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Rare 1978 photos of Rolling Stones fans at an epic Day on the Green

Peter Hartlaub

July 26, 1978: Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones performs on the Oakland Coliseum stage for the fourth Day on the Green, which was scheduled on the singer’s 34th birthday.
Photo: Terry Schmitt, The Chronicle

In a long history of Rolling Stones shows in the Bay Area, it’s hard to beat the hype and spectacle of July 26, 1978.

The band scheduled the performance at Oakland Coliseum on Mick Jagger’s 34th birthday, announcing the show just two weeks earlier. The concert was set for a Wednesday during the day, with expectations of mammoth traffic jams and widespread playing-of-hooky in the Bay Area.

And some fans, showing very little foresight, were convinced the Stones show could be the end for the British rockers.

“This might be the last time anybody ever gets to see the Stones,” said Dru Berkett, 18, of Hillsborough, waiting outside the stadium the night before.

Not even close, it turns out. The Rolling Stones — including Jagger, 41 birthdays later — return to Levi’s Stadium on May 18. But for the 64,000 fans who spent $12.50 to attend the fourth Day on the Green, the experience would be hard to forget.

The Rolling Stones hadn’t planned to play the Bay Area on its 1978 U.S. tour, supporting the new album “Some Girls.” But promoter Bill Graham managed to squeeze one more show out of the band, adding the Oakland concert at the end of the tour.

July 26, 1978: Fans enjoy the Rolling Stones during the fourth Day on the Green.
Photo: Terry Schmitt, The Chronicle

The “Very Special Day on the Green” sold out in less than 24 hours, with general admission tickets initially being scalped for five times the listed price. The Chronicle seemingly sent half the newsroom to cover the story — big names including Steve Rubenstein, Ruthe Stein and Peter Stack all wrote articles. Arts editor and movie critic Stack interviewed fans lined up outside the Coliseum gates the night before, hoping to get general admission seating near the stage.

“It doesn’t make any difference how many people come,” said Leann Lloyd, 20, of San Jose. “The way we got it figured, when the gates open at 7:30, we’re just going to tear ass across the parking lot, and be first in line.”

After opening acts including Eddie Money and Santana, the Rolling Stones played 19 songs, including eight of the nine tracks on “Some Girls,” and an encore of “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.”

July 26, 1978: The sign gets changed outside the Oakland Coliseum before the fourth Day on the Green.
Photo: Terry Schmitt, The Chronicle

The Stones concert was the most prominent article on The Chronicle front page the next morning, after a busy news day that included the first birth of a test-tube baby, and a District Attorney’s office investigation of the San Francisco Housing Authority.

Rubenstein wrote: “The historic Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger passed his 34th birthday yesterday by dressing up in birthday-cake pink and white, dumping a pail of water on his head, climbing a scaffolding, belting his heart out and heaving his shoes into a sea of 64,000 dazzled faces in Oakland Coliseum.”

But that’s not to say that everyone walked away satisfied. The band took the stage more than two hours late, in a venue with little shade and the sun beating down. Rock music critic Joel Selvin called the performance “only a pitiful reminder of how great the Stones once were.”

July 26, 1978: Rolling Stones roll out a bedsheet sign during the fourth Day on the Green.
Photo: Terry Schmitt, The Chronicle

July 26, 1978: Rolling Stones fans wait outside the Oakland Coliseum before the fourth Day on the Green.
Photo: Terry Schmitt, The Chronicle

Secretary Debbie Zajacka told her boss she would be missing work for the concert, and even got an advance on her salary to pay for the ticket.

“I have a really nice boss, and she said it was OK,” Zajacka told The Chronicle. “But I would have come even if she had told me I was fired.”

Others didn’t tell their bosses. The Stones, less than a third of the way into their existence as a band, were already developing a holy glow.

“People take off for religious holidays,” another fan told The Chronicle. “This isn’t any different.”

July 26, 1978: Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger performs on the Oakland Coliseum stage.
Photo: Terry Schmitt, The Chronicle

Rolling Stones fans at the Oakland Coliseum for the band’s July 26, 1978, Day on the Green show.
Photo: Terry Schmitt/The Chronicle, The Chronicle

July 26, 1978: Rolling Stones fans wait outside the Oakland Coliseum before the fourth Day on the Green.
Photo: Terry Schmitt, The Chronicle

July 26, 1978: Fans enjoy the Rolling Stones during the fourth Day on the Green.
Photo: Terry Schmitt, The Chronicle

July 26, 1978: The Rolling Stones on the Oakland Coliseum stage for Day on the Green.
Photo: Terry Schmitt, The Chronicle

July 26, 1978: Mick Jagger, newly turned 34, on the Oakland Coliseum stage.
Photo: Terry Schmitt, The Chronicle

July 26, 1978: Fans enjoy the Rolling Stones at Day on the Green.
Photo: Terry Schmitt, The Chronicle

https://datebook.sfchronicle.com/music/rare-1978-photos-of-rolling-stones-fans-at-an-epic-day-on-the-green

One of those pictured "fans' don't know that Mick Taylor wasn't there that day! :smilemick

Beautiful pictures, some great fashion styles from the audience too.

The good old days when the band would perform most of the new album.

Some Super 8 silent film (with overdubbed sound from another tour) from this show :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiXRhQAaWgs

Some of the stadium audience dissatisfactions for this tour were: short club-style setlists played for mega-crowds; punk-rock attitude for a tank-top audience; band coming on in daylight and ending early, also in daylight (and usually w/o encore), leaving huge stadium crowds with nothing to do but try to entertain themselves somewhere else by dinnertime.

I remember this well from the crowd malaise at Rich Stadium, Orchard Park (Buffalo) NY, 7/4/1978. You'd think the Stones would have known better, and given stadium crowds a nighttime set. I vividly remember the Rich 1978 crowd, myself included, dumped in the parking lot by 6:00 PM with no damn place to go. and no one to take it out on but the Stones.

Fleetwood Mac and other bands played after dark at Rich that year, and no one slagged them - quite the opposite. All miseries would have been avoided had the support acts started later and the Stones come on with nighttime lighting. (Some of the earlier 1981 shows would have benefited from this wisdom also.)

The Stones essentially asked for the same disrespect that their opening acts got, by playing in daylight. What were they thinking? Stadium crowds saw rich, incognizant, privileged bastards who knocked off early, not fervent punk rockers.

I thank God that Harvey Mandel was spared all this! --

Note that gates opened 10:00 AM for three support acts (April Wine, Atlanta Rhythm Section, Journey) plus an 18-song Stones set that was history by 5:30 PM. So, no wonder the unhappiness quotient in Oakland, CA

SET LIST

Let It Rock
All Down The Line
Honky Tonk Women
Star Star
When The Whip Comes Down
Miss You
Lies
Beast Of Burden
Shattered
Just My Imagination
Respectable
Far Away Eyes
Love In Vain
Tumbling Dice
Happy
Sweet Little Sixteen
Brown Sugar
Jumpin' Jack Flash

SEE ALSO:

http://www.rirocks.net/Band%20Articles/Rolling%20Stones%201978%2007.04%20-%20Rich%20Stadium,%20NY.htm

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/shidoobeewithstonesdoug/top-20-concerts-at-rich-stadium-buffalo-ny-t17296.html

SCL went to this show i believe. where is that ol boy

Never understood the logic in the stadium shows being in daylight. They did the same in the US in 81 and Europe in 82.

Even more bewildering to do so on weekdays when people had to work (or go to school) . Didnt stop them selling out every show though - and some of those crowds were enormous (80-90,000)

I think when I saw them at Slane Castle in '82, the first act came on at 1 pm (the Cheiftains) followed by Thorogood and then J Geils before the Stones took the stage just after 6 pm. The gig was over around 8.15. It doesnt get dark here in mid July until after 10 pm.

I was at the Superdome on July 13, 1978.

I remember the opening acts starting early in the evening, but the Stones didn't start until nearly midnight, on a Thursday.

People were pissed. :whydontcha

Stones in the Dome
July 13, 1978

The Louisiana Superdome hosted the Rolling Stones, during their 1978 World Tour, on Thursday, July 13, 1978. General Admission tickets sold for $12.50. Van Halen opened the show, followed by the Doobie Brothers, then the Stones.

The gates opened at 5:30 but a large crowd had gathered around the dome by 2:00 for the 7:30 show. Soon after the crowds were allowed inside, blankets were spread and empty beer cans lined the floor of the dome which was packed with people and the belongings they had carried with them for the concert. Frisbees flew through the air.

Van Halen began as scheduled at 7:30 -- loudly for some 45 minutes to a lackluster audience. A long pause ensued, broken by a PA announcement to a crowd which was becoming restless:

"We have found out narcotics agents are out in the crowd, disguised to look like you and me. So if you have any drugs, please throw them up on the stage and we'll take care of them".

Then the lights shined down on the Doobie Brothers who broke out with "Black Water". The audience love them as they continued with "China Grove", "Takin' it to the Streets", and "Rock Me" among others.

When the Stones took the stage, which was encircled by huge red lips, the crowd went wild. It was the largest indoor attendance in history -- 80,173 people with a ticket intake of approximately $1,060,000. Days later, City Councilman-at-Large Joseph I. Giarrusso introduced an ordinance to ban smoking in city arenas with 20,000 or more seats, citing the Stones concert where, he said, "Smoke was so thick you could cut it with a knife".

http://www.neworleanspast.com/todayinneworleanshistory/july13.html

Gazza wrote on Dec 8^th, 2018 at 8:53pm:

Never understood the logic in the stadium shows being in daylight. They did the same in the US in 81 and Europe in 82.

At Rich Stadium in the mid-to-late 1970s, there were constant complaints from the residential neighbors (essentially 12-15 houses along one street leading in) about rowdy crowds late at night, but that doesn't account for all the other daylight shows in the US and Europe in 1978 and 1981-1982.

This mid-1970s trend of "Summerfest"-style all day concerts was intended to create the atmosphere of a mini-Woodstock, with four bands, noon to midnight. It worked less well when the promoters opted to run Woodstock in daylight hours only. It was a little pathetic to watch stage lights change color with no impact on the stage.

mojoman wrote on Dec 8^th, 2018 at 7:06pm:

SCL went to this show i believe. where is that ol boy

Good memory Mojo. Indeed, young SC:L popped his Stones cherry that day at the tender young age of 15. Wednesday afternoon, hotter than shit. Got sunburned. Waited 2 hours in between Santana leaving the stage before the Stones came on. Good times. Good times. :keithpunky :willya

An excellent Day on the Green it was...

Any pictures to share Chief?

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http://rocksoff.org/cgi-bin/messageboard/YaBB.pl GENERAL >> MAIN BOARD >> Anyone here was at the 1978 Day on the Green ? http://rocksoff.org/cgi-bin/messageboard/YaBB.pl?num=1543707458 Message started by Edith Grove on Dec 1^st, 2018 at 5:37pm