Back in the late ’60s, I can’t even remember what year, my friend and I went to see the Rolling Stones at the Montreal Forum. We had seats on the floor but no one was sitting in them. Everyone was standing on the back of the chairs so they could see better.
Of course all the chairs started to fall over and before you knew it we had somehow been pushed to the front of the stage with Mick Jagger right in front of us.
The crowd was getting a little bit out of hand and a security guard came out on stage and threatened the crowd with a chair over his head. Mick Jagger came up behind him and took the chair out of his hands.
The crowd went wild at this point. You can imagine our surprise when we woke up the next day and found out we had been in the middle of a riot.
I can also remember ,probably about the same time, riding around in my Volkswagen Bug all night with “I see a red door and I want to paint it black” playing on the radio.
A Volkswagen, that by the way ,I had bought new for $1,800.
— Kathy Jobb, Surrey
It was 1973 and the Stones were playing at the stadium after being banned, I think, from a concert they did in 1969 at the same stadium because of a riot then. We hitchhiked down from Williams Lake to go to the riot that everyone was talking about that was going to take place at the PNE grounds .
Tickets were the last thing we were thinking about because they were sold out and bogus ones were being sold, also the cost was way out of our range. I was 15 years old as were most of the kids around me. Acid and pot were the thing for drugs and we knew the tickets were sold out.
When we got to the PNE grounds there were hundreds, no thousands of people sitting around and walking and singing, all having a good time, very few police any where. It was a real cool time and lots of good vibes in the air, The Stones were in town, the hottest band in the world. So myself and the two fellows I came with, Bob Potts and Scott Carlson, met up with Tex Benson and some other people, and we sat down in front of the stadium smoking pot and watching the crowd.
A few minutes there and this guy comes up to ask if we wanted tickets and so we said how much, they were going for $7.
He said he’d sell them for $15 each and we said why not, we will take a chance and we bought three of them with all the money we had and the only cash we had to take a bus home and buy some food with but hey, it was the Stones. Up we got and off we went into the line and before we knew it we were in the doors, the tickets worked — wow — we were now at the Rolling Stones concert and it was unbelievable to me.
I make it to the floor and I can not remember who was on first , so I am down at the front about six people deep as everyone stood up back then a guy comes out to announce The Stones, just as he did some guy beside me smashed into me and I fell , so up I get and the fight is on and we are going at it hard, the crowd is giving us room in a small circle and are circling each other kicking and throwing punches and then I hear this: “Hey come on, you guys, let’s stop this!”
People were screaming and yelling and I could see Mick Jagger leaning over the stage and talking to me and buddy and telling us to stop fighting, to have a good time, to calm down — and before i knew it me and buddy were hugging each other and waving at Mick and then Mick does a jumping kick-flip and comes down and takes his cowboy hat off and as throws it into the crowd as he is singing “Jumping Jack Flash.” It was a trip and it was the best concert I’ve ever seen and I’ve seen the Stones five times since then and when it was over and I went outside there was nothing but 15 to 30 police with riot gear on and police on horses and cop cars were flipped over on fire and sirens going, people yelling and it looked like a war zone you see on TV today.
I missed the riot and my buddy Tex got his head split open from a police on a horse as he walked into a crowd of defenceless kids. He has the four-inch scar today. That’s how I got to meet (ha ha ha) Mick Jagger and for me that was a time of my life.
— Stan Mingo, Vancouver
Paris, May 1995. Club Olympia.
I get a call at 2 in the morning and I am asleep.
My friend, who works for Virgin Records in Paris, has an inside tip for me: the Stones are about to announce a show at the famous — and famously tiny — Club Olympia for the next night. There will be only 400 tickets for sale. I do the unbelievably vapid thing of getting dressed and legging it down to the Virgin Megastore on the Champs Elysees at 3 in the morning.
There are already several hundred other desperate Stones fans like me waiting in line.
We wait in line through the night, the crowd growing to several thousand as the rumour spreads. There are TV stations there, radio reporters.
At 10 a.m., after a 7-hour wait without food, drink or a pee break, the doors to Virgin Megastore open and the tickets go on sale.
Another three hours later I have a single coveted ticket and a blue bracelet — which becomes my passport for all manner of debauchery over the next 24 hours. That’s another story. My ticket number is 397 and Virgin will stop selling tickets in about 30 seconds.
You can imagine my sense of euphoria —although it could have been simple lightheadedness brought on by the lack of food and drink and sleep.
The show starts at 11, but I wanted to be at the front of the stage and so I proceeded with my prize to the Club, taking a quick pitstop, scarfing some food on the way and swigging a few bottles of water.
The boredom of the 10-hour wait outside the Club cannot be overemphasized.
Sure there was a buzz, but it was all in French and I was too tired to catch much of it. Fast forward: I am the 20th or so person into the storied Club and race to the rails to get a position right up front. The balconies above bear the weight of the usual celebs who get tickets to shows like these: Jack Nicholson is there, Elton John, Keef’s entire family: wife Patti, kids, even his old man.
The Stones rip out onto the the little stage and play a fabulous hour and a half of tunes, the majority of which become the playlist for Stripped, their live album. We are exhorted to singalong to Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone,” which ends up being the lead-off single. It charted and I was singing along — so I’ve charted.
But the crush of this hopped-up crowd of 400 was terrifying. Even Jack was on his feet in the balcony shouting at the security that someone was surely going to get trampled in the pit and die. We swayed back and forth dangerously.
My feet left the ground on countless occasions and I began to fear for my life. I looked around at the faces of the people who stood shoulder to shoulder with me and I saw only intent: Everyone wanted up front and the push was so aggressive it was killing my enjoyment of the show. I eventually allowed myself to be dragged backwards about 10 rows until the crush was a little less life-threatening.
One minute Keef was six feet away from me kicking about like an arthritic monkey (wait a minute, that’s Elton John’s line — maybe he coined it that night) and the next he was 300 bobbing heads away.
He looks better from a distance.
— Doug Brown, Vancouver
In 2003, my cousin, husband and I went to visit my cousin’s friends in Austria.
We had purchased tickets to see the Rolling Stones in Vienna. We managed to get standing room right in front of the stage. It was a great location.
It was our host Wolfgang’s birthday. Mick had come out on the stage and had a red coat and tails jacket on with lapels that went to the waist. He had the Rolling Stones flicking tongues on both his lapels.
Mick was dancing up a storm and I was standing right next to Wolfgang. During Mick’s gyrating hip dance, I saw something bounce off of Wolfgang’s shoulder and land on the floor right in front of us. It was one of the flicking Rolling Stones tongues that was on Mick’s lapel.
I looked at Wolfgang, smiled and said, “Happy Birthday.”
— Mary Cunningham, North Vancouver
I answered the door of a house on Portobello Road in Notting Hill Gate, in London, England for a mutual friend. It was October 27, 1983.
I was asked to let the gentleman in and announced his arrival. It was Ron Wood.
I arrived in London a year earlier as an aspiring young painter from Canada and worked in the Visual Arts in London until 1991.
We sat together and I congratulated Ronnie not on his musical achievements but his drawing ability that graced the cover of his solo album, Gimme Some Neck, a great collection of little ink drawings that I felt were unique considering I knew little of his desire to pursue the fine arts. We both spoke about our love for art and the freedom of expression that it offers that can’t be controlled by managers or companies.
As I was always in the company of my sketchbook documenting the London social scene he asked to draw a picture within its pages.
He claimed as he was sketching his pen and ink that I reminded him of Mylon LeFevre, a gospel singer from Georgia who worked with Alvin Lee and whom he had played and written a song on their 1973 album, On the Road to Freedom. I acquired that exact album upon its release when I discovered it included such musical greats as Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi, George Harrison, Mick Fleetwood and Ron Wood. A super group to say the least.
Ronnie handed me back my sketchbook and asked for my critique of his drawing of my portrait. Needless to say I was very amused and he really did capture the spirit of ‘Bizzo.’ He signed it simply ‘Wood Ron, Oct 27,1983.
’
Two years would pass until my second encounter with Woodie, in 1985, in a cottage in Bayswater, reminiscent in my terms to the Grand Central Station of rock and roll illuminaries. My job and passion was to document the parties in my sketchbook that rolled through the doors for over three years. Eric Burden, Hugh Masakala, Jimmy Page, Dennis Hopper, Terrance Trent D’Arby, Julian Lennon, Killing Joke, to name a few and once again Ronnie Wood.
We both found it strange to be once again in each other’s company and once again he grabbed my sketchbook and produced yet another portrait signed and dated with a commentary of “very strange.” The drawing from 1985 is still in London in safekeeping. That evening I finally reciprocated and drew a picture of himself and his wife Jo.
Before we all proceeded out to a London club.
So what kind of guy is he? Really down to earth and seemingly unaffected by his fame and fortune which was a relief.
So easy to talk to about all facets of life without an ego undermining the situation.
Last year I sold five of my musical series of paintings to the now chairman of Sony/BMG UK. During my time spent in London, I have works in the collections of some notable figures.
Leo Sayer owns a painting, one of the Pink Floyd members has a Bizzo on his wall, Jimmy Page and I painted a nude literally live, and I went on to represent Canada at the Bath Contemporary Art Fair, in Bath, England and exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.
Those years in London produced hundreds of paintings and thousands of drawings and most of the drawings of the celebrities that I documented are in a number of suitcases in storage here in Vancouver and have never been exhibited. Which I plan to arrange as a touring exhibit of rock and roll sketches ,”Under the Influence” in the near future.
If there is a reputable gallery interested I would be more than happy to entertain a proposal here in Vancouver.
You can catch up with Bizzo and his art at his open studio, gallery group show, in Port Moody, through Dec. 15 with the opening party on Dec.
1 from 6-8 p.m. at the Electronic Avenue Art Centre, 50 Electronic Ave.
/Murray Street, Port Moody,
— David Bizzo, Port Moody
I am writing to you about a really freaky thing that happened to my husband and me. In 1998, when the Rolling Stones last came to Vancouver, my husband purchased ticket for us to go to the show. This time when the Stones were coming my husband wanted to go again.
I belong to the Rock 101 club and so we got to buy tickets early before they went on sale to the general public. I went online to purchase the tickets and got them. When my husband came home I asked him if he wanted to see where we were sitting this time.
I told him the location of the seats that we got. He said hang on because I think that is close to where we were last time. He went to his drawer and had kept his ticket stub from last time and we are sitting in the exact same seat as we were in 1998: Sec 41, Row EE and Seat 3.
I’m originally from London, England. Around 1970 or 1971 I used to frequent a place called the Lyceum Ballroom. One night the manager asked me and four of my mates if we could look after the doors that Saturday night, due to a concert by a group called the Rolling Stones.
He said he would give us all four quid each but if we wore the red suits and dicky bow ties we would get an extra quid. We weren’t too keen on the idea of the suits, it wasn’t fashionable and we thought we could “pull the birds,” but we went along with it.
On the night of the gig, we were taken to the bar backstage and met the Stones.
I had a good old chat with Charlie Watts, mostly about my mate John Watts, who is Charlie’s cousin. The whole time we were talking Mick Jagger was dancing around all over the place with glitter in his hair, it was flying everywhere.
The ballroom held about 3,000 people, mostly hippies that night.
I was at the door to the right of the stage stopping people from “bunking in.” I did my job well for about five minutes then I was hooked, I was totally in awe with this rock band, it was the first live act I had ever seen and I’m still one of their biggest fans.
At the end of the show we got our fivers and headed home, we felt 10 feet tall, we were all on cloud nine.
Two of us started walking along Tottenham Court on our way to Camden Town and out of the dark came some West Indian gentlemen, they persuaded us to hand over our money and some jewelry in our possession, they were very persuasive; must have been the bayonet.
Anyway, if this letter gets to Charlie Watts and the boys tell them they owe me two cameo rings and a fiver or I would settle for doing the doors again.
— John Evans, Pitt Meadows
We were 18 years old in 1981, were living in different provinces (B.
C. and Ontario) and had individually already seen the Stones during the Tattoo You Tour in Seattle and Buffalo. We were determined however, to see the Stones together.
Karen flew out from Vancouver and made her way to Belleville, Ont. where Andrea was living at the time.
On a cold November day and with no tickets and about $150 between us, we stuck our thumbs out on highway 401 and made our way to the Gananoque, Ont.
, border. The Stones were going to be playing at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse, N.Y.
, that night. We made our way down; when we finally arrived we did not anticipate that there would only be one scalper selling one ticket!
We ended up drinking in a bar close by and met up with a bunch of scalpers who were in a similar no-ticket situation as us.
They offered us a ride to Buffalo where they were going to scalp a Bills football game the next day and informed us that in two more days the Stones were going to be playing at the Pontiac Silverdome in Michigan. We decided to hitch a ride with the scalpers and arrived in Buffalo early the next morning. After a very short nap at a hotel in Buffalo, we hopped on the highway, stuck out our thumbs again and spent the day and two very generous rides getting to a hotel close to the Silverdome.
The scalpers had suggested getting to the venue in the early afternoon the day of the concert, so we would be able to get cheap scalper tickets. We took their advice and arrived at 2 p.m.
and bought our tickets for $10 each. (Sounds like a deal, but the tickets were originally $15!)
Awesome lineup: Iggy Pop, Santana and the Stones!
Unfortunately, Iggy Pop was not faring well and he got booed off stage after only a few songs. Santana was almost better than the Stones, but the Stones rocked! We were so happy to see them after such a long journey!
They put on a great show as usual and it was well worth our travels.
Following the concert we got a ride with people from Ontario across the border to Sarnia where we were badly in need of a good night’s sleep after so much excitement. The front desk woman was interested in our Stones story and asked us to tell her about our story and in exchange she had a friend that was renting a double room that would share it with us for free.
We gladly told her our experiences over juice and cookies and soon were sleeping soundly in our free accommodations.
It seemed that our heads had just hit the pillow when the phone rang, our roommate answered and passed the phone to Andrea. It was the front desk woman.
She was with a train conductor with whom she had shared our story. Front desk woman had informed him that we were on our way back to Toronto and the conductor had offered a free ride. Andrea awoke Karen to inform her of the offer and Karen just wanting to sleep said no, and Andrea with not much more energy agreed and said no thanks to front desk lady.
Front desk lady had to be persistent and we ended up dragging ourselves out of bed and getting our free train ride from Sarnia to Toronto. We even had a whole train car to ourselves for a while. We arrived in Toronto four days after leaving Belleville.
We felt very lucky that we had made it back safe and sound after traveling around three of Canada’s great lakes to see the Rolling Stones.
— Andrea Silverthorne, Sechelt, and Karen Grange-Buie, Langley
In 1989, the Rolling Stones’ Steel Wheels tour performed two shows at B.C.
Place. At the time I was working for I.A.
T.S.E.
as a climbing carpenter building the stage and dismantling it after the two shows. A good friend of mine named Wizard, a.k.
a. Denny Powers, was the lead truck driver for the whole tour and was in charge of 59 trucks. The trucks were spread between three different sites.
Some were dismantling the stage at the last show and some were assembling the stage at the next show and the rest were the show trucks at this show.
As a result of this enormous job, Wizard had extra-laminated All Access passes that he used for different drivers at different shows. He happened to have two spares for the Vancouver shows, and since I wasn’t working during the performance he loaned them to me to use as I saw fit.
I was recently divorced but still friends with my ex-wife, Eileen, and asked her if she would like to attened one of the shows. She could only go on the second night.
Wizard’s wife, Chantal, was also in town for the show and they would be able to keep each other company as Wizard and I both had to go to work before the end of the show.
On the night of the first show I had nothing to do but enjoy the show, so I asked a girl I was dating at the time, Thurza, if she would like to see the Rolling Stones. She was rather blase about the whole idea, but agreed to go if it would make me happy.
With the passes that I had we could go anywhere but the dressing rooms or on the stage.
Thurza was doing her best to seem bored with the whole show when I suggested we go backstage so she could meet my friend Wizard. As we were walking around one side of the stage behind one of Mick Jagger’s vanity ramps he happened to come running down the ramp and stop right in front of us. We were within 12 feet of him in the the super bright wash of his spotlight for about 10 to 12 seconds.
Thurza was clearly stunned and turned and said to me, “Are we supposed to be here?” The energy was incredible as 40,000 had their attention directed towards Mick and us. I’ll never forget it, and I don’t think Thurza has either!
As a teenager growing up in Liverpool during the 1960s, I really was in the right place at the right time. Every trip downtown was a search for yet another music star, from Merseyside, London and even Germany. Of course in my bag I always carried my autograph book, because one never knew who would be walking the street on any given day.
One afternoon as I was hurrying along I glanced at the crosswalk to see if any cars were coming, nothing in sight. As I began to cross who should come from the opposite direction but Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Being a huge Stones’ fan I stopped dead in my tracks, mouth agape and frantically rummaged for my autograph book.
So there we were, two famous rock musicians and an adoring schoolgirl standing in the middle of the road! Mick and Keith signed my book, didn’t say really anything, and moved on. One of my main recollections is how dirty Mick’s fingernails were — amazing what one remembers from these choice encounters !
Back in the 1960s a film was being shot in Australia about one of their historical heroes, Ned Kelly. Ned Kelly was a Robin Hood type who supported the poor folk, he was also officially an outlaw. Probably the only people who didn’t appreciate old Ned were the authorities and some of those were iffy.
Anyway, Mick Jagger was cast in the starring role of Ned. When Mick duly arrived in Oz he was wearing a wide-brimmed floppy hat, a full length frock coat with big lapels etc, Cuban-heeled high boots and, to complete his ensemble, a purse-type shoulder bag.
One of the newspapers covering Mick’s arrival ran a cartoon that had one airport person saying to another, “Someone should have told the pommie bastard that he is here to play Ned Kelly and not Grace Kelly.
”
The cartoon was a hit. Ned Kelly was hanged at Glenrowan, Victoria, in the late 1890s.
Mick?
Well, he’s doing OK, eh.
I remember it well, and every time I think of them playing this story keeps coming. I was 15, living in Montreal and it was the month of June, exams.
It was either take the math and Spanish exam or go see the Stones. Well it was 1976 and I had hair down to my butt, so did everyone else. Exams bah-humbug, the Stones oh yeah.
So naturally I did the hippy thing to do and that was to hitchhike to Toronto and see the Stones.
There we were, John and I, on the 401 hitching a ride, two long-haired hippies standing there for six hours with one joint and no matches, asking people coming onto the 401 for a light. Finally, after four rides we arrive in Toronto and down Yonge street to the Forum, my buddy buys some LSD and this is my first time on it and you can imagine the rest.
Back then they were young and running around everywhere on the stage throwing buckets of water into the crowd because of the heat. Anyone who reads this will remember the buckets of water, what a trip.
Needless to say, I failed Grade 10.
— Robert Sinyard, Burnaby
It starts with a front page article in The Province sometime in February 1972. Remember, this is 1972 and society at large was not dealing with crack, meth, grow-ops and violent rip-offs. We were benign pot smokers and brooked no evil towards anyone.
I was young and, as is typical with the young, knew everything there was to know, had no fear, was adventurous and figured life did not exist beyond 30, so git ’r’ done now! Well, I got done all right. Five years imprisonment (reduced to three on appeal of which I served two).
At the time, although living in Canada since 1956, was still an English subject and travelling on a British passport.
Near the end of my sentence the big news was the Stones, presently in tax exile in southern France, were going to be playing in Wembley Stadium in south London. Perfect!
As a British subject I was allowed a weekend unsupervised leave in order to re-acquaint myself with the real world and the timing couldn’t have been better. Unfortunately I couldn’t just stroll down to the local ticket agency and buy my tickets, so I wrote the Stones camp a letter.
All mail, inbound and outbound was heavily censored, and you were only allowed to write on prison stationery (which had a huge stamp across the top saying “HM Prison, Albany,” just in case you forgot where you were).
The Stones camp replied with two backstage passes. Nirvana, right? Not so.
As I stated, all correspondence in and out was censored, so the prison staff knew about my tickets before I did. I was called down to the Governor’s office and was told in no uncertain terms that since I was in for drugs, I was certainly not going to be allowed out to carouse with the likes of the Stones and my leave was cancelled. Major bummer.
What really put the icing on the cake though, was the fact that when I was released from prison and went to collect my personal belongings, somehow the tickets had disappeared and, unbelievably, no one had ever seen them. Thirty-five years later, I haven’t either! Gee, my boss will love this one!
— Peter White, Delta
We were 14 years old sometime in late summer or early fall of 1965, and a friend of mine and I “spent the night together” outside the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in downtown Vancouver, to get the best seats we could for the Rolling Stones. The Stones were booked to play in the most suitable facility of the day: the Agrodome. I lived three blocks from the P.
N.E. and we had a pair of bench seat tickets on the floor, third row.
The rows were made up of park benches that held about six to eight people. Needless to say, once the concert started everyone was standing on the benches and screaming and rocking and rolling along them. The benches were swaying.
In all the atmosphere, during the concert I lost my friend. I cannot tell you what songs they played, but it was extreme excitement.
My Christine and I found each other after the concert.
She had a large bump under her eye (a shiner) because a guy’s camera case (large for those days), caught her as the bench she had made it to, swayed with all the people and fell. As we left, people were taking out pieces of the broken benches as souvenirs.
Although the Rolling Stones have been here several times, and I did see them again on Nov.
1, 1989, during their Steel Wheels tour, and could hear the songs and see the band, nothing can quite top the memory of the first Rolling Stones concert in Vancouver, Dec. 1, 1965.
So, you tens of thousands, go and see and listen and enjoy the Stones this Nov.
3, 2006, I’ll hold on to my priceless memories of Mick, from the day 41 years ago when “timewas on our side.”
— Bernice Dixon, South Surrey
My first Rolling Stones concert: the summer of 1995 at Wembley in London. Thousands of fans are jam-packed into the football stadium.
It’s the Voodoo Lounge tour. Everyone dances at their seats while Mick Jagger prances around strutting his stuff. The old songs are the ones that get the crowd going — “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction,” “Brown Sugar,” “Honky Tonk Woman” and the rest.
Eight years later, in March 2003, I’m in Shanghai, China, on a tour with a group out of Vancouver. The Stones are scheduled to play in Shanghai and I spend several days trying to buy a ticket to their concert — a one-night event. I’m successful but the concert is cancelled at the last minute due to concerns relating to the SARS epidemic.
I drown my sorrows in a bar along the Bund.
August 2006: Fabulous news. The Stones are playing in Vancouver.
Here’s to a not-to-be-missed evening. “It’s only rock and roll but I love it!”
— Rosemary Webb, Richmond
“I can’t believe we actually found them.
Like what are the odds, d’ya think?”
“The odds of losing them? Or the odds of finding them?
” he nastily asked.
“Of finding them, of course!!
!”
Then, defensively, I added, “I’m sure everybody loses stuff and sometimes even important stuff; it’s the finding them that’s amazing! Anyways, it’s all turned out right in the end, eh?
”
“Hmmmmm. Whatever.”
Back then, the temperature was computed in good old Fahrenheit, and that day the thermometer read a stifling 96 degrees; hot enough for the morning announcer to effuse about the “scorcher,” as if personal congratulations were in order.
There also lurked a hint of pleasure in his description of the humidity. He’d congratulate listeners on the heat wave sweeping Quebec. “Yes folks, the humidity is very high; it’s so wet that everyone’s saying ‘Hey, it’s not the heat that gets you!
It’s the humidity’ Hahaha.” As if the distinction made it better.
It had been the kind of day when sane people sat still in one place.
If you had to walk, you’d walk only on the treed side of the street. You’d grab any chance of visiting an air-conditioned restaurant or theatre. Like a long day’s journey into night, you wouldn’t leave until dark when the pavement stopped sizzling.
The sultry heat would stay trapped inside, cooped up like a beast ready to pounce. Apartments lined Montreal’s downtown core and the student ghettos around the universities. No one had air-conditioning.
At night, the fans propped in windows circulated the stale air around. A top sheet was a formality. To survive you’d learn to not twitch a muscle; or even better, how to not breathe.
A pleasant morning was illusory, hiding the scorching reality of the day ahead. As you toweled off from your shower, you’d already broken out into fresh sweat, wondering existentially, what the point was, anyhow.
This was our first summer together.
I had moved out of my place on Rue Ste. Famille, a bachelor suite with a tiny bathroom painted, claustrophobically, indigo blue. Socially relevant posters covered the apartment’s four walls: a 9’ Bob Dylan, also indigo and another of Vladimir Lenin cautioning guests that man cannot live by bread alone.
Lastly, a poster of Mick Jagger, on tour; under some devilish influence, the Mickster had been touched up with cosmetics and coincidentally resembled me.
When the tickets for the concert had gone on sale, I waited overnight in line for the box office to open. “In line” doesn’t accurately describe that pulsating mass of long-haired, scruffy, sandaled, beaded, surging denim blue tide.
The long night grew longer when my tripped-out neighbor unneighbourly vomited onto my sleeping bag. The crowd was a bit rowdy, but in keeping with the spirit of the time, the police let it be. Within an hour of the box office opening, I had two precious tickets in my hot little hand.
But that was 3 weeks ago. And now, on the morning of the big concert, after my first Export A of the day, I reached inside my purse for the tickets. But, what was there in the lining’s folds?
Amidst the tissues, tampons, lip gloss and lint, where were those tickets? I rutted about in increasing distress. A total void, where our tickets should and MUST be!
And yet…were not! Alas, they were LOST!!
!!
I began a private search, surreptitiously, to not awaken him.
Flipping over LP’s, hoping, so to speak, to get lucky between the album covers. But Dylan, the Beatles, and Leonard Cohen were un-obliging. I rummaged repeatedly through cubbyholes, drawers and dressers.
“Where are they?! I put them in a really safe place to be sure not to lose them, but which safe place?
Where is that safe place now when I need it?!”
Repeatedly, like a mantra, I reviewed my standard “safe places”: my underwear drawer, under the incense holder, my blue velvet box with the gold tassel, holding my baby ID bracelet and other memorabilia.
Explanation time loomed ahead like a great lurking beast as two horrible realities emerged: I had lost the tickets to tonight’s Stones concert; and he would kill me.
The best defense, as always, is an offense; hence my morning greeting: “So…where did you put the tickets?!
” I asked. “What tickets? What?
Me?” Conversation ensued when my defense/offense strategy failed. We agreed that the apartment had been searched enough.
This left one alternative, the logical disjunction: if not here, then somewhere else; but where? Hmmmm. Suddenly a wispy memory floats by: my recent Blitzkrieg cleanup, where miscellaneous junk was put out.
“Put out?” he asked. “Of course, ‘put out’, put outside in the alley…in the… in the bin…in The DUMPSTER!
!!!
”
In the back alley, we broke the heat wave survival rules, wearing jeans, long sleeved shirts buttoned up tight and plastic gloves. Already the day’s heat rose from the asphalt. Sweat trickled and then poured.
We took turns inside the dumpster, the contents a stinking stew of filth, like from some nightmare. In this worst of times, we seemed to be seeking our lost souls, Faust like, from this devil. And yet, the blue bin transformed into “Our Dumpster” because it had become our possible deliverer.
“If you give forth tickets we will believe in you!!!
”
Bag after bag, with intermittent gagging fits, the outside sorter rummaged through contents, ascertaining if this was familiar garbage. At last, our own personal garbage: our own beloved steak bones, cat food tins and coffee grounds. And, at long last….
there they sat, resplendent in their glory: our lost tickets. Redemption in hand. The Hallelujah Chorus trumpeted.
Now it is evening and we are seated with the gods in the Forum; me radiant, if over warm, in a flowery dress and beads; bone-straight hair parted in the middle, lips Woodstock White. He: shades, shoulder length hair and beard, flared velvet pants, Gandhi shirt, belt buckle of burnished brass. The air lit by candles and lighters, hung heavy with marijuana, incense and patchouli oil.
The atmosphere charged with building anticipation. The crowd is apprehensive: what if the Stones don’t go on? Yesterday their van was blown up and no explanation yet.
Everybody was still jittery, a hangover from the FLQ days.
Amidst the speculation, suddenly Stevie Wonder is singing. And soon after, the Mickster himself is strutting across the stage.
Oh Mick, a quarter century from being Sir Mick. Can I be your Ruby Tuesday? People singing, swaying, smoking, sweltering, swooning.
Suddenly, a crack splits the air like a shot. Mick is down on his knees. Oh my god!
Is he shot? What’s happening?!
Then sweet relief as we realize there had been no gunshot, just some joker lighting off a firecracker, for laughs.
We slept well that night, knowing now and for always that “YOU CAN’T ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU WANT…BUT IF YOU TRY SOMETIMES YOU JUST MIGHT FIND… YOU GET WHAT YOU NEED…”
I retuned to the Forum, for another, more restrained vigil, this time waiting on the Bard himself, Bob Dylan. This time an older, wiser crowd chanted protest songs, played chess and read Kahlil Gibran.
No one vomited anywhere. This time, bringing it all back home, I put the tickets away in a really safe place.
— Rosanna Stall, North Vancouver
I grew up in the Stones era and lived in the same district.
I used to see the Stones every Wednesday night at a venue called Eel Pie Island, which is in Twickenham Middlesex. This was when Brian Jones was still with the band and the world did not know who the Stones were.
These where the days of purple hearts and French boomers — these being the choice of drugs in that era.
The audiences would consist of about 1,500 people, mostly high, who would often get on each other’s shoulders, six to eight people high, and just free fall into the audience in front of them — often resulting in broken bones.
I teach history at Kwantlen University College and was in London in 2002 for an academic conference when I got to meet former Rolling Stones bass player Bill Wyman. He was performing at the Shepherds Bush Empire with his new band, the Rhythm Kings , and dropped by the theatre’s bar after the show for a pint and a cigarette.
Bill was very interested in the fact that I came from Vancouver and told me how much he likes our city.
Bill Wyman turned 70 last month and has proven that there is life after the Stones. He has penned numerous books, opened a successful London restaurant, andtoured and recorded with his new band.
Happy Birthday, Bill!
— Bob Fuhr, Vancouver
It was spring of 1981..
...
in a small town in the Kootenay's I met and fell in love with a man that lived here on the coast. He was older than me and much more experienced with the world than I was..
..like why would i know what a ticket scalper was in a small town.
...
...
but that didnt stop us from setting out together. So on September 6th with the car loaded with our possesions we hit the road..
we were off to follow the Rolling Stones.
My first concert was in San Diego..
..Charger Stadium.
...
.my boyfriend gave me and his best friend our tickets and told us to go to the stage and when he was finish selling tickets he would meet us up front. We did make to the front.
...
..saw George Throughgood.
...
...
..J Giles band.
.and then this new band with this guy that called himself Prince..
...
...
who by the third song he was being booed off the stage. You could tell by the crowd that something big was coming ..
the Stones.
It was amazing ..
...
..over 150,000 people watching i couldnt believe i was there.
We saw the Stones there and in San Fransico...
..and in Los Angles.
We then headed do east...
..to the state of Texas where we saw them and I worked for them.
The company that handled there T shirts(winterland production) my boyfriend was able to basically get me on helping in the warehouse with the big shots organizing the shirts. He was able to get a back stage pass and he was a big photographery buff and was able to get some beautiful pics of Mick and the boys.
From Texas we drove up to Louisville Kentucky.
...
.my most favorite place on the whole tour..
.the people were extremely friendly..
..and although we didnt see the show cause he my boyfriend worked the grounds selling his tickets and was able to get more and more money for our tickets as the trip progressed.
Final stop for us was New York New York. Madison square gardens. My boyfriend had a pair of tickets.
.fairly good seats..
but extremely illegal to sell tickets. But he did sell our seats for $500.00 each and that was the end of our tour with the Stones.
Since then I married the man had our children and we have gone our seperate ways but i will never forget the Fall of 1981, My Rolling Stone Tour.
— Heather Garrison, Coquitlam
Let me begin by telling you that unlike my friends and so many other people, I’m not a huge, die-hard Rolling Stones fan. I like the band and will admit to knowing most of their songs and I would even go so far as to say that amongst the dozens of concerts I’ve seen in my lifetime, Rolling Stones concerts rank right up at the top.
However, I don’t own a single Rolling Stones record, cassette tape or CD and never in my life have I ever bought one. That’s what makes my concert experiences all the more amusing to me, and annoying to my Rolling Stones groupie friends.
My concert luck began the first time the Stones came to Edmonton in the fall of 1994 when I was living there.
The concert was the talk of the town and as would be expected, the tickets sold out in a matter of minutes. I made a half-hearted effort to acquire tickets by phone, because it was a big event, but I couldn’t get in before the sellout was announced about 12 minutes later. None of my friends acquired tickets either and the panic to get them began almost immediately.
Before the day of the concert arrived, most had purchased tickets through scalpers or connections for considerably more than face value. I kept my eyes and ears open and was still planning to attend, but I wasn’t anxious to pay the kind of inflated prices that everyone else was paying.
As it turns out, on the day of the concert, I was driving home from work around 4 p.
m., still planning to attend even though I still was ticketless, when I heard an announcement over the radio that some tickets had been released and were on sale right at that moment. I drove my car over to the stadium and much to my glee, was able to purchase two tickets at face value on the floor, dead centre, row 22.
Needless to say, it did not make my friends very happy when they learned that I had purchased the best seats from amongst all of them, and paid the least amount.
That same fall, several weeks later, I met up with some friends for a vacation in Southern California and Las Vegas. The couple I was meeting had missed the Edmonton Rolling Stones concert because they were planning to attend the Stones’ only small venue show on the Voodoo Lounge tour at the MGM Grand.
The night of the concert, after we had enjoyed dinner, I walked over to the MGM Grand with them but did not have a ticket and did not plan to attend the concert. The tickets were very expensive ($300 US, which was a lot back then), it was a tough ticket to find, and I had just seen the Stones in Edmonton a few weeks earlier. We made plans to meet up after the concert at a bar but I did tell them that if I could get a cheap, single ticket, I might just join them in the concert.
As I waited out front of the MGM Grand, any potential spare tickets being sold were available for two to three times their face value so I was resigned to the notion that I would not be attending.
As I stood there however, I noticed a small gathering of people further up the street near a back entrance to the arena at the MGM Grand. Having nothing but time on my hands, I decided to investigate.
I had a camera with me and I thought maybe this gathering was waiting for the Stones to drive up in limos for the show and the possibility of capturing a rare photo was too good to pass up. As I arrived at the crowd, I noticed that there was a common behaviour pattern — everyone was smoking. It didn’t take me long to figure out that there was no smoking allowed in the arena and this was in fact where everyone popped out for a quick smoke.
There was an unguarded doorway there where the smokers freely exited and entered the arena. With a little bit of courage and an adventurous spirit, I decided to explore what might happen if I too walked through that doorway.
Well, up a short staircase and much to my amazement and excitement, I was in the MGM Grand arena lobby — gratis!
I found my friends before the show started and they were amused at my story. That later changed however when I went back to get them, after the Stones had played a few songs, because I had found an empty row of seats near the front of the stage that were better than the seats they had purchased in advance. They were flabbergasted that my seats were better but they were also pleased that I made the effort to seek them out and share my good fortune.
One other little tidbit here — because I didn’t walk through the front door metal detector, or get frisked by security, I still had a camera with me. I might have been the only unofficial photographer in the place that night. The pictures are fuzzy (bad camera) but they made for a good prop to confirm my story when I told it later.
And you could tell it was Mick.
The third and final installment in my trilogy happened in Edmonton at the 1997 Bridges to Babylon tour stop. This time I bought two floor seats in row 38 in advance, and a friend and I arrived slightly late for the show.
The ushers guided us to our row but as we arrived, it was clear that there were no empty seats for us. The show had begun and everyone was standing and dancing but the row was so crowded already it certainly did not appear that we were going to get in there. The security personnel kept harrassing us and indicating that we had to get in our seats and we could not stand in the aisle.
I persistently told them that there were no available seats in the row and eventually they called someone in a supervisory role. This person went into the row and came back confirming that everyone had the correct tickets and yet, there were indeed no available seats in that row. There must have been a mistake made somewhere and duplicate tickets for the same row and seats were somehow produced.
She then got on her radio for a few minutes and then advised my friend and I to follow her as she was planning to lead us to some available seats. Where were those seats you ask? Why, no worse than row 7 right next to the catwalk stage.
They were unbelieveable seats that were reserved for VIPs or contest winners. We had almost a complete row to ourselves!
I have a large group of friends flying into Vancouver to attend the show, some of whom already have tickets, others who do not.
It should be a fun weekend of getting together to enjoy the world’s greatest rock band. Me? I’m planning to attend but I still do not have tickets — but you’ll excuse me if I’m not worried at all!
— Mark Kosak, Abbotsford
Way back in the mid ’60s, the Stones were my favourite band. I lived and breathed the Stones.
In 1966, a summer concert date in Winnipeg was announced and I bought a front row seat.
Imagine my dismay when my parents insisted that I share the driving with my father on a family summer vacation. I had no choice but to miss the Stones concert and to sell the ticket. I was heartbroken, and don’t think I spoke to my poor Dad for the whole vacation.
The years rolled by, and for one reason or another, I kept just missing Stones’ concerts. By the late ’70s I was living in Toronto. CHUM Radio announced a contest: Write the station and tell them why you wanted to see the Stones, and if your letter was chosen, you’d win an invitation to a private Stones concert.
So I sent in a humorous sob story about how I had been missing Stones concerts for years all over the country. Then I promptly forgot all about it.
Months later, I received a breathless telephone call from the station: My letter had won one of the coveted Stones tickets to the private concert.
Could I come on such-and-such a Friday night to the live performance? My heart sank! At the time, I was acting in a play, and I had a performance on that Friday evening.
Not to worry; there was another show the following night. Could I come then? Of course I couldn’t!
Saturday was closing night of our show! Damn! My bad luck was continuing to plague me through the decades.
Well, maybe there’s something we can do, the radio station guy said. I’ll call you back.
I fretted for days waiting for the call.
When it finally came, I could believe my ears! A special Monday evening show had been added. Could I attend it?
Yes, absolutely I could! Little did I know that I was about to attend one of the famous El Mocambo sessions at the venerable old club on Spadina.
But it was March 1977.
And we longtime fans know that there never was a Monday show, don’t we? Keith was arrested on drug charges over the weekend, and the Monday show was cancelled.
So how did I spend that Monday morning so many years ago?
On the front steps on the courthouse watching an unhappy-looking Keith Richards being escorted into the building.
Back in 1982 a group of us booked tickets to see the Stones in Seattle with a company whose motto was, “Book early — avoid disappointment!” We were all loaded on the bus before the tickets were handed out and to our amazement we were all given the worst seats in the house.
We arrived at the Kingdome and proceeded up the ramps to level fourl. When we got there our seats were in the very back. My buddies said there is no way we are sitting here, we came to see the Stones and we are going to see the Stones.
At this point during the Greg Kihn Band opening act we saw some guys leaning over the balcony. We found out that guys were lowering money down to the lower level and getting ticket stubs in return. My buddy Mark said, “Normie, give me some gum.
” We lowered a $20 bill down and up came a stub. We got five stubs that of course were ripped but we could use these for re-entry on the bottom level.
The five of us ran down to the floor and through the doors laughing the whole way.
As we went through the doors I said to my buddies, I will see you up front. I pushed myself through the crowd and right to the front of the stage. I looked around just as the Stones were coming out and my buddies were right beside me.
We all laugh about this story now and what was even funnier is the story we had to tell all the guys on the bus back to Vancouver.
— Norm Hayes, Chilliwack
I was working as an aircraft engineer in Antigua for Liat Airlines. It was around March of 1988.
One Sunday, my buddy and I spent the day watching the windsurfing races at the beach. Later in the afternoon we headed up to the well-known Shirley Heights Lookout to see the steel bands play. Then at night reggae music starts — island music at its finest!
At about 10 o’clock I was standing at the bar and heard a commotion at the door. Who was walking in but Keith Richards and his entourage! The crowd parted like the Red Sea.
Next thing I know the one and only Keith Richards was standing next to me! Without thinking I said to him, “Hey Keith, can I buy you a drink?” He said, “Sure,” so I ordered him a triple rum and coke.
Then I said to Keith, “I hear you got into some trouble up in Canada?” I was referring to his little incident up in Toronto recently. He laughed good-naturedly.
He took a sip of the drink I bought him and said, “What are you trying to do, kill me? You Canadians know how to drink!” He and his entourage moved on.
My friend and I moved outside where the music was very loud. After a while, ears ringing, we went to the back of the patio to enjoy our cocktails and the view and, lo and behold who goes walking by but Keith again! So I said, “Hey Keith, are you following me?
Or are you looking to make friends with the Canadians?” He laughed and said, “Cheers! I love you Canadians!
”
— Steve Tiernay, Vancouver
A few years ago I was in a tiny village on the Pacific coast of Mexico. It is paradise. Let’s be perfectly clear — a tiny village — no all inclusives here.
(One day) I surveyed the stunning vista of beach, ocean and palm trees for miles in either direction. And there was nobody there — nobody but me, a guy on a horse and Mick Jagger.
A woman who I later told the story to asked if I had spoken to him, and I replied, “No, I did not.
I am Canadian and we do not bother our celebrities.”
The response I received: “Well, you realize of course that Mick went back to wherever and relates the same story, only his version of it is, ‘And I looked for miles and miles in either direction down the beach, and there was nobody there, nobody but me, a guy on a horse and some snotty woman who would not talk to me.’”
— Janet Thibaudeau, Vancouver
Back in 1989 there was much hoopla about the Rolling Stones’ new album Steel Wheels.
All was apparently well in the lads’ camp, and their record-smashing mother-of-all-tours was rolling through North America. The Jagger/Richards tandem was happily working together again after having endured much-publicized, if not slightly overblown, stories about a supposed feud between them. This was being hailed as the Big Comeback, even though they’d only been idle for three years.
Vancouver was abuzz about the two sold-out shows, scheduled for B.C. Place that November.
The Vancouver Sun had a contest that year in which people could submit their best Stones stories and receive a pair of tickets.
My friend (who shall remain nameless to protect the guilty) decided to have some fun with it and write an elaborate, hugely fictitious story about his mom going into labour with him at the 1972 Rolling Stones concert in Vancouver. We had a laugh about it, as this story was so ludicrous there was no way it would ever win the contest.
Besides, we already had our row 55 tickets secured.
Lo and behold, the Sun loved the story, publicized it of course, and much to our guilty shock and surprise awarded us two tickets to the show. So we went down and sheepishly accepted the tickets, not having the guts to admit it all wasn’t true.
I mean, after all, it was a greatstory, even if there is no way on earth it ever happened, or even came close to happening.
We now had four semi-decent tickets, so we decided to trade them up through a local broker for two Row 6 tickets! We went down and had the night of our lives.
Being the Stones freak I was/am, I was basically in heaven for two-and-a-half hours.
Thank you, Sun, for helping us enjoy this momentous occasion.
— Tim Huguet, Vancouver
It was the Stones’ 1974 tour of North America.
My musician husband Neil and I were back east touring with the Minglewood band, and dragging our year-old son Jesse with us. The rest of the band had gone to Buffalo the week before to see the Stones concert, but due to the baby and finances we weren’t ableto go along. As diehard Stones fans will surely understand, we were feeling a little sorry for ourselves.
Anyway, that weekend the Stones were playing a sold-out concert at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. We happened to be staying at a Roach Motel in Cabbagetown, during a June heat wave, and since we weren’t very far from the Gardens Neil and I decided to take Jesse for a walk by there and see if we could pick up on some of the exitement outside.
The concert had already started, so we stood out back and listened.
Longing to be inside. A bunch of rowdies started talking about smashing the glass door down, so we decided it was time to split. Just then a man approached us and he held out two tickets.
He told us, in a British accent, that if we could get the baby in we were welcome to the tickets. We were stunned! I asked him why he wasn’t using them.
He said he didn’t need them as he was with the management. So we gratefully accepted them, but before he left I asked him his name. He reluctantly said, “Alan Dunn.
” Well, our mojo was working and our karma too — we got in, baby and all! Neil put Jesse on his shoulders and we took turns plugging his ears. The packed-out building and all the frenzied energy made it extremely hot in there, so Mick started throwing buckets of water on the crowd, splashing over our baby’s head.
To this day our son, who is now 33, tells everyone he was “baptised” by Mick Jagger.
A couple of years later, back in Vancouver, I came across a news item in The Province. It concerned one of Mick Jagger’s personal managers.
Apparently he and his girlfriend had just been rescued after being lost at sea in a dinghy for three days in shark-infested waters. His name was . .
. Alan Dunn!
— Jan Swanson, Halfmoon Bay
Many years ago, when I was 17, I was residing in Edmonton.
My best friend had just broken up with her boyfriend, so we were going to leave the province. Instead of heading back home to B.C.
, we decided to hitch-hike to Toronto. We started thumbin’ and got as far as Winnepeg. From there, we got a ride with a couple of guys (and their dog) who were about our age.
They had an eight-track player in their car and only one tape — the new Rolling Stones album Some Girls. We listened to that tape over and over again, all the way to Thunder Bay, Ont.
To this day I still love the album, and “Beast of Burden” is one of my very favourite songs.
I love it. Rock on Rolling Stones!
— Gale Harman, Langley
I was a teenager in the ’60s in California.
I was a bigger Beatles fan but the Stones were a close second. For my 18th birthday in 1969, my parents bought me two tickets to the Rolling Stones “comeback” tour. They had had so many drug-related problems in the previous years along with Brian Jones’ exit from the band that they hadn’t toured the States in a couple of years.
The tickets were costly, $8.50 each! The Stones had just released Let It Bleed ( which remains my favourite Stones album to this day), Mick Taylor was new to the band.
We knew this was to be an exciting show. The Oakland Coliseum was sold out in hours. But at the concert the unthinkable happened.
Through a lack of judging American audiences or a lack in judgement of talent, the Stones signed the Ike and Tina Turner Revue as their opening act. This was just before Ike and Tina’s big comeback with “Proud Mary” (though they did perform it at that show).
Tina was electric.
She absolutely knocked the socks off everyone there. Song after song the audience jumped to their feet. five or six encores.
That audience was charged. But the Stones knew backstage they had a problem. This audience needed to cool down after Tina Turner.
A short intermission started which became a long intermission. As the crowd got noisy the powers that be decided to play a record over the loudspeakers to calm the audience dowm. So what did they choose?
The just-released Abbey Road album, which most people in the audience had not heard in its entirety. The audience clapped and cheered to a recording. At the close of “Her Majesty,” after the applause died down we expected the Stones, only to get another long intermission.
Finally, at nearly 10:30, the Stones came on stage. Now don’t get me wrong. They were a great rock and roll band but after the previous sights and sounds, they were a dissappointment.
It was later said that Tina Turner taught Mick some stage moves. But seeing him imitate her two hours after the fact was almost pitiful.
The ran through the whole gamut of hits with a sprinkling of Let It Bleed.
Some of this concert ended up on the Get Your Ya Ya’s Out live album. The concert was great but I went out the next day in search of Tina Turner albums. It was shortly after this show that The Ike and Tine Turner Revue was dropped as the opening act.
A footnote to this story was that a few weeks later the Rolling Stones announced their free concert for their fans at the Altamont Raceway. As my family lived about five miles away in Livermore, Calif., a group of friends and myself camped out all night in the chilly Alameda County hills.
We did not see any of the debacle that occurred off stage, only that on the stage. It really was a terrible concert. The sound system was terrible.
The acts all arrived unannounced, most so stoned or drunk that their performances suffered terribly. Marty Balin of The Jefferson Airplane actually staggered and fell off the stage, he was so inebriated. The only group that sounded halfway good was Santana.
The Stones were obviously tired of the tour and their set was uninspired. It was not Woodstock of the West, as some tried to make it to be.
Upon arriving home my parents were glued to the television, which was already showing images of the deaths and violence at the concert.
Thankful I was safe, they asked about the concert. In my usual 18-year-old monotone, I replied “It was OK.”
— Patrick Lynch, Sardis
In 1985 a co-worker and I went to Florida for holidays.
We flew into Miami, rented a car and drove all over Florida, ending up in Key West. We decided to go to Sloppy Joe’s pub for lunch. This was Ernest Hemingway’s pub.
We got our table and looking around I see Ron Wood of the Stones at the other end of the room with a gorgeous blonde at his side. I said to Brenda, my co-worker, “Look who’s over there — Ron Wood of the Stones,” and she said, “No, that’s not him.” I knew it was because you don’t see too many people that look like he does, so I said, “I’m going to find out.
” I went down and said, “You’re the Stones’ Ronnie Wood, how are you?” He shook my hand and said, “Where are you from?” When I said near Vancouver, British Columbia, he said, “Boy, you’ve come a long way.
” I said, “We love your music, keep doing what you’re doing,” and asked if I could get a picture of the two of them. He said yes, I took a picture, said goodbye and thank you, shook his hand again and went back to tell Brenda it was him.
I have travelled many times, have met numerous people — John Ritter, Joyce Dewitt, Steve Nash,and have at least 30 photo albums with pictures of all.
What great times and memories . . .
and then I got married, ha, ha.
— Marena Dyke, White Rock
It would have taken place around 1964 or 1965 when I was at school in London. There were several Rolling Stones fans who used to hang around outside Mick Jagger’s home in the hope of catching a glimpse.
The Stones were a relatively new phenomenon in those days. To get to Mick’s house, we had to pass Ringo Starr’s home and often ran into Beatles fans. At the time, there were not very good feelings between the two groups and so that was quite a challenge in itself.
One particular day close to Christmas, my girlfriend Linda and myself were the last ones left outside Mick’s home. As luck would have it, his live-in partner Chrissie Shrimpton came strolling up the street and saw us there. She must have taken pity on us because it was so cold and we were very young, maybe 14 or 15.
She invited us into the house to warm up. Can you imagine the thrill? It was the most wonderful moment of our lives till that point!
Nothing could have been more exciting. We sat in the living room and she kindly provided us with cans of pop and one pack of Marlboro cigarettes each. Oh my goodness, we had died and gone to heaven except there was going to be more excitement for us that evening.
Chrissie entertained us for about 15 minutes and just when we thought we had better go before we outstayed our welcome, who should walk into the house but Mick himself! Oh be still my beating heart. Even now, I turn to jelly at the thought of how that moment felt to my young self.
He was wonderful to us. I’m still surprised when I think of how we would have loved him even if he had thrown us out right then and there, but he didn’t. He was painting an old chest of drawers with a Union Jack across the front.
This was at the height of the Carnaby Street pop culture and this chest was to be a gift for his mum and dad for Christmas. Every drawer was going to be filled with gifts for them. He let us help paint it and then offered to let us take one thing each from his closet.
Oh my God. My mum still has the pants I took. They are white denim with a zip on one side and a lace on the other so he could wear them either way around.
Linda took a hat. By this time, it was quite late. Mick took us both to Baker Street Station to make sure we were OK.
Can you believe that? What a star he truly is.
Thanks so much for helping me relive such an amazing day for us.
— Georgina Patko, Richmond
The year was 2002 and I was flying back from a tour in Southeast Asia with a group that I perform in and produce called ABBA Cadabra.
I had just arrived at Los Angeles Airport and after a 14-hour flight from Taiwan, I wasn’t too happy when I found out that I had to walk to the other side of the airport to gather my guitars and amp from the over-sized baggage area. As I approached the area I noticed an unassuming older gentleman with a ball cap and sunglasses leaning against the wall.
He was by himself and I found it weird that I was in one of the biggest airports in the world and there was no other person in sight. I approached him and politely asked him if he had seen any equipment come through the area and he said with a heavy English accent, “No, I haven’t seen anything.”
I then did the classic double take because right in front of me was none other than Mick Jagger!
I introduced myself. “Hey Mick, it’s great to meet you, my name is Jonas.” “It’s nice to meet you too, Jonas,” he replied as we shook hands.
I was trying to figure out what to say next and I remembered that he and I shared the same birthday. I said, “Hey Mick, as it turns out I have the same birthday as you: July 26th.” He looked at me with a big smile and said, “It’s a great day to be born, mate!
” and we both started to laugh.
Over the next few days it really hit me that I had shook hands with a man who has shaken the hands of many legendary people, like John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Elton John, Jimi Hendrix, the Queen . .
. and the list goes on.
— Jonas Falle, Vancouver
My introduction to the Rolling Stones is etched firmly in my aging boomer’s memory.
My hometown is Oxbow, Sask.
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