Detroit

Thursday, July 13 & Friday, July 14

 

    Like Denver, Houston, and St. Louis, Detroit is a two-show town with no available audience recordings.  Fortunately, the abundant press coverage bridges most of the set list gap and clearly establishes the Friday show as the true holder of the Uptight/Satisfaction trophy.  That is to say, contrary to what you read in Karnbach and Bernson’s It’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll, the Stones and Stevie Wonder debuted their late-tour encore jam in Detroit on July 14 (not in St. Louis on July 9).  And so, if the long-awaited boot of Detroit’s second STP show ever surfaces, it could rightfully borrow the famed 1969 title of “We Never Really Got It On Till Detroit” in honor of the medley’s premiere.  Indeed, from all reports here, the Friday show was an amazing, high-energy affair, perhaps one of the wildest of the entire tour.  But then the outdoor and indoor security presence at Cobo was remarkably tight, too, and “the pigs” may have snuffed out all audience attempts to record the concert.

 

 

July 13

 

Detroit News

 

Detroit Free Press

 

Globe and Mail

Brown Sugar

Brown Sugar

 

 

Bitch

 

 

Rocks Off

 

 

Gimme Shelter

 

 

Happy

 

“a pair of slow blues tunes”

Tumbling Dice

 

“Robert Johnson blues number”

 

“an acoustic number”

Sweet Virginia

 

 

 

YCAGWYW

 

All Down The Line

 

Midnight Rambler

Midnight Rambler

 

 

 

 

 

“Shake This Joint” = RTJ

 

JJF

JJF

 

SFM

SFM

SFM

 

Jagger: “blue denim jacket”

 

Jagger: “lavender silk jumpsuit”

 

 

“15-song set”

 

 

 

Opening: Stevie Wonder

 

 

Jagger: “a purple jumpsuit studded with rhinestones and cinched with a belt and a couple of mauve scarves”

 

SFM: ”the last song”

 

Detroit News: “The grand entrance was without fanfare. Keith Richard was first out and nearly lost his footing as he staggered across the stage. Jagger came swerving into the light just as a beach ball floated toward him as if it were on a cue. He gave it a hearty swat which marked his first defiant act of the evening and then removed his cap and gave a long, exaggerated bow.”

 

Detroit News: “[Jagger] removed his blue denim jacket and waved it like a matador intimately at his bassist, Bill Wyman. ‘Hello Dee-troit,’ was his recognition of the crowd. ‘It’s hot up here...hotter than Alabama.’”

 

Detroit Free Press: “The early part of the evening was strange – especially for Detroit. Detroit is Kick Out the Jams people. But there was almost nothing. Smiling, certainly. And clapping and bouncing of feet and stomping. But none of the mayhem Detroit is famous for.”

 

Detroit Free Press: “There came a point during All Down The Line where Jagger chugged over to extreme stage right and rested his head on palm-to-palm hands, beddie-by style, chiding the peanut gallery for keeping their ya-yas in.”

 

Detroit Free Press: “[Stage climbers] are eased back into the pit gently. When three cops climb up to help out, security man Leroi Leonard, his white tennis hat pushed back, straightarms them off the stage. The fans who see it grab his hand to shake it. One girl kisses his palm. Leroi is smiling.”

 

Detroit Free Press: “The Stones are into Jumping Jack Flash, their next-to-last number. In the whiteness, the sweat on Jagger’s chest glistens like oil. The ornate cross around his neck dangles madly as he jumps up and down, crazily pursing his lips, fluttering his fingers. Jagger can touch the end of his nose with a pursed lip when he pouts. The lavender silk jumpsuit is clinging to him not because of tightness, but wetness.”

 

Detroit Free Press: “’Were they down?’ Mick Jagger asked. ‘Detroit is supposed to have riots. Tonight it was weird. And we were good – better than in Washington. There it was bad; too many people too far away. But we’ll be better Friday night. I have a feeling Friday night will be very good.”

 

 

 

July 14

 

Ann Arbor Sun

 

Windsor Star

 

Michigan Daily

 

 

Brown Sugar

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gimme Shelter

 

 

Happy

 

 

Tumbling Dice

 

 

Love In Vain

Love In Vain

 

Sweet Virginia

 

YCAGWYW

YCAGWYW

YCAGWYW

 

All Down The Line

 

Midnight Rambler

Midnight Rambler

 

 

 

 

 

Bye Bye Johnny

 

 

JJF

 

 

SFM

 

Uptight/Satisfaction

Uptight/Satisfaction

Uptight/Satisfaction

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Opening: Stevie Wonder

 

Jagger: “white jump suit accented by red sash and scarf”

 

 

 

 

Opening: Stevie Wonder

 

Jagger: “silky white pants studded with silvery gems and fringed in red” plus “white shirt half-concealed by a jeans jacket and that infamous red scarf”

 

Opening: Stevie Wonder

 

 

Michigan Daily: “His [Jagger’s] hat, filled with sparkles, he quickly tipped, shaking a glitter-ridden head of hair for the remainder of the evening.”

 

Fifth Estate: “The crowd was Motor City people. Both the Stones and the people knew that. They – the people – understood that their response to this band was expected and welcomed. They did respond; rushing the stage and several times jumping on it, chasing after Mick Jagger and winding up in the arms of a burly stage manager. There was clapping and stomping and Cobo was on its feet. The Stones sucked this energy up and blasted it back in the form of Atomic Rock and Roll...When the Cobo security guards cleared the aisle, the energy ebbed. For a while, it even became tense. Finally, Jagger took the mike. ‘I don’t think it’s good,’ he said, ‘for people to have to stay in their seats.’ People cheered and the Stones went into another number. But as the band played the pigs opened the aisles and the Cobo Hall Rolling Stones appearance became what it had promised to be.”

 

Michigan Daily: “’I don’t believe in this not standing up and moving around,” [Jagger] soon winced to an audience who had thus far been fairly well-controlled in their seats, and who then thronged downward, forcing themselves beyond human chains of security guards to completely fill the main floor and close in on the stage.”

 

Detroit Free Press: “As Mick Jagger jumps and yelps through his act, [Cobo security director Robert] Tripp is moving quickly, sideways, through the crowd, asking, then telling fans to return to their seats...’Look at my aisles,’ Tripp says proudly with a wink later. ‘They’re empty. Now that’s a lesson in crowd control.’ But it’s a lesson done too well because Jagger is not pleased and says into the mike: ‘I’m not keen on people not being allowed to stand up if they want to stand up.’ A hurried, tense conference off stage right; Tripp and Peter Rudge, tour coordinator, shout into each other’s ears to be heard. Agreed: Jagger will be accommodated. The kids can dance in the aisles, they can rush the stage. The show catches fire: Jagger is all over the stage. All 12,000 fans are on their feet, stomping, screaming, rocking.”

 

Rolling Stone: “[The Montreal bombing] killed plans for another joint encore by the Stones and the Stevie Wonder band – first tried in Detroit (Satisfaction).”

 

Ann Arbor Sun: “The Rolling Stones concert Friday was bomb. The first half of their show was predictable and fairly tame as Jagger strutted his stuff in a kind of ersatz hysteria and the band behind him for the most part kept their cools well under control, but starting with the first few bars of Midnight Rambler it got higher and higher all the way to the end when the crowd jumped and screamed yelling for more. Mick and the boys and Wonderlove (Stevie Wonder’s band which opened the show with a dynamite performance) came back up on stage for an unprecedented Jagger-Stevie Wonder jam as their special encore for the Detroit energy addicts. They wailed into Stevie’s masterpiece Up Tight and then smoked straight into the only possible closing tune for the night – Satisfaction – with Mick and Stevie gyrating and jumping into the air while thousands of rock and roll crazed sisters and brothers went nuts trying to get off finally in the oppressive atmosphere of Cobo Hall.”

 

Melody Maker: “The Detroit concerts were a strange pair. The first night the audience that usually goes bananas was almost staid – and quiet...Friday, the second concert got together. The crowd rushed the stage a third of the way into the evening, and the ushers and cops scattered like chickens from a fox. Mick loved it – so much that he called opening act Stevie Wonder back onstage for a dual encore of Uptight and Satisfaction, which drove the already frenzied crowd absolutely wild.”

 

Michigan Daily: “Thursday’s crowd had been denied a re-appearance by the Stones, and in fact, encores are not normal policy for the group. But Friday’s crowd was super-hyped and super-persistent...Finally, the Stones appeared, joined by Stevie Wonder and his ensemble. Wonder, who had earlier given an excellent performance, jumped about on stage, led by Jagger. In unison, they wailed a medley that drifted from Uptight to I can’t get no satisfaction.”

 

Melody Maker: “Friday, [Jagger] was happy as he came offstage into the arms of his bodyguard, Leroi Leonard. ‘A good show, man,’ he said as the Stones headed into the air-conditioned camper that gets them from the concerthalls to their hotel.”

 

 

 

Selected Press Clippings

 

Ann Arbor Sun

 

Detroit Free Press1 * 2 * 4 * 5 * 6 * 7

 

Detroit News1 * 2 * 3

 

Fifth Estate1 * 2 * 3

 

Globe and Mail

 

Melody Maker4 * 5

 

Michigan Daily2 * 3 * 3c * 3d

 

Windsor Star