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How two 22-year-olds snuck into a Rolling Stones show, and Mick Jagger got charged at Rock 'n' Bowl (Read 530 times)
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How two 22-year-olds snuck into a Rolling Stones show, and Mick Jagger got charged at Rock 'n' Bowl
Jul 12th, 2019 at 11:40am
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How two 22-year-olds snuck into a Rolling Stones show, and Mick Jagger got charged at Rock 'n' Bowl


BY KEITH SPERA | STAFF WRITER





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I owe Mick Jagger $30.

In fall 1989, I was a newly minted college graduate with no job and no money. But I liked going to concerts.

In November of that year, the Rolling Stones brought their “Steel Wheels” tour to what was then still the Louisiana Superdome. I didn’t have a ticket.

But I did have the “Steel Wheels” CD and its “long-box,” the wasteful cardboard packaging in which it came.

The same stylized gray wheels that adorned the cover of the CD decorated the long-box. I assumed — correctly, as it turned out — that the Rolling Stones road crew's backstage passes would feature the same motif.

What if I made a pretend backstage pass from the long-box? Would that get me into the show?

Having spent the past quarter-century going to concerts with legitimate passes, I no longer endorse this way of thinking. But at the time, it made sense.

So I fashioned passes for myself and my buddy Kenny. We hung the faux-passes from our belt loops and headed to the Superdome.

I carried a flashlight; Kenny held a clipboard. Trying not to look like nervous 22-year-olds, we approached a Superdome entrance.

I locked eyes with the ticket taker and nodded. She glanced at our “passes” — which, in hindsight, looked comically crude — and nodded back.

Without saying a word, we walked in.

Kenny immediately went to find a payphone — this was long before cellphones — to call a friend with the news of our successful caper.

Attendance that night was reportedly 59,339.

Counting Kenny and I, it was 59,341.

Gross ticket sales totaled nearly $1.7 million. So the Stones did well, even though I stiffed them for the price of a $30 ticket.

I’d feel more guilty about it if Mick Jagger and drummer Charlie Watts hadn’t been in my position five years later, when the Rolling Stones returned to New Orleans in 1994 during their “Voodoo Lounge” tour.

They had several nights off to explore the city. They ate at Commander’s Palace and the original Gabrielle restaurant on Esplanade Avenue. Jagger grooved to hoodoo bluesman Coco Robicheaux at Checkpoint Charlie. He and guitarist Ronnie Wood checked out blues-rock band Stavin’ Chain at Tipitina’s; Wood got up onstage to jam.

But an incident at Rock ’N’ Bowl lives in local music lore.

In 1994, Rock ’N’ Bowl was still in its original location, on the second story of a strip mall at the intersection of Tulane and South Carrollton avenues. When owner John Blancher first instituted a $5 cover charge, he hired the no-nonsense Sherry Blady Pitre, whose older sisters were Rock ’N’ Bowl bartenders, to collect the money. Thirty years later, she’s still at it.

Back then, Pitre stationed herself on the landing halfway up the original Rock ’N’ Bowl’s staircase. Perched on a bar stool, she charged everybody — no exceptions.

A couple nights before the Stones concert at the Superdome on Oct. 10, 1994, zydeco accordionist Beau Jocque and his band, the Hi-Rollers, were at Rock ’N’ Bowl. Jocque, who died of a heart attack in 1999 at age 45, was arguably the most powerful force in contemporary zydeco music, standing head and shoulders — in his case, literally — above all others. He was a zydeco rock star.

As Jocque performed, a guy came up the Rock ’N' Bowl stairs and approached Pitre. The cover charge is $5, she informed him.

He then announced that he was with a group of seven people that included Mick Jagger and Charlie Watts.

In that case, Pitre said, it’ll be $35 for everybody.

The guy — a plainclothes cop working a security detail for the Stones — was incredulous: “You’re going to charge Mick Jagger to get into your club?”

Pitre shot back, “Is he going to let me into his concert for free?”

The cop turned around and went back outside. Pitre shouted up to Blancher, who was behind a counter at the top of the stairs, asking whether she should let Mick Jagger in for free.

With the Hi-Rollers at full volume, Blancher didn’t hear her correctly.

“I thought she said, ‘Should I let Big Daddy in?’ ” Blancher recalled. “That’s what I heard. I never would have thought that Mick Jagger was about to walk through the door. And if I had heard ‘Mick Jagger,’ I would have thought she was bulls******* me.”

Not knowing who “Big Daddy” was, Blancher told Pitre to charge the $5.

A few minutes later, Jagger, Watts and their entourage swept in. Pitre reiterated the price. Watts started to pull out his wallet before one of their guards paid for everyone.

They sat at a table near the stage. Blancher offered to buy them drinks. They declined; Jagger was content to sip water.

The crowd, focused on dancing, ignored the celebrities in their midst. But when Jagger and Watts finally got up to leave, they received a round of applause.

After the show, Blancher said to Beau Jocque, “Can you believe Mick Jagger and Charlie Watts came to see you play?”

Blancher still remembers Jocque’s unfazed, unimpressed response: “Yeah, I saw them,” he growled. “That’s why I turned my back, so they wouldn’t steal my licks.”

“And he was serious,” Blancher said. “He wasn’t going to let those guys steal what he was doing.”

A story about Pitre charging Jagger and Watts to get into Rock ’N’ Bowl ran in The Times-Picayune. It got picked up by The Associated Press and appeared in newspapers around the world.

At least two local restaurant owners called to congratulate Blancher on his publicity coup: “The Stones came to our place, we comped them everything, and we never got a word in the paper. You charged them, and the whole world found out!”

The Jagger incident also secured Pitre’s reputation as the toughest gatekeeper in town. “It was weird," she said, "and awesome."

Not long ago, the cop who accompanied Jagger and Watts that night 25 years ago introduced himself to Blancher. The Stones, the cop said, were not happy when the story hit the paper. They told him he should have just paid the cover charge right away.

So instead of a case of entitled rock stars, the real story boils down to a misunderstanding.

If the Rolling Stones want to hear some music while in New Orleans to headline the Mercedes-Benz Superdome on Sunday, Blancher would happily host them at Rock ’N’ Bowl: “The invitation is extended.”

And I’ll gladly pay their cover charge. After all, I owe them.



https://www.nola.com/entertainment_life/keith_spera/article_e9d7ef5c-a287-11e9-b...


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“What rap did that was impressive was to show there are so many tone-deaf people out there,” he says. “All they need is a drum beat and somebody yelling over it and they’re happy. There’s an enormous market for people who can’t tell one note from another.” - Keef
 
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Re: How two 22-year-olds snuck into a Rolling Stones show, and Mick Jagger got charged at Rock 'n' Bowl
Reply #1 - Jul 12th, 2019 at 11:53am
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My friend JT and I sneaked into DC#2 for VooDoo Lounge...RFK was always easy to sneak into...
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