THERE’S A RIOT GOING ON > HERE, THERE, EVERYWHERE

Guitarist Brian Jones, pic from album Big Hits High Tide and green Grass
Guitarist Brian Jones, pic from album Big Hits High Tide and Green Grass

MAYHEM THE NORM AT ROLLING STONES CONCERTS

RIOTS at concerts were an irregular, regular occurrence on early Rollings Stones tours, as were jibes from town officials, politicians and the like about their scruffy, unkept appearance.

There was even the media question at the time: “Would you let your daughter go out with a Rolling Stone”.

The group was often banned from hotels, partly because of trouble with fans, and had to flee fanatical, screaming fans after many concerts.

Female faintings and knickers wetting during shows were common.

 

POLICE PUT FANS IN STRAIGHTJACKETS 

Rioting audience causes concert in Belfast, Ireland, to be called off after only 12 minutes. Hysterical girls carried out in straightjackets. (1964)

 

POLICE USE WATER CANNONS

5000 screaming fans dispersed by police with water cannons at Dusseldorf airport as the Rolling Stones begin a brief German tour. (September, 1965).

 

TEAR GAS

Police use tear gas to disperse a riot at a 15,000 fan show in Boston, USA, after audience members tried to storm the stage. (1966)

 

TWO POLICEWOMEN FAINT

> as well as 100 girls > and more than 40 police needed to control the crowd at a concert in Manchester, England. (1964)

 

Mick Jagger > photo from album inner sleeve
Mick Jagger, pic from album Big Hits High Tide and Green Grass

IT’S SHORT BACK AND SIDES, FARNSWORTH

Almost a dozen boys suspended from a school in Coventry, England, for wearing *Mick Jagger* haircuts.

 

ANIMALS, CLOWNS AND MORONS

That was how a magistrate in Glasgow, Scotland, described the Rolling Stones after one of their fans was arrested for breaking a shop window.

 

ROLLING STONES GATHER NO LUNCH

The headline in one the British tabloids after the band were refused entry to a Bristol hotel for not wearing ties. (1964)

 

FANS SEE RED

Communist police, including on horses, use batons and tear gas to disperse 2000 fans outside the Rolling Stones concert venue > the Palace of Culture > in Polish capitol Warsaw. The Communist Party chiefs had kept the tickets for themselves and their families and cronies, leaving the real Rolling Stones fans seething outside.

 

TV SHOW RIOT

An audience riot on US variety show The Ed Sullian Show, with the host vowing he would never let rock and roll bands back on his high-rating show. But he did, the Stones among them. (October, 1964)

 

Bass player Bill Wyman, pic from album Big Hits High Tide and Green Grass
Bass player Bill Wyman, pic from album Big Hits High Tide and Green Grass

TAKING IT TO THE STREETS

150 people arrested, the theatre damaged during street riots at the show at the Olympia in Paris.

 

AUSSIE, AUSSIE, AUSSIE

A 3000 fan riot upon arrival at the airport in Sydney for the Rolling Stones first Australian tour. (January, 1965). The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper said of the group: “They’re shockers. Ugly looks, ugly speech, ugly manners”.

 

THE INJURY LIST

 

ELECTRIC BLUES

Keith Richards survived being knocked unconscious by an electric shock during a performance in Sacramento, USA. (1965)

 

ALL STITCHED UP

Mick Jagger had to get eight stitches to his head after being decked by a chair thrown on stage.

*Some source material from books The Rolling Stones Story by George Tremlett and Rolling With The Stones by  Bill Wyman.

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