All Episodes

October 25, 2023 67 mins

The Stones organization is rocked to its core when terrorists bomb one of the band's equipment vans in Montreal. The STP squad are relieved to make it out of Canada alive, but they soon discover that their problems are just beginning. The flight to Boston for that night's concert is diverted to Rhode Island due to bad weather. Already late, Mick and Keith get arrested at the airport after a scuffle with a photographer. With 18,000 rowdy fans ready and waiting at the Boston Garden, a riot seems imminent — until they get a hand from a higher power. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Stone's Touring Party is a production of iHeartRadio Welcome to Boston.
It's July eighteenth, nineteen seventy two. The cities and Flames

(00:21):
the Rolling Stones were due on stage and the garden
hours ago. Those two facts aren't related, at least not yet,
but if they don't arrive soon, the eighteen thousand pissed
off Stones fans are liable to smash the venue into
firewood and stage a mass bonfire to compete with the
unrelated riot in Southeast. The only two men who can

(00:41):
prevent this, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, are currently in
jail an hour away in Rhode Island. Keith got nabbed
earlier that evening for taking a swing and a photographer
who dared to pop a flashballb in his face when
he was trying to take a nap. According to the
rules of the rock and roll road, this is a
perfectly acceptable response, but the Warwick, Rhode Island police felt differently.

(01:03):
Mick tried to back him up and got dragged along too,
along with several other members of their entourage. The comps
were taking it pretty seriously for such a ridiculous offense.
Keith couldn't help the chuckle when he was told to
remove his ties, shoes and belt at booking, as if
one of the rolling Stones would hang himself for telling

(01:24):
a pesky paparazzo where he could shove his lens cap.
Each of them not so guilty party were placed in small,
dark four by six cells and there on a hard
slat bench, while an adoring crowd calls their name. Some
fifty miles away, they sit criminals, desperadoes? Is this where

(01:46):
the road has brought them? Is this how America treats
its visiting Rock Royalty with the chain and the padlock
and the mugsheet?

Speaker 2 (01:55):
Is it.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
Unsure? What else to do? They start conversation, say bro.
One of the entourage calls to a neighboring cellmate, what
are you in for? Hey? It always worked in the movies.
They say, I killed the chick. Everyone gets quiet. She
wanted some smacks, so I gave it to her. I
didn't tell her how much to take O D eighth

(02:19):
My fault? Christ? Did you hear that?

Speaker 2 (02:22):
Mick?

Speaker 1 (02:23):
Mick, Mick? Who? Man, Jagger? You kidding me? The guy's
almost afraid to believe it. Mick Jagger ain't here? Is
he just a few doors down. Hey, Mick, say hello
to this guy. Uh yeah, Hey, how you doing? Man,
Jagger says from the shadows of his cell, Jesus, I

(02:45):
can't believe it. It is Mick Jagger. Honis to christ
Me and Mick in the same jail, say do you
think I could have your autograph? When they're sprung. Later
that night, Nick obliges prisons no place to make enemies
after all. Under arrest. As recently as an hour ago,
the newly released Mack and Keith receive a police escort

(03:07):
to Boston. They sweep into the city like a conquering army,
and the cities and ruins. Out of the right hand windows,
all they can see is an orange glow.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
Everyone thinks the kids have gotten so pissed off with
waiting that they've finally done it. They've taken a torch
to the home of the Bruins, Celtics and various ice
shows and turned it into a raging inferno. And now
it's burning like the Reichstag. A radio dj agrees and
plays a German oohbah March, He's a dark joke. Limos

(03:42):
speeding through the hot, humid city streets as a Puerto
Rican neighborhood goes up in flames with German martial music
blaring from the radio. It's too outrageous to be real.
That description comes courtesy of Robert Greenfield, the legendary rock

(04:03):
journalist who served as Rolling Stone Magazines dedicated Stones Corresponded
as a twenty something in the early seventies. After accompanying
the band on the road, he chronicled their arrest in
his groundbreaking nineteen seventy four book stp The Journey through
America with the Rolling Stones. In a sense, the bus
couldn't become at a better time, just when it seemed

(04:26):
like the band were getting a little too cozy with
the establishment. A reminder of their inherent rebel nature was
almost helpful, except for the part where a risked burning
down a major city. In addition to Greenfield and has
never before heard tate archive of the Stones and their
exile on Main Street, Raic Glory will also be joined

(04:47):
by his friend and tor mate, Gary Stromberg, a rock
pr supremo who's represented a whole jukebox of the twentieth
century's greatest artists. He was there with the Stones in
jail on the day Boston flames. My name's Jordan Runtog,
and this is the Stone's touring party. The vibes in

(05:15):
the Rolling Stones private jet are bad. Are at least
as bad as vibes in a private jet could possibly be.
A technical problem is causing some kind of important looking
liquid to leak onto the wing. A plane is taxied
up and down the runway at Montreal's Airport twice before
the brakes are slammed and everything comes to a screeching, jarring,

(05:35):
swerving halt. Some get mad, but Mick Jagger, he gets terrified.
At this stage, air travel still outranks od's as the
number one fatal rock and roll hazard, and Mick repeatedly
reminds everyone in earshot that take off is the most
dangerous part of any flight. Their entire weekend in Canada

(05:58):
is just as stressful. On Saturday, they played Toronto's Maple
Leaf Gardens, where the police came out in undue force.
The band arrived at their dressing room only to find
hundreds of yards worth of cops sitting at picnic tables
three rows deep munching chicken dinners. Jagger's displeased. What are
all those pigs doing out there? He yells the tour manager,

(06:20):
Peter Rudge, loud enough for the cops to hear. Mick,
it must be said, doesn't take kindly to cops. The
next few days would only reinforce this feeling.

Speaker 3 (06:31):
I'd be testing.

Speaker 4 (06:32):
You know, I really hate cops, you were. There's so
many cops on this too, aren't. I mean, you got
to see the cream of Emericus police force.

Speaker 3 (06:40):
I'm right, I just I can't.

Speaker 5 (06:43):
I just can't bring myself to I mean, I'm prepared
to believe there's nice people at the cops, and you
know there's nice people that are murderers too, you know,
so I like cops.

Speaker 4 (06:51):
Peter up with a lot of kids.

Speaker 5 (06:52):
You know, so I I did, you know? I mean,
And I couldn't do nothing about it, Man, I was nice,
I could do.

Speaker 1 (07:01):
Morale continued to plummet once the concert began. The heat
from the fifteen hundred watt spotlights, which kept the stage
at an unseasonably warm one hundred and forty something degrees,
finally became too much for Keith Richards, the man who
subjected himself to all manner of bodily punishment daily, became
overcome with heat exhaustion. He lumbered off stage, took three

(07:23):
steps towards the dressing room, and fainted dead away. Most
of the crew laughed, they assume as a prank, He's
kept an extra night in Toronto while the rest of
the band move on to their next port of call, Montreal.
They arrived with a sense of relief. The European style
city was comforting to the stones and their English compliment.

(07:46):
The hotel was top notch, and they spent a rare
day off lounging around in altered states of consciousness, thumbing
through the Gideon's Bibles and their nightstands, and sampling the
ribs with brown gravy from room service. Then, just after
three am it happened. Gary Stromberg gets the call from
tour manager Peter Rudge, who delivers the news in his

(08:09):
inimitable rapid fire cambridge an accent. Gary rudgo here, this
is rather important. Could you come down the hall? We've
been bombed.

Speaker 6 (08:23):
I love him calling you and saying Gary, can you
come down here? We've been bombed? Like what is Gary
going to do? Clean up the shrapnel?

Speaker 1 (08:31):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 7 (08:31):
And he would not have said it as calmly as
you just saw.

Speaker 4 (08:34):
He was yelling.

Speaker 6 (08:35):
He screamed, screaming, where are you?

Speaker 1 (08:38):
Why didn't you stop this?

Speaker 6 (08:40):
Why didn't you throw your body on that bomb? Your job,
that was Rudge's deal, was you jumped on the grenade.
If you were on this tour, your job was to protect.

Speaker 7 (08:49):
Anything that went wrong with somebody's fault. And it wasn't
that there were outside elements that were out of our control.

Speaker 6 (08:55):
And this is something somebody who was on the edge
of obsessive compulso in terms of every possible thing. But
nobody could have anticipated this.

Speaker 1 (09:06):
Persons unknown of placed dynamite underneath one of the Stone's
equipment trucks parked outside the Montreal Forum. Fortunately no one's hurt.
The driver, who usually sleeps in the rig, is off somewhere,
which saves him from a nasty surprise, if not actual death.
The damage is minimal. All it does is destroy a

(09:27):
loading ramp, blow a four x eight hole in the
bottom of the truck, disintegrate all the cones and the
speaker cabinets, and shatter rows of windows in nearby apartment buildings.
But still it's a bomb, which is very unsettling, to
say the least. Even more troubling, no one sure who
did it and why. When Mick Jagger has woken up

(09:47):
and told of the attack, one of the first things
he says is why the hell didn't they leave a note.

Speaker 7 (09:52):
I remember saying something to the effect that this was
the dumbest bomber ever because he put the bomb underneath
the ramp, underneath the truck, and we didn't understand the
motivation at all for why these guys were doing it.
Were they after the stones or were they after you
know what?

Speaker 1 (10:05):
Were they after?

Speaker 7 (10:06):
These were separatists secting.

Speaker 1 (10:08):
Most in the SDP organization assumed this was the work
of the notoriously militant French Canadian separatists, activists fighting to
liberate the French speaking province of Quebec from the British
Commonwealth and form an independent nation. But the local law
enforcement take offense when Peter Rudge dares to suggest this theory,
Oh no monsieur, he replies with classic Gallic outrage, say

(10:32):
what American draft algai? They are all over the place.
They come up here with impunity. Chaos had become so
normalized during the tour that the bombing almost didn't register
as a serious threat for basis. Bill Wyman was merely
an inconvenience. Here he is talking to Robert Greenfield back
in nineteen seventy two. Courtesy of the Northwestern University Archives.

Speaker 8 (10:58):
I was a bit surprised that they when they came
in and said the bomb went off.

Speaker 1 (11:01):
Under the track.

Speaker 3 (11:03):
Who I could think about was the guitars, all right?
And then amplifies it. It must get smashed.

Speaker 8 (11:08):
So I was thinking, wow, And then half an hour
later I sort of started thinking, you know, Bob bomb
went off in the truck, don't. I mean, you're always
open to being shot on todays, you're always aware of that.
I mean, you're so you don't think about it, but
anybody with any sense that told you to think there's
a possibility at some time or other.

Speaker 1 (11:29):
Before the end of the day, Montreal radio stations and
newspapers received more than fifty calls from would be bombers
claiming credit. One said that the truck bomb was the
first of four time to go off at intervals during
the day. The Stone show was delayed by nearly an
hour while bomb squad searched the place inside and out

(11:50):
multiple times. Though it had been gradually pushed to the
back of the stp tours, collective mind. As the trek
wore on, the danger from the Hell's Angels hadn't diminished.
The Motorcycle Gang felt that the Stones had let them
take the fall for the deadly outcome at the Altamont
concert during their last US trip in nineteen sixty nine,
and ever since it threatened retribution in the form of

(12:13):
Mick Jagger's head. Rumors flooded the underground that they planned
to kidnap the singer or worse. Needless to say, the
bombing brought these fears back to the forefront, at least
for Mick. He mentioned it constantly during the day, worried
that the Angels or at least someone planned the wage

(12:34):
and attack during the concert.

Speaker 2 (12:37):
In Montreal.

Speaker 5 (12:38):
It was it was really scary fight, yeah, you know,
because I was frightened, and I wasn't only frightened just
for myself, you know, and I was frightened for everybody,
you know. I mean, that's some motherfucker was going to
put a bomb in.

Speaker 1 (12:52):
The hole, you know, in the middle of the show,
some kids.

Speaker 5 (12:56):
With her, you know, and all that, you know, especially
in Montreal.

Speaker 2 (12:59):
That's why I thought it was going to happen.

Speaker 5 (13:00):
When I was really scared that everyone but the audience
is going to get you know, as well as ass.

Speaker 1 (13:06):
Keith Richards took it all a lot less personally than
his bandmate Meet.

Speaker 9 (13:10):
Was nervous about Montreal because of the dynamiting.

Speaker 2 (13:13):
Of the track.

Speaker 9 (13:14):
But if you were an impressed, yeah, what's the fucking trap?
When they dynamited the trap the other thing, I thought,
as well, they've done their bit.

Speaker 2 (13:24):
You know.

Speaker 10 (13:25):
Let's say, you know, you didn't think they might know,
I mean obviously, I mean I just figured that, right,
you know, they think, right, the rolling Stones are coming,
let's make something out.

Speaker 9 (13:35):
Le's get out of bit of publicity out of it,
you know, you know, And they go through all the
various things they can do and eventually decided to dynamite
one of our tracks. Might it's parked in the dead
of night, you know, that's.

Speaker 2 (13:46):
All they can do.

Speaker 9 (13:47):
They're not going to be able to manage to come
in and blow the fucking stage up.

Speaker 1 (13:51):
Keith ended up being right. The show itself goes off
mostly peacefully, but the audience doesn't make it easy. The
band are in the middle of all down the line
when suddenly Nick, here is a heart stopping pop could
be a firecracker, but this doesn't sound like any firecracker
he's ever heard. He keeps singing until pop. Another nick

(14:15):
drops to one knee and he plays it off like
he's dancing. Then another pop, exactly the same interval as
if someone were aiming and firing.

Speaker 7 (14:25):
There was bomb threats and it was a very tense concert.
In the course of that show. There was some kind
of explosive It was probably a firecracker that went off.
But I never saw Jagger react so suddenly and in
such a frightening way as he did when he heard
that thing, because he was very well aware of the threats.
He felt like there was a thread of him being

(14:47):
assassinated in that show, and this firecracker went off, he
just reacted like it's so startled and frightened.

Speaker 1 (14:56):
The pop stop and he keeps going until he faces
a new paranoid come to life, a large forty ounce
glass bottle flying straight towards him. He jackknives out of
the way, but it grazes his leg. He never stops singing.
It's clear he's pissed. His truck has been bombed. People
are mimicking gunshots with firecrackers, and now they're throwing bottles

(15:17):
at him. He gestures to Keith to end the song.
The rest of the set is abbreviated and the house
lights are turned on prematurely to help spot threats. All
he wants to do is finish the show and leave.
Exiting the venue proved its own unique challenge. Some three

(15:42):
thousand ticketless young people loved rocks, bottles and bricks at
the building and police, and set fire to a TV
news truck. In all, the Montreal show wound up being
a sweaty mess. A reporter for the Canadian magazine Weekend
caught making his dressing room looking tired and washed out.

(16:04):
Not good Man Mick said the show wasn't good. Everyone
was eager to put this SDP chapter behind them, which
is why it made a twisted sort of Karmack's sense
that their jet would be stuck at Montreal Airport, unable
to take off. The air conditioning doesn't work while the
plane's on the ground, so everything continues to be a

(16:25):
sweaty mess. They passed the time by playing a ragged
game of football on the tarmac, which proves difficult s andceno.
One can agree on whether or not they're playing the
American or European version. The ladies of the SDP crew
form an ad hoc cheer squad. They commandeer the plane's
emergency bullhorn to amplify their chance of Richard's Richards, He's

(16:47):
our man. If he can't do it, Jagger can until
airport security demands that everyone reboard their aircraft and stay there.
It takes two more hours for the plane to make
it into the sky for Boston. It looks like the
show is going to be late tonight. Halfway through the flight,

(17:09):
the pilot gets word that Boston's Logan Airport is fogged in,
so instead he steers the plane towards Theodore Francis Green
Airport in Warwick, Rhode Island. There, the travials of Canada
will look like a tea party. The STP crew don't
know it, but it was all about to get so
much worse. The Rolling Stones plane is just touched down

(17:45):
in Warwick, Rhode Island. They were due on stage in
Boston half an hour ago. It doesn't take a season's
road warrior like the Stones Bill Wyman to know that
this is less than ideals.

Speaker 9 (17:57):
We came in there.

Speaker 8 (18:00):
And they ever went wrong, and we went completely wrong,
as is always the case, and we had to wait
an hour, and we're sitting around waiting, and we're not
kicking in fire engines or smashing windows. We're sitting there
and we're chatting with customs guys and whatever. I'm walking about,
perfectly happy.

Speaker 1 (18:16):
Tour manager Peter Rudge is at a loss for all
his meticulous planning. He hasn't devised a procedure for landing
in places you weren't supposed to land in. Half the
people on the plane don't even know they're not in Massachusetts.
They've gotten so used to rolling off the plane and
into limos that they just assume it's going to happen again.
It isn't unless they can round up a bus company

(18:38):
and that'll take them some fifty miles to Boston. Having
come from Canada, the inflated entourage must also pass through
immigration services. It's time they truly can't afford to spend there.
They stand the Stone's touring party peaceibly spacing out on
the airport runway. Then suddenly they're chaotic, rev interrupted by

(19:01):
a man with a camera strolling across the pavement. A
snake has just entered their stp garden. His name is
Andy Dickerman, a thirty year old was midway through his
three to eleven shift at the Providence Journal when he
got the call that the Stones were landing in Green Airport.
This excites Andy Dickerman. He's a longtime Stones fan, in fact,

(19:23):
a poster of the band holds a place of honor
in his dining room. He makes for his car and
heads to the airport, where he's greeted by the not
inconspicuous site of an Electra two prop jet, the giant
tongue painted on the side. Thirty five millimeter camera in hand,
he marches over. Gary Stromberg spots him immediately as the

(19:44):
Stones press officer. He plays his position and leaps to
their defense.

Speaker 7 (19:51):
Everybody was tired and kind of foul moods, and part
of my job was to manage the press. And I
confronted him and I told him that he wasn't he
couldn't do this, and he said he had every right
to do it. And he pushed me aside and started
shaking photographs, and Leroy, the security guy, went up to him, said,
you know you can't do this. Man started defending me, but.

Speaker 6 (20:12):
I mean, Dykman was an unlikely he wasn't that aggressive.
He wasn't paparazzi. He was in the wrong place at the.

Speaker 7 (20:19):
Wrong No, he was aggressive. He was very belligerent. Okay,
I have the right to be to do this. You
can't deny me. And Leroy was trying to be very
civil with him, as Leroy was with everybody at first.
I mean, he was just very quiet, you can't do this,
and he was very menacing.

Speaker 1 (20:32):
Drummer Charlie Watts's assessment was even less generous.

Speaker 11 (20:36):
But he was a count for doing everything along the line.

Speaker 2 (20:39):
He was a cake for it.

Speaker 11 (20:40):
He arrives of the place, takes photo coffee, goes days
back beyond the factor. Go man, don't talk about we're
trying to get to the go gig man. Right, there
were thirty two thousand people and.

Speaker 2 (20:53):
We're two hours late.

Speaker 11 (20:54):
We don't want him around, right, that's it forget you
go away man, because we've done it. You've done the phoes,
you told no, no, that's it then, which is always
what happens.

Speaker 2 (21:03):
He becomes a pointed principle.

Speaker 4 (21:05):
This little kind is still in here.

Speaker 11 (21:07):
He doesn't want photo, wants an incident with photos, and
got what he wanted.

Speaker 4 (21:12):
He came for there the.

Speaker 11 (21:14):
Mini Gary went over and said where should presscard?

Speaker 9 (21:18):
Who to work for?

Speaker 11 (21:19):
It was over because we knew what he was doing.
He's like, have you ever been to grown proper us?
That's what he wants. Yeah, anything you know. I mean
to get the camera brokenst a picture and a bit
of bread and that's that situation.

Speaker 1 (21:35):
Robert Greenfield spoke to the soft spoken photographer in nineteen
seventy two to get his side of the story. Here
he is courtesy of our friends at the Northwestern University Archives.

Speaker 4 (21:47):
While going a quote in his story to get especially.

Speaker 2 (21:55):
Call.

Speaker 4 (21:55):
He couldn't take pictures or shouldn't be doing it, explained,
And then I couldn't take pictures them It was from
the property right and I was permitted to take pictures by.

Speaker 12 (22:07):
Law or that.

Speaker 4 (22:08):
They tried to stop me at various whens and they
started threatening me. Also visious threat by by a lot
of people concerned. Just stand back a moment and think,
in these circumstances, why are their rights?

Speaker 8 (22:22):
What are mine?

Speaker 4 (22:23):
And then if if I have the rights would have
hurt them very much. But everybody spoke to said that
you were really away out that your head rights. You
said weren't going to be pushed around that you you know,
if you knew some law. Also, people that are an
invest shot right they But obviously you you you know,
you felt that you had the right to take pictures.

Speaker 1 (22:43):
Those close to the stones can sense a confrontation coming.
Someone wants something they're not prepared to give, and sooner
or later someone will have a guitar or a bottle
swung at his head, or his camera grabbed and thrown
out a window. Members of the entourage, including guitarist m Taylor,
tried to appeal to the pesky photographer's basic sense of humanity. Hey,

(23:05):
it had been a tough day. They were stressed, they
were busy, and they were on a time crunch. Maybe
not now.

Speaker 13 (23:13):
He had to bear in mind that we got up
very very early that morning.

Speaker 3 (23:16):
We missed the plane. We were extremely tired, you know,
tempers were very afraid. We tried to prevent him.

Speaker 13 (23:24):
Several times from bothering us because you know, we were
so tired, and all we were concerned about was getting
our baggage into the people's bus and driving up to
Boston because we were already an hour late. He was
there for an hour anyway, taking photographs, and he still
refused to leave.

Speaker 1 (23:42):
In fact, Dickerman doubled down by dragging over a nearby
policeman to enforce the freedom of the press. Why they're
on public property, and they're public figures. There's no reason
he shouldn't be allowed to take some pictures. The cops,
who don't appear to be stones fans, agree with him
and from the band that their hands are tied. There's
nothing they can do to stop them from taking photos.

(24:05):
All right, fine, they say, take them and leave. How
many shots do you want? Dickerman refuses to give an
inch to these people. I don't know how many I need,
he says. I want to stay here and take as
many as I have to.

Speaker 4 (24:18):
I did explain to him, I believe that I needed
to get one or two decent pictures, and I had
shot many pictures up till then without one good picture,
and with one or two good pictures, I would have done.
And I had work to do that much stay around.
I don't get the thrill of being here important people

(24:39):
or other people, and just having so often in my job,
it doesn't mean very much to me. They're just people,
and actually off when I'm covering stently. When I'm working,
I tend to be clase, just to for theomn anybody
who is.

Speaker 1 (24:55):
Important sensing that this man is beyond all reason. The
stones and age and an antagonistic game of hide and
seek on the tarmac, The band members do everything they
can the foil the photographer by hiding their faces or
ducking behind other members of the crew. At one point,
Mick creeps up behind him and sticks his tongue out,

(25:15):
but he's gone before Dickerman can raise his camera. Gary
Stromberg and the SDP security team swarmed the guy like
a collapsing zone defense on a basketball court. To the
even keeled Bill Wyman, it's all become a little farcical.

Speaker 3 (25:30):
The police said, you can't stop him taking pictures, So
we said, all right, let him take his pictures.

Speaker 8 (25:37):
And we just all turned our backs every time he
came near us, and stand.

Speaker 9 (25:41):
More and Lee Ry and a.

Speaker 3 (25:42):
Few other people just stood in front of him wherever
he went.

Speaker 8 (25:46):
They stood in front of him, and he was still
trying to flash off shots between their.

Speaker 3 (25:49):
Legs and round.

Speaker 8 (25:51):
You know, he'd run to the right and take a
quick flash at the back of mixed head and things
like that, and This went on and on for twenty minutes.

Speaker 3 (25:58):
I mean, this wasn't one incident. This on and on
and on.

Speaker 8 (26:01):
He started getting very impatient, called the cops, and the
cops started to remove the people away from him, saying
that you cannot stop him, so how people had to
move away. Then he started coming outing, but we were
still turning on the heads, which they can't step for
you doing.

Speaker 3 (26:13):
Then he saw Keith sitting over by a fire engine
right way away.

Speaker 8 (26:17):
I mean he was forty yards away, sitting on the
fire engine sit you know, quite tired and on his
own over.

Speaker 3 (26:22):
He went straight up to Keith and flashed this camera
in his face.

Speaker 1 (26:28):
The photographer has poked the bear. Keith was reclining calmly
on the bumper of a fire truck, taking in some
chemically assisted rest before the gig. Needless to say, he
didn't take kindly to a flashbulb exploding a foot in
front of his face.

Speaker 10 (26:45):
Suddenly, this was so forget approaching me after he had
already been sort of piss off for you because doing
one of these pictures taking particularly up by him at
that particular moment, and his flash shrink and end that
scarf that I was always wearing, and I had a

(27:05):
bag in my other and there was.

Speaker 2 (27:07):
A belt, home had a couple of other things. But
I mean it wasn't just the belt, you know.

Speaker 10 (27:14):
It wasn't I swung everything. I just had everything at
when I just went as I had my back to him,
I had no idea exactly how close he was. And
I mean, really it was just a gesture for which
I was promptly arrested.

Speaker 1 (27:28):
The photographer made a lot of noise the Keith Richards
had assaulted him and possibly broken his camera with his belt,
but Bill Wyman strenuously denied it when speaking to Robert
Greenfield shortly after the fact.

Speaker 3 (27:41):
He took his belt off and he swung it around
his legs.

Speaker 8 (27:44):
It went around his legs, and he didn't do it
back on end first or anything. He just swung it
around his legs and probably atted a few curses. I
was too far away and said, well, don't you you
know or whatever.

Speaker 1 (27:58):
Charlie Watts deny the charge.

Speaker 11 (28:01):
He didn't get in if he didn't know, he just
called him. If he'd got it, he wouldn't have got
up and we'd have taken him out, do you know
what I mean? And put him on his car own
and it's not been very violent, and I don't think
he'll need to be.

Speaker 1 (28:18):
But he was just that's what he wanted, whatever the case.
The nearby policeman have had enough of this nonsense. That's it,
the disgusted sergeant says, put that man under arrest. Two
cops bend Keith's arms behind his back, slap on a
pair of cuffs, and frog march him towards a police
fan parked in front of the airport. In an instant

(28:44):
it becomes clear to one and all that this is
no longer a game. Mick follows in hot pursuit, but
his diplomatic skills have deserted him in this crucial moment.
All that remained was his blind hatred of cops.

Speaker 5 (28:59):
Oh you know, be mad because they weren't big cops.
If they hadn't had no guns enough and.

Speaker 4 (29:04):
I would have just had really had a guy.

Speaker 5 (29:06):
Merod tried to stop me because he felt they was going.

Speaker 4 (29:08):
To club me. I think they felt it well.

Speaker 7 (29:10):
They would have it.

Speaker 1 (29:15):
Keith, in a rare position, is the sensible one of
the two. Here's the commotion from inside the police fan.

Speaker 3 (29:22):
I hear him.

Speaker 10 (29:23):
Mick suddenly raising his voice outside saying you study, you know,
don't you know what you're doing there and you're making
things Really you're.

Speaker 2 (29:33):
Is screwing things up. You know you're supposed to help,
you know, not.

Speaker 10 (29:37):
Right under arrest and suddenly micked beside me.

Speaker 2 (29:41):
In the paddy rag and room.

Speaker 5 (29:45):
I tried to say the copy that it was very
silly that you know they were going to rest you
know that they they should really not rest him.

Speaker 3 (29:52):
They want to charge him, they should charge him, and
they shouldn't have rest.

Speaker 5 (29:54):
And physic him because it was only going to make
a big hats off. I mean, they wouldn't listen, so
then they just jumped from me.

Speaker 1 (30:10):
All hell breaks loose when Jagger gets arrested. Gary Stromberg
and tour manager Peter Rudge are yelling and gesticulating. Tour
documentarian Robert Frank is filming and his crew is running
around with Mike's getting sound rolling Stones Records. Chief Marshall
Chess marches up to the cops and bellows, you stupid assholes.

(30:31):
This seemed like an invitation to the boys in Blue,
and they oblige him with a pair of cuffs. They
also scoop up Stan Moore part of the Stone's security team.
The arrests seem almost random.

Speaker 10 (30:44):
The rest of the Stones all starting, but they're talking,
you know, loud and over mad, you know, trying to
reason with the cat as well at that time.

Speaker 7 (30:52):
You know, are you saying anything?

Speaker 10 (30:54):
Are you saying a thing? I've got a cuff, so
there's no point in me saying cock when you know,
right anybody opened their mouth was under arrest.

Speaker 2 (31:02):
Doesn't all of us to.

Speaker 10 (31:03):
You know, it was just didn't matter what they said
out or anything, it was just under a rest.

Speaker 1 (31:10):
STP crew are getting collared left and right. Suddenly it
becomes almost a badge of honor to get arrested. Sax
player Bobby Keys, Keith's frequent co conspirator on the road,
actively tries to get himself hauled away. Hey, there's an
authentic jail house rock scene going down with his buddies,
and he's determined to be a part of it. You

(31:32):
all better take me and now, he tells the cop,
because as soon as you leave, I'm a bust that
little guy round the mouth. So save yourself a trip
and take me now. To Bobby's immense anger, they ignore him.
They're too focused on Robert Frank, the man with the
camera best to take him into just to cover themselves

(31:52):
and then pound that camera as evidence.

Speaker 10 (31:55):
Then just as they were about to leave, you suddenly
realized that they would be able to to this whole affair,
you know, because they both jumped and Robert fring him
and they were unnecessarily rough with Robert, you know, and
they started pushing him up the steps to the paddy
wagon and he fell over, and they called him up
and pushed him.

Speaker 2 (32:13):
In again, you know, and he fell over again.

Speaker 10 (32:15):
It was their technique, you know, so they could say
that you built, you know, makeing a scuffle, causing a disturbance.

Speaker 1 (32:23):
The remaining Stones in their entourage watched the bewilderments the
police fan pulls away from the airport. It was a
nightmare worse than anything the stp Tax Squad has ever
dreamed of. The band were do on stage in Boston
an hour ago. Now they were fifty miles away with
no transport, and their twin front men had just been

(32:45):
hauled off to jail bomber stage managers at the Boston Gardener,
facing the quintessential show business crisis, a packed house and
no act. Mick Jagger Keith Richards and assorted members of

(33:09):
the Stones entourage have just been booked at a police
station an hour away in Warwick, Rhode Island. Charges range
from assault, obstructing a police officer and assaulting a police
officer a felony. This might take a while. According to Keith,
there were genuine concerns that for only the second time

(33:29):
in their career they'd miss the gig.

Speaker 10 (33:32):
When we first got it, it was very, very casual
and unshot. He's sort of saying, well, you know, you
won't get out tonight. Nobody's ever got out of this
joke at after eight o'clock in the evening, you know,
because Judge Stows are always you know, we're always doing
this on Friday or whatever night.

Speaker 2 (33:48):
It was new and so we were sort of thinking
we maybe we'll get.

Speaker 10 (33:52):
Out, you know, And that was a real drag, you know,
I mean, really we were more interested in trying to
get that across studies clubs in his tone, you know,
and I been trying to tell them, you know, it's
seventeen thousand evil waivers.

Speaker 1 (34:06):
Chipmunk, the Stone stage manager, is desperately stalling for time.
He begs Stevie Wonder the opening act to go back
out there for an extended encore. He plays a little
bit more, but it's obvious that the crowd isn't there
to see him, so he leaves. Chip is forced to

(34:26):
bluffet ladies and gentlemen, let's hear it for Stevie Wonder,
that's all he's got. He does three or four of these,
aware that now he has no one to bring on.
For the first time in nearly two months, there are
no five rolling stones in the dressing room warming up.
But Chip's confident. After all, as the MC at Woodstock,

(34:49):
he led four hundred thousand people through rainstorms and bad
acid trips. Surely eighteen thousand will be a piece of cake.
I'm sure what else to do? He does what many
great have done in times of trouble. He lies, Please
be advised. He tells the crowd that we've got an
equipment failure that'll take at least thirty minutes of work.

(35:09):
We apologize for the inconvenience. It's received about as well
as he could hope. Lots of booze and off color
suggestions for now eighteen thousand expected rock fans toss frisbees
back and forth, suck on joints, read comic books, drink wine,
drop reds, and eat candy. At the moment, they're merely bored,

(35:32):
but this will soon curdle into annoyance, which then begets
rage and ultimately violence. This is something that Boston Mayor
Kevin White is desperate to avoid. It hasn't been a
good week for the forty one year old politician. Days earlier,
Kevin waited by his phone for presidential candidate George McGovern

(35:52):
to call and confirm his status as his vice presidential
running mate. When the call came, Kevin learned he didn't
get the gig. Damn politics. Three days later, in Boston's
South End, cops bust up a Puerto Rican Day celebration
after the revelry gets a little too rowdy. The arrests
are handled in short poorly, and the crowd takes to

(36:15):
the streets. The tactical police force is called in, resulting
in thirty five arrests, twenty seven injuries, and one flaming
police car. Rumors spread like well wildfire throughout the South
End's Puerto Rican community, stories of cops hurling racial slurs
at kids or beating old men with soda bottles until

(36:36):
their faces were masks of blood. It's the classic vicious
cycle of urban riots. The Knight's Flames are fans by
rumors from earlier in the day. When the sun goes down,
the crowd gathers again, they firebomb and loop two stores,
and when fire engines roll up to fight the blaze,

(36:57):
they fling rocks and bottles at the firemen, mayor white heads.
The southea himself strolling the neighborhood in his shirt sleeves
and hoping in vain that he can help quell the
violence personally by hearing people out. But it's no use.

(37:20):
Advisors inform them that there's a new outbreak of trouble
down on Brookline in Washington Streets, and oh yeah, the
Rolling Stones are under arrest and Rhode Island and eighteen
thousand surly kids are getting antsy at the garden. He
truly doesn't need this right now, sitting in their jail
cell and the next state over. The Stones also feel

(37:41):
unjustly attacked and persecuted, albeit in a very different way
and on a completely different scale than the Puerto Rican
inhabitants of South Boston. From the moment they emerged as
public figures, in the mid sixties, the Stones were tagged
as punks. Certainly some of this was their own doing,
a dude like Keith Richards would have it no other way,

(38:03):
but much of it was the press, desperate to find
someone to wear the black hat against England's favorite songs,
the Beatles, and some of it also came down the
good old fashioned prejudice. The hair alone instantly singled them
out as undesirables. Remember this was a time when long
walks on men appeared to signal the total breakdown of

(38:25):
law and order and possibly the end of Western civilization
as we know it. It was enough to get you
spat on or even worse. The Beatles, pudding Bass and
hairdos were amusing a little more than a novelty, really,
but the Stones, even shaggier mobs were grotesque. A young
David Bowie would vividly remember going to see one early

(38:46):
Stones gig, which was momentarily derailed by a heckler. Hey you,
the disgruntled man yelled at Mick, why don't you get
your hair cut? Mix stared him down, and oh so
coolly replied, well look like you. As Bill Wyman recalled,
the battle lines were drawn from the earliest days of
their career.

Speaker 8 (39:08):
Yeah, there were always everybody tried to get us. The
papers always tried to get us every country. As I
said it, when we first went anywhere, that was the scene.
We were all free because we were all more uns
and really needed teaching a lesson. That was the general
idea from every source, you know, every policeman, every hotel manager,
because they bunch everybody together, you know, And it's always happens.

(39:30):
It happens with homosexual always happens with everything. They're all
bunched together. No, there's no special reasons on no individuality
at all.

Speaker 2 (39:38):
You're black.

Speaker 3 (39:38):
You're black. There's no good ones, they're all bad.

Speaker 9 (39:42):
It's still there all the time.

Speaker 8 (39:44):
You're still aware of it. That two people over on
that table, they were whispering about you, saying, look at
that idiot, when they have never said a word to you.

Speaker 1 (40:00):
Bill's hair indirectly caused one of the band's earliest legal hassles.
It occurred on March eighteenth, nineteen sixty five, when the
Stones were driving home after a London concert. Nature was
calling and Bill insisted they stop at a gas station.
The attendant, not liking the cut of Bill's jib, or,
more likely the cut of his hair. Claimed there was

(40:22):
no bathroom. Bill found this hard to believe. The building
was huge, there was really no bathroom. He returned with
his bandmates for backup and politely restated his request. This
time the attendant screamed at them to leave. By this
point Bill was bursting, so he relieved himself on the
side of the building. His fellow Stones joined him in

(40:44):
solidarity amid chance of we'll piss anywhere man, harmless hijinks really,
but hostilities were so high that the station attendant actually
called the police and the Stones were found guilty of
that most British of offenses, insulting the Suddenly the Stones
had a bonafide criminal record and the illegal peeing was

(41:06):
splashed metaphorically speaking, all across the British tabloids. From then on,
the press and the authorities were resolutely against them, and
in fact conspiring against them. It came to a head
on February twelfth, nineteen sixty seven, when a squad of

(41:26):
nineteen British police raided Keith Richard's country home, Redlands, where
a small gathering was taking place. It's believe the cops
were tipped off by the News of the World, a tabloid.
Mick was suing for libel at the time for printing
stories claiming that he hosted wild drug parties. Clearly the
idea was to catch him in the act at a

(41:47):
wild drug party. Though it was a party that day
at Redlands and there were drugs, it wasn't especially wild.
The group were lounging around the living room when the
police arrived, coming down from a day long hour acid trip.
Keith would remember it as a lovely day and a
really unpleasant evening. He was still a little high when

(42:07):
the knock came. The failings of cops looked like a
group of dwarves to him. They turned the place upside
down looking for illicit substances, confiscating incense and little bars
of hotel. So the contraband they came up with was
fairly minimal. Some old marijuana roaches, a handful of amphetamine
pills legally obtained in Italy, and some heroin found in

(42:29):
the pocket of a non Stone, but the legal repercussions
were big. The press predictably had a field day. The
drug score was a little underwhelming, so they played up
the fact that Mick's then girlfriend Mary Anne Faithful had
just taken a bath and was found by cops wrapped
in a fur rug as a towel. For some reason,

(42:52):
this morphed into a truly obscene story, now part of
rock Myth, involving a candy bar used as a sex toy.
Even in the midst of national humiliation and the full
weight of the English justice system against them, the Stones
remained unrepentant.

Speaker 6 (43:12):
Keith and Mick get busted at Redlands. They're all on
acid with Mary and Faithful, And no, there was no
mars bar soaked with LSD in a place I will
not mention having to do with Marianne, a sweet, lovely
girl that she was, you know. So it's and then
the Stones, you know, when they're on trial, are so defiant,

(43:34):
you know. When he's being cross examined by the Queen's Council,
Keith says, we are not old men. We do not
concern ourselves with petty morrils. Oh my god, you said
this in London and old Bailey like dude, they didn't
take it, you know. And then the portrait Gary and
I are both painting today is really it's a rebel band,

(43:54):
outlaw punk up your unil and they didn't fake it.
Mick came to the attitude. I don't know based on
his background. I get it with Keith didn't know his father.
Father disappeared, you know, but he grew up okay, you know,
he was an art college. He wasn't sleeping rough on
the streets. They were pissed off, and that attitude characterizes

(44:19):
the music. You know, hey, you get off of my cloud.
And satisfaction the ultimate anthem of we're not happy, we
don't know why we don't like you. I'm talking about
another generation. That's what satisfaction is about. It's like, why
don't I feel good about what I have? You know,
it's the ultimate teenage. Really still, it's aged, it's weathered,
but the point is it hasn't vanished. By seventy two,

(44:43):
they are the sum total of all their experience. Again,
you can't look at seventy two without looking at sixty five,
sixty six, what came before and what came after. This
is all circular and all of one piece. So on
that Redlands bus they got hit with cent six months
or a year in jail for Keith and Mick right,

(45:03):
and they took Keith to Wormwood scrubs, which is no joke,
my friend.

Speaker 1 (45:08):
Okay.

Speaker 6 (45:09):
One of my other favorite great quotes is Keith starts screaming,
I got bail, you bastards, let me out.

Speaker 1 (45:18):
Okay.

Speaker 6 (45:19):
So no jail could hold Keith Richards basically.

Speaker 1 (45:24):
And the point is it.

Speaker 6 (45:26):
Wasn't just bravado, it wasn't just on stage stuff. They
were punished, they were on trial, they were sent to prison,
they defied the law in court and after it didn't
serve anything. They didn't even serve a day. It's just
interesting to me, you know what I mean that they
put the money where their mouth was and they had

(45:47):
real life experience that not that many bands, not that
everybody should have this, but if you play this game,
you're going to pay the price, and they did.

Speaker 1 (46:00):
Mick and Keith went free on appeal for the nineteen
sixty seven Redlands bust, but not before the British establishment
made a very public example of them. In the end,
it meant that the whole band, and especially Keith would
be constantly scrutinized by the police and press under the microscope.
Was no way for Keith Richards a rebel, and it

(46:22):
must be said, an addict to live Consequently, he was
arrested frequently, often for victimless crimes. As he'd later say,
the cops turned me into a criminal.

Speaker 6 (46:34):
It's a band with a legal record here, you know,
bad bust. You got busted in Chelsea, for this is
the great one where the cops broke in the constable
and Keith had these spoons that were crusted with heroin
outside of the bed, and it was a cold cup
of coffee, and he started stirring the coffee to get
the heroin off the spoon. And the detective said, don't

(46:55):
bother Keith. We've already got more than enough to us
With firearms. In England, he had a rifle and a sword.

Speaker 1 (47:05):
These repeated arrests piled up, compounding one another. Before long,
his reputation began to precede him, making his right to
a fair trial and fair treatment all but impossible. It
also had the unfortunate effect of rubbing off on the
rest of the band.

Speaker 10 (47:22):
It is practically impossible for the Rolling Stones to be
judged through the usual channels of.

Speaker 2 (47:31):
Justice or whatever you want to call it. I mean, really,
the press and to a certain extent, the public could have.

Speaker 10 (47:39):
Made the Rolling Stones outside of the law, not above it.

Speaker 2 (47:42):
But outside of it.

Speaker 10 (47:44):
For you to be a special thing in somebody's head,
you know, it makes it impossible for.

Speaker 2 (47:49):
You to really be treating fairly. You know.

Speaker 10 (47:52):
Of course, especially when they started issuing warrants and the
press are really I've got to take a fair low
of that.

Speaker 2 (48:00):
You know, for their way of handling things and their greed.

Speaker 1 (48:06):
As far as Bill Wyman was concerned, the Rhode Island
the rest was just another example of the reputation preceding them.
Everyone always assumed they must be in the wrong. After all,
they are those nasty rolling stones.

Speaker 3 (48:21):
That is a typical example of that.

Speaker 8 (48:23):
I mean, sometimes we're so innocent, it's believed I'm not
for no bullshit, mem it's so innocent.

Speaker 3 (48:28):
We've done nothing.

Speaker 8 (48:30):
We know what happens in these situations, and we purposely
keep aside. We don't cause problems, you know, We're not
those kind of people. And they know what anybody believes
some people in the music business are they supposed to
go out to cause problems and to get that's a
big ride. Absolutely, it always happens to us. We always

(48:52):
get involved in these things, not through our own choosing.

Speaker 1 (48:59):
Make Keith and the rest of the STP criminals were
booked at Warwick Police Station, where they sat for their
mugshots and pressed three sets of prints local, state and federal.

Speaker 2 (49:10):
I mean then the cups and station. I said, but
you know, there's nothing to do with me.

Speaker 9 (49:15):
I just got a book and they took our shoes
off and their deltop and pause of individual cells.

Speaker 4 (49:25):
There's still those guys across the road, right who I mean,
there's something that was something and murted his wife or
something on these guys.

Speaker 9 (49:32):
Yeah, but you can't actually see him. You can only
hear you know, who the fuck you?

Speaker 2 (49:37):
What they got you for?

Speaker 9 (49:39):
Really upset he was at the time. Yeah, but I
mean you quickly regained I mean in the jailor we
haven't managed to call his name. I couldn't find space
in my colored it really.

Speaker 1 (50:04):
On the other side of the bars, Stone's tour manager
Peter Rudge is in his element. He secretly loves when
things go wrong. This is when he comes alive. It's
battlefield conditions. He's working three phones, arranging lawyers to free
the Stones, relaying information to Chipmunk at the garden, and
combing through the yellow pages to book a rickety old

(50:26):
school bus to schlept the non jail birds up to Boston.
Sax player Bobby Keys won't go. He's still trying to
get arrested. Hey, you pigs, I'm still waiting, Bobby, Rudge says,
the bus, Please, the bus. I ain't going nowhere? Are
that my buddies. After about five minutes of arguing, cajoling,

(50:46):
and pleading, Rudge manages to pack Keys on the bus,
which rolls out for Boston. Then in the police station,
the phone rings. Is there a mister Peter Rudge here,
someone calls out. Rudge warily raises his hand. Uh, mister Rudge,
it's the Mayor of Boston, sir, A reverend. Silence spreads

(51:06):
throughout the station. As Rudge goes to the phone to
speak with Mayor White, the sergeant who hauled everyone in
at the airport looks on with regret. He doesn't say
another word the rest of the night.

Speaker 14 (51:19):
Rogia, yes, sir, yes, yes, sir, I understand that, sir,
we do, sir, No, Sir, I promise we can get
them there, sir, yes, sir, yes, sir.

Speaker 6 (51:32):
Hear me call me.

Speaker 1 (51:33):
Back here, so, yes, sir. He then passes the phone
to the chief of police. Mayor White explains that he
wants them to release the stones so that they can
play in Boston. It's a matter of public safety. And
can you give them a police escort too, he asks,
as though it were normal for police to give motor
cakes to people they've just arrested. A pair of limousines

(51:54):
are obtained, quite possibly the last ones in all of
Rhode Island. Word is spread about war works, very important prisoners,
and the crowd outside the station has reached Beatlemania levels.
Everyone piles into the limos and they're off, flanked by
motorcycles and cruisers with flashing lights like a presidential procession.

(52:15):
Everyone has their eye on the clock. It's pushing midnight.
These kids have been in the hall for over five hours.
How long could they reasonably be expected to wait?

Speaker 10 (52:32):
We didn't really know if we were gonna make it
or not, because the time has really slipped by, you know, and.

Speaker 2 (52:36):
By the time he got out of the police station
it was midnight.

Speaker 10 (52:40):
The station rights nobody could take it seriously, you know,
I mean, even the arrest was so closest, seeing the
keystone cups so seen, and really, you know, really arresting, arresting.

Speaker 1 (52:56):
The whole experience left Mick royally pissed off. It was
just stupid.

Speaker 5 (53:01):
It was all just a waste of time, and it
was all so petty.

Speaker 3 (53:05):
It just shows you, though, how they asked you, how
it is. You know why he shouldn't be either.

Speaker 1 (53:11):
Keith was a little more zen about it all if
I wasn't.

Speaker 2 (53:14):
On the road unto who got me mad and got
me in. But I didn't accept those things and they are.

Speaker 9 (53:21):
Just part of the game. To anything that turns up
as just part of the script, and you just write.

Speaker 1 (53:32):
Andy Dickerman, the photographer who was just having a quiet
night in this photo lab before this all began, has
been watching all this unfold and horror. He assumed the
cops would let the Stones go. He had no idea
that he just single handedly created a news story on
his own, one that threatened to burn Boston to the ground.

(53:52):
It feels bad, and so does the fallout. He becomes
authentically gun shy for a time when it comes to
matters of the camp and he takes down the poster
of the Stones that had held a spot of honor
in his dining room.

Speaker 4 (54:05):
Well, this whole thing was happening. I felt so bad
about it because and I still do. I didn't want
to hurt the Stone. I didn't want to give him
any trouble. But you want to take picture it was
I was torn between I wanted to leave them alone
because I wanted to let blown and and doing what
I know and what I knew should be done. It
was really a nightmare of experience, especially since then. And

(54:29):
I hate mail and every whole calls and and and
I like to see you after we fet well, you know,
just scattered around and or want one was a threatening
what I gave to the at the Really what did
it say?

Speaker 2 (54:41):
It was?

Speaker 4 (54:42):
It was it threatened me to kill you? Uh, I
think it. It didn't say that outrighter. I think it
touched across and phone calls to this house. So yeah,
a lot also by the news media and by by
other people and relatives and friends who I hadn't heard
from the years. And I'm used to giving the boy
to other people into having myself, and or I was

(55:05):
accused of warranting. It's definitely not the case. I didn't
want did not want it.

Speaker 1 (55:11):
The only person in a tougher spot than Andy Dickerman
was Boston Mayor Kevin White. Springing the Stones from an
out of state jail was just the first item on
his unenviable to do list.

Speaker 6 (55:22):
So Boston's on fire and all the fire guys are
deployed and Kevin White, who I interviewed classic right out
of the movie Black and White movie, Irish Frank Skeffington,
kind of guy you know, has the accent, grew up
in dot chest, you know, clueless, clueless, but seizing the

(55:46):
moment of publicity. What has happened now the MTA has
shut down. This means that none of these drunk, belligerent
rolling Stones, if it's Ionado, can get home. Owned by
public transport. Okay, this is the old days. The tea Nah,
you can put eighteen thousand people in a cab.

Speaker 1 (56:08):
Mayor White activates an emergency protocol to keep the public
transport system open. A few hours later, then he heads
to the garden. Stone stage manager Chipmunk is grateful to
see him. He's been forbidden from telling the crowd anything
about the arrest. Everyone's afraid the kids will rip the
garden into splinters and sawdust if they hear the Stones

(56:29):
are in jail. To kill time, Chip has been reduced
to reading novels aloud over the PA. It's getting desperate now.

Speaker 6 (56:38):
Boston Garden eighteen thousand, we come to the venerable Chipmunk. Okay,
Monk is charged with keeping eighteen thousand drunk stoned, progressively
angrier white Bostonians occupied and listen credit to Chip, God

(57:05):
love him. His pre show music was drop dead. It
was mega hip, you know, it was like listening to
a great DJ. He had great musical taste. Chip has
now played every fucking song he's ever had on any cassette, tape, recorder,
any device that he's got, and he's accessing stuff. He's ship,
he's wired in and he's coming out okay, and this

(57:27):
is great. It's kind of like Bill Graham's stuff about
how to manage a crowd. He's coming out like the
fairy Godmother and he's lying through his teeth. You know, hey, listen,
we've had some troubles, you know, but we need you
to help us that you always bring them in like
we are not messing with you.

Speaker 1 (57:47):
We love you.

Speaker 6 (57:49):
With stones are on and he's making it up. Is
he getting phone calls? It took forever to get for
the lawyer to get him out. Now they're in the
damn limos. Okay, what has happened now? Chip looks, here's
the mayor.

Speaker 1 (58:02):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (58:02):
Great.

Speaker 1 (58:05):
Sensing the crowd may respond positively to a fresh face,
Chip suggests Mayor White go out and level with his constituency.
Everyone knows it's a risky move. Sending the city's number
one authority figure out there to tell eighteen thousand people
that their idols have been arrested could be a disaster
all the way around. If he blows it, the kids

(58:26):
might sweep over the stage, tear off his tie box,
his ears, and set fire to his suit and then
the rest of Boston. But they've tried everything else, Why
not the truth?

Speaker 6 (58:38):
Chip with the great voice. You know, ladies and gentlemen,
may I present to you not the Rolling Stones. They didn't, gentlemen,
the Mayor of Boston, Kevin White.

Speaker 1 (58:48):
Crowd goes grew ray, Fuck you, Kevin, fuck you.

Speaker 12 (58:52):
They're screaming. I don't know if they're throwing shit. They
don't want to see Kevin White. They want to see
Mick jagger Man. I'm Kevin White. To his great credit,
he was no small guy. He was really good at this.
Needs your help, same thing. Picks it right up without
having heard Chip say this, They're on their way. If
you see, if you'll be good Bury godfather, you just

(59:16):
hang with it. You will get to see the Rolling
Stones tonight and walks off to Covin.

Speaker 7 (59:23):
Yeah, man, like just also while we are here, our
city is burning down correct, Our city is burning down there,
and they need me and I need to leave here.
But I promise you that if you obey and be
calm here, I will bring the Rolling Stones here. You
will have your show.

Speaker 6 (59:41):
He has created an action movie. It's like, you know,
Guardians of the Galaxy.

Speaker 1 (59:46):
I have to go jet off.

Speaker 6 (59:48):
I'm going to be putting out that fire myself. But
you what we're going to do, say hey man, stay
here like you. He's saving Boston.

Speaker 1 (59:59):
May Or White be rewarded for his actions this night
with an autographed STP tour poster. Before he goes, he
makes an appeal to the crowd. I got the Stones
out of jail. Now I need you to do something
for me. As I stand here half my cities and flames.
I'm going to take some of the police away from
here that needed in the South End. I want you

(01:00:21):
to do me a favor. Please behave after the concert ends,
just go home. I appreciate it, thank you, and wouldn't
you know it, everybody did just one of the many
minor miracles that day. Another miracle was that the Stones

(01:00:41):
themselves actually made it. Gary Stromberg was along for the ride.

Speaker 7 (01:00:46):
We're in a limousine, literally racing because we know that
this situation that they're holding an audience and that it's
very late, and that we got to get there and
do this show. And we are under a police escort,
a motorcycle escort. We're headed down the freeway. Cars are
being moved aside. We're going probably one hundred miles an hour,
sirens the whole presidential escort. And as we're approaching the

(01:01:10):
city of Boston, off in the skyline, we see that
there are orange flames very distinctly, and we think that
the city is being burned down because we're not there.
That this is the reaction that they, the city of
Boston and the fans have had to them being denied
this concert. And so the initial response was hysteria because

(01:01:33):
this is very funny that they would burn a city
down because they were missing a concert. But we couldn't
think of any other explanation and we didn't have a
radio or anything that I remember that would explain what
was going on. So we were just arriving under the
belief that this is what was happening. In addition to
being very funny to us, it also caused a lot

(01:01:54):
of anxiety because what were we heading into. I mean,
it looked like we're going into a war zone, you know,
to go do a concert. It was totally surreal. It
was like apocalypse now, you know, we're just we were
entering the apocalypse.

Speaker 1 (01:02:07):
It became a little more friendly as they're near the
Boston Garden. Fans lined the road emitting it almighty. Yeah,
the Limos Pass, it was a sight that Keith Richards
would never forget.

Speaker 3 (01:02:20):
There was a wholesome coming with kids.

Speaker 10 (01:02:22):
So and you came to it all.

Speaker 9 (01:02:23):
Yeah, there's thousands of people looking out the windows and
sitting on the fire escapes and waiting, and they knew
they were coming. They heard that we'd gone out to wait.
The whole route was lying.

Speaker 2 (01:02:36):
Actually there were kids waiting, amazing weird as well.

Speaker 6 (01:02:45):
So Gary, we're talking and I know it's hard to remember,
like one of them, Yeah, they're not there yet. It's
one one thirty The crowd has been in the house
since seven and seven pm. They've been there for five hours.
Stevie's been off for three and a half. You may
be get to Boston Garden at one o'clock in the morning.

Speaker 7 (01:03:02):
Yeah, I think that's when they went on one o'clock.

Speaker 1 (01:03:08):
Chip Munk has been sharing a blow by blow account
of their progress towards the arena. Now it gives them
no small pleasure to announce, ladies and gentlemen the Rolling Stones.
The place explodes with kids slapping high five and pounding
their seats as though this is the greatest thing that
has ever happened. Charlie Watts kicks in the downbeat, and

(01:03:30):
an electric rush of compressed energy and anticipation flows across
the synapse that separates the stage and the audience. For
one long moment, they're all one, all criminals, all outlaws,
with the Stones playing music for the very people that
treats them. When you went on stage, yeah, it's.

Speaker 9 (01:04:02):
Something good to be.

Speaker 2 (01:04:04):
That.

Speaker 9 (01:04:05):
It was good that would be. I mean, it just
felt good to them. We got to the stage after
what we wouldn't have made it except that about there
was eighteen thousand kids waiting for a season. Other wasn't.

Speaker 2 (01:04:16):
Maybe we were getting the ship. We'd have stayed in
until they stayed.

Speaker 7 (01:04:24):
Jagger did a full set with as much energy as
he'd ever done, and this was exhausting. The night that
we had spent up until this point was pretty tiring
in jail and the tension, you know, they're getting out
of jail and all of that stuff. So yeah, it
was pretty amazing that he was able to do it.
He was magnificent that night, as I remember, and from
what I could tell with the Stones, they were just

(01:04:46):
working off of adrenaline. They owed this audience something because
of you all along they'd been waiting there.

Speaker 1 (01:04:59):
People go home home feeling they've done more than just
see a concert. They participated in an event happening. It's
a throwback to the older days. Remember when the Stones
got busted? Yeah, were you there too?

Speaker 10 (01:05:13):
Are out?

Speaker 1 (01:05:35):
There's an interesting coda that their New England visit. At
least according to Bobby Keys, this is what's strange now.

Speaker 3 (01:05:42):
It's look at night in Boston. We went to play
power Field in Rhode Island and stayed off.

Speaker 9 (01:05:51):
Until we finished the set.

Speaker 2 (01:05:53):
We finished the set, the power came back around. That's lovely.

Speaker 1 (01:06:00):
Moments before showtime at their second and final gig at
the Boston Garden, the skies over Rhode Island go from
gray to black. Lightning tears through the cloud banks, and
the thunder rolls. A full blown summer storm starts, dumping
wind and water from Warwick to Wound Socket. The state
goes dark, all of it. No TVs, no radios, no

(01:06:25):
record players, nothing. The state of Rhode Island has been
plunged into a medieval darkness, and it stays that way
until the Stones walk off stage in Boston at eleven thirty.
Blame it on.

Speaker 15 (01:06:39):
Whoever you like. Stone's Touring Party is written and hosted

(01:07:04):
by Jordan runtaf Co executives, produced by Noel Brown and
Jordan Runtalk, Edited in sound design by Noel Brown and
Michael Alder June. Original music composed and performed by Michael
Alder June and Noel Brown, with additional instruments performed by
Chris Suarez, Nick Johns Cooper, and Josh Thain. Vintage Rolling
Stones audio courtesy of the Robert Greenfield Archive at the

(01:07:25):
Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections in Northwestern University Libraries.

Speaker 1 (01:07:30):
Stone's Touring Party is a production of iHeart Radio.

Speaker 15 (01:07:40):
For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows.
Advertise With Us

Host

Robert Greenfield

Robert Greenfield

Popular Podcasts

Dateline NBC

Dateline NBC

Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com

The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show

The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show

The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.