling Stones while simultaneously dealing with the financial affairs of some of the biggest names in Rock and Roll history including the Stones, The Beatles, Neil Sedaka, Sam Cooke, Nancy Wilson, Bobby Vinton, Herman’s Hermits and the Shirelles.
↑ Cutler, Sam. "You Can't Always Get What You Want: My Life with the Rolling Stones and other Wonderful Reprobates". Heinemann. 2008. ISBN9781741666090
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