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Sebastian Haß

Cocaine, Tequila Sunrise And H. – The North American Tour 1972
"The point is that the Stones had reached a point where we no longer had to do what we were told to do."  Keith Richards

Non-stop parties, drug-excess and a string of spectacular and extraordinary performances, rarely had rock ‘n’ roll been lived so intensively. The US tour, also known as the Rolling Stones Touring Party, became legendary. Notwithstanding the box-office and attendance records that would come later, in the summer of 1972 the Rolling Stones perhaps reached the zenith of their career as a live band. Yet, at the beginning of the year, things had looked anything but rosy.
January 1972. Mick Jagger sits alone in the Sunset Sound Recorders' Studios, a pile of tapes in front of him, the result of excruciatingly boring recording sessions in southern France, out of which he is trying to make a rough mix. Time is running out, as their first tour of the US since Altamont is planned for the summer and, for the awaited double album, there is still no sign of life…
Behind them, the Rolling Stones had left behind a period of profound changes that they had been through as tax exiles in the sunny Côte d'Azur, where they had formed their own record label in April 1971 and released Sticky Fingers, their first album since breaking away from Allen Klein.
While radio stations across the world were playing “Brown Sugar”, the band were working on a follow-up album in Keith Richards’ new retreat in Nellcôte. Everything seemed to be going well until, in May, Mick suddenly married Bianca Perez and returned to Nellcôte where, under the influence of Keith Richards’ and Anita Pallenberg’s drug-excesses, the recordings were making little progress. "Andy Johns had to try to record guitar over-dubs while people were eating in the kitchen. It was like making one of those 1960s party records in which everyone felt they should be involved,"  is how Bill Wyman describes the unbearable situation. "I realize now that Exile was made under very chaotic circumstances and with innovative ways of recording,"  is Keith Richards’ opinion, who was still with his community of drug dealers and hangers-on, whose hopes were hanging on the forthcoming tour. Yet, an abundance of versatile songs were created in painstaking detail that Mick Jagger began to examine in LA At the same time, he was discussing the financial situation of the band with Rupert Loewenstein, as well as the organisation of the US tour, while a sword of Damocles hung over the band.
In fact, in the spring of 1972, the band had its backs to the wall. In spite of the success of Sticky Fingers, their precarious financial situation had not changed, their image in the US, since Altamont, had got worse and their own record label was against releasing Exile On Main Street as a double album. Finally, there were the Hells Angels, who felt betrayed by the band and threatened to shoot Mick Jagger during the course of the tour. For this reason, Mick Jagger only wanted to play in small clubs, which would have entailed immense financial losses.
Instead of that, their new tour manager Peter Rudge worked on an extensive security operation, with personal bodyguards for Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, the hiring of whole floors in hotels, their own chartered plane and bullet-proof limousines. Added to this were further production costs for the 50-odd crew of roadies, secretaries and accountants, as well as a stage which Chip Monk had embellished with five metre-high and twelve metre-wide mirrors which would project his spectacular lighting effects into the furthest corners of any concert hall. Yet further costs came with a PA that had an unbelievable power of 16,000 watts, whose crystalline sound would be incomparable. To cover the enormous costs, it would have been easy to simply raise the ticket prices, something which Mick Jagger, who made the decision himself, refused to do: "I don´t want high-priced tickets, delays, riots or any of that crap. We’re going out there to make a lot of money and win a lot of friends."
Apart from that, however, Keith Richards faced another problem: "Around now, with a tour coming up, was the first time it really hit me. […] It’s bad enough cleaning up yourself, but the idea of putting the whole tour on line because I couldn’t make it was too much, even for me."  For that reason, he flew to Switzerland in March 1972 for a quick heroin detox cure, the band joining him there in May.
During their week-long preparations for the tour, they worked on a set list that would form the core of all their future tours: “Honky Tonk Women”, “Brown Sugar”, “Gimme Shelter”, “Love in Vain”, “You Can´t Always Get What You Want”, “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”, “Street Fighting Man” and “Midnight Rambler“”, combined with the concise Songs from Exile On Main St.: “Rocks Off”, “Happy”, “Rip This Joint”, “All Down The Line”, “Sweet Virginia” and “Tumbling Dice”. “Sympathy For The Devil”, after the events of Altamont, remained taboo. For additional drive, there were, once again, Nicky Hopkins on piano and Bobby Keys and Jim Price in the horn section, added to which was Stevie Wonder, the new superstar of American soul music, whom the Rolling Stones had brought in as supporting band.
On 22nd May, Exile On Main Street was released, a wild mix of blues, country, rock ‘n’ roll and soul, whose raw sound soon convinced the listeners. At first, it didn’t seem that the double album would be that successful and yet, when the tour began in Vancouver on 3rd June 1972, Exile On Main Street was at number 1 in the US charts. Unfortunately, what Mick Jagger and Peter Rudge had wanted to avoid at all costs happened in Vancouver where, during a thrilling performance in front of 15,000 peaceful spectators, the 2,000 ticket-less fans outside launched into street battle with a bewildered and overtaxed police force. More than 30 policemen were wounded and 100 rioters arrested. The memory of Altamont was once again raised.
One day later, the tour reached Seattle, as the black civil-rights activist Angela Davis was released from prison. For this occasion, the Rolling Stones played “Sweet Black Angel”, the song they had written for Davis’ release. However, the otherwise ecstatic public didn’t agree. "It´s just a lot of people dopin’ up now,"  was Mick Jagger’s opinion after the concert, fully aware that the Stones as live performers had just surpassed themselves. In fact, the concert in Seattle, like all the other gigs on the Stones’-Touring-Party tour, rested purely on its music, whose powerful songs nobody could resist: "I had never experienced the kind of energy that happened then. Coming from the house to the stage and then from the stage back into the house," one of the roadies would enthuse years later: "I had never imagined that something like that was possible."
Today, 40 years later, numerous film clips on the internet confirm that they were faster, louder and more aggressive, that they were playing as if they’d been unchained. Keith Richards’ guitar riffs whipped up the songs, the pulsing rhythm section, Mick Jagger’s vocals and Mick Taylor’s flowing guitar solos all blending into a powerful harmony. The Rolling Stones, visually, had a glitter-look, with lots of make-up, as they also were on 6th June 1972, when they played the first of four concerts at the legendary Winterland in San Francisco.
Here, in the vicinity of the Hells Angels, they were determined that the further course of the tour would leave nothing to chance. The Rolling Stones had no intention of damping down their performance and so, over the next four days, the Winterland was the witness to exceptional measures. Blocked-off streets, police patrols and barricades everywhere. During the concerts, 100 plain-clothes police mingled with the spectators. Directly behind the stage was a helicopter ready for take-off. Keith Richards, back on drugs again after his recent detox, dealt with the situation by carrying a 38 calibre revolver with him even while he was on stage. All the band members survived…
Contrary to expectations, all the concerts went off smoothly. Yet, just a few hours after the last gig, an incident occurred. The whole band were on the plane, ready to fly to LA when a woman, to all appearances an especially attractive fan, appeared on the runway. Without being questioned, she managed to get on board, where she pulled out a stack of papers and began hitting Mick Jagger with them. The situation escalated, there was a scuffle and shortly afterwards the woman fell screaming out of the plane just as it began to rev up.
On their arrival in LA, there was a charge against Mick Jagger because of this incident. The real problem, however, was the negative publicity in the newspapers, together with renewed death threats from the Hells Angels, who were still hoping to get their hands on Mick Jagger.
After LA, there was Long Beach and then back to LA The Stones were playing even better, yet after a week on the road, all the good resolutions were forgotten: "Drugs were everywhere on this tour – jars of cocaine, uppers and downers,"  Spanish Tony explains, and Keith Richards confirms: "It just happened. It was a search for oblivion, I suppose, though not intentionally. Being in a band, you are cooped up a lot, and the more famous you get the more of a prison you find yourself in."  No less innocent were the growing army of party-people and casual acquaintances that contributed to the backstage chaos. Ever present was the avant-garde film director Robert Francks, who recorded the decadent and careless atmosphere in sensational and highly explosive images. Keith Richards’ famous heroin shot on the tour plane, roadies having sex with groupies and a television being thrown out of a hotel window. Even when it later emerged that many of the scenes had been set up, things still threatened to get out of control.
On 13th and 14th June, San Diego and Tucson saw serious disturbances, with dozens wounded and more than 100 arrests. At the same time, many luxury hotels in Chicago refused to accommodate the Rolling Stones, after which Hugh Hefner opened the doors to his Playboy mansion for their unrestricted use. "I know we did have some fun there. I know we ripped it up,"  Keith Richards explains, while Bill Wyman later added: "It’s not most people’s idea of a job, but it is still a job."
It was not only Hefner but also the American jet set who were interested in the band. In Kansas, Truman Capote and Jackie Kennedy's sister, Princess Lee Radziwill, joined the tour, from whom the majority of the party-people, as before, felt removed. On 24th June, both shows in Fort Worth were recorded for a planned live album and a concert film. In Houston, there was a showdown between Anita Pallenberg and Bianca Jagger, who had remained distant throughout the tour while her worst enemy had been insulting her behind her back. The situation escalated to such a degree that the Stones, after three more gigs in Mobile, Tuscaloosa and Nashville, decided on a five-day holiday, instead of using the time for studio recordings, as had been planned.
Yet all the tumult of the past weeks didn’t die down. On the contrary, as the tour began again on 4th July in Washington, there were chaotic scenes among the 55,000 fans at the JFK Stadium, only a foretaste, however, of the civil war-like scenes that what would follow only a few days later in Detroit, where police with dogs, tear-gas and water cannon only just managed to stop the 2,000 fans from storming the auditorium.
The Rolling Stones got through their most dangerous concert by far on 17th July in Montreal, when French separatists blew up a tour truck and three more bombs within the concert hall were defused. "When we found out, Mick got pretty agitated," Bill Wyman reports. "’I don´t want to go on tonight’, he said. ‘After that, I don´t want to go on.’"
Hardly had the Stones managed to calm their lead singer down when news reached them of crowd disturbances, the worst since Altamont, the cause being 3,000 counterfeit tickets.
On their return to the USA, Keith Richards was arrested after fighting with a photographer. Keith Richards recalls: "Mick and Bobby Keys and Marshall Chess demanded to be arrested with me. I’ve got to give that to Mick."  While this was going on, the rest of the band went by bus to Boston, where Stevie Wonder was repeating his supporting act for the third time, no doubt trying to keep the 15,000 spectators in a good mood. Then a panic-stricken call from the mayor of Boston secured the immediate release of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. They were rushed under police escort to Boston where, minutes later, they and the rest of the band staggered onto the stage, five hours late.
Three more gigs in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh followed, before the Rolling Stones finally arrived in New York on 24th July, where their tour, after four triumphant gigs at Madison Square Garden, came to an end on Mick Jagger's 29th birthday. With a huge crowd of celebrities, including Andy Warhol, Woody Allen, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Diane Keaton, Bob Dylan and Carly Simon, the Rolling Stones celebrated both the fact that they had survived and, not least, the tour itself, which, with 750,000 spectators and four million US dollars in takings, had broken all previous records.
If the Cocaine and Tequila Sunrise Tour was now history, not so the consequences that would follow. Like Marshall Chess and PR adviser Gary Stromberg, many of the participants would struggle with drug problems for years to come. Far more tragic, however, was the relapse into meaninglessness for all those who had taken part in the glamorous events of the past few weeks. Some would later publish their memories, yet for most, all that would remain would be the memories of the most intensively lived period of their lives.
Not much more would remain for the Rolling Stones themselves of their North American tour of '72, whose decisive chapter in history of rock music would remain undocumented for decades to come. When Robert Franck presented his tour documentary Cocksucker Blues to them in the autumn of 1972, the band feared that its shocking scenes would endanger any return to the USA. For this reason, Franck could only show his film once a year and then only when he was personally present. Even today, some scenes are removed from video presentations. A similar fate awaited the concert film Ladies And Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones, which would only be shown in a few cinemas in 1974 before being forgotten, until a restored version would be re-released in 2010. In Germany and Canada, the concert film would achieve gold status within a week.
Last but not least, Allen Klein prevented the release of the live album, which was a catastrophe, as rock music lost one of its most meaningful works. After the recordings had survived for decades as bootlegs, the emergence of video suddenly brought them to light and today they are regarded as the most beautiful that the band has ever played.