Anyone ever heard of this?

The Avalon Club
(and the Little-Known Secret Superstar Gig of 1976)
It's a major happening in Central Virginia when a big-name act plays in the area, for example, Elvis Presley's 1974 performance in Roanoke. Few are aware, however, of another superstar act who appeared in the area two years later, at an obscure night club in a secret gig that must rank among one of the most unusual entries in the annals of untold rock & roll history. It happened one Saturday night in August of 1976 at the now-defunct Avalon Club on Rt. 24 in Appomattox, a popular BYOB country music spot in Appomattox County. On that evening, the regulars made their way into the club, expecting to find the regular band ("Country After Dark") on stage. What they found instead was a stage with instruments and microphones but no performers. A few people were dancing to a country record being played over in the corner, but most were milling around, sipping from their brown bags and getting restless.
Suddenly the lights dimmed (the lights never dimmed at the Avalon Club) and a few people could be seen in the shadows taking the stage. A familiar electric guitar riff tore into the room, the lights came back up, and the crowd got their <image002.jpg>first look at the band, a group of young, long-haired guys in odd clothing who were playing "Johnny B. Goode" with intensity. No one recognized the odd-looking performers, but that didn't matter. Everyone was on their feet dancing away to the old Chuck Berry tune (including Avalon regular Aubrey "Mr. Bones" Benson, pictured right).
Despite the initially warm reception to the performers, things would soon take a turn for the worse. Following the first song, the lead singer (who was also wearing eye shadow) said a few words to the crowd, but all the crowd could gather through the distorted sound was that he was British. The band then broke into a second tune, one unfamiliar to the crowd. Some tried to dance but most took a seat. Impatience quickly turned to anger as the band assaulted the restless crowd with a string of unfamiliar tunes. Taking this all in was Clint Patterson, a younger member of the crowd, who thought he had seen the band on television and who recognized some of the tunes from hearing them on his sister's radio. Clint recalls "I remembered that one that kept going 'What A Drag It Is Getting Old.'"
By about the fifth song, the crowd had seen and heard enough, and Avalon regular Harold "Cootie" Hodges led the charge onto the stage, initiating a melee which saw one band member take a whiskey bottle to the head, and which left the band's amplifiers and drum kit destroyed. Clint recalled the situation recently, saying "Hey listen, we were all just a bunch of hard working country boys looking to have our normal good-time Saturday night. We didn't go down there to see no long-haired sissy boys. Besides, you could hardly understand a word that skinny dude in tight pants was singing."
<image003.jpg>As the reader may have surmised by now, that "skinny dude" was none other than Mick Jagger and the band was the Rolling Stones, who have a long tradition of kicking off a tour with unannounced "rehearsal" gigs at obscure, off-the-beaten-path venues. The Stones have rarely commented on their disastrous appearance in Central Virginia, but rumor has it that the never-released "Grin and Grab It" was shelved after an argument stemming from that night. Lead guitarist Keith Richards (whose face still bears a scar from the whiskey bottle smashed over his head that night) once commented to Crawdaddy magazine about the incident, saying "Blimey, I hadn't seen a crowd that bloody rowdy since Altamont."

Think that was from the Onion. (Weren't they touring USA in '75 and touring out of USA in '76?)

Even for hicks, surely by 76 people would know who they were.