I know there were already a lot of threads about the 1978 Tour,but I was watching the other day the Fort Worth video and was extremely surprised by the difference in Jagger 's stage business between 75/76 and 78.
Of course I noticed it myself remembering the 1976 show (graceful,mellow and arrogant movements) and 1978 (wild jumping ,crazy moves and wild eyes ).

Was it only because of cocaïne ? It was obvious on the SNL rehearsals but I didn't remember seeing him so thin and "out of his head" as in the interviews at this time.
In 1976's BBC "Old Grey Whistle Test" he seemed to have a lot of fun,laughting and cool ,drunks or on drugs but really sweet.Why was it different ?



I am a Frenchie ,as Mick affectionately called them in the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1977 .

It's all an act, dude. His 'reaction' to the punk revolution. As hollow as a dead hollow tree - but effective.

I was shocked when I saw the 78 Jagger in 78. I was expecting the Jagger swagger from 69 or 72 - it was totally different and yes, very effective. Love the 78 tour.

He was amazingly skinny in 1978.

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skipstone
It's all an act, dude. His 'reaction' to the punk revolution. As hollow as a dead hollow tree - but effective.

mick always tries to stay trendy .

You can see his thingy in that photo. Ewww.

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skipstone
It's all an act, dude. His 'reaction' to the punk revolution. As hollow as a dead hollow tree - but effective.

"His reaction to the punk revolution ".Interesting point.
Sure ,the Stones in 1978 were facing the loud punk revolution .
But do you mean it was "all pose" ?
Mick Jagger and the boys were really partying during this period and Jagger was obviously taking coke or I don't know which drugs with Peter Tosh backstage ( why else would Mick lick Ronnie Wood on the lips during the Stones' 1978 Saturday Night Live performance of Shattered ?Just watch at his eyes ,completely @#$%& )

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[skipstone]
( why else would Mick lick Ronnie Wood on the lips during the Stones' 1978 Saturday Night Live performance of Shattered ?Just watch at his eyes ,completely @#$%& )
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Because it was all part of the punk attitude Mick adjusted to in '78. He was just trying to be obnoxious on national TV, that's all.

Mathijs

So no coke on 1978 ? Only a provocative attitude ,uh? Funny how some people seem to avoid the subject

Bob Colacello:

"... Andy [Warhol] flirted with coke, though he was really sneaky about it...Andy wasn't taking anywhere near as much as the rest of us because he knew that he had the most addictive personality of all. It came out in his shopping, collecting, painting, pill taking - and in the way he'd throw back four or five straight vodkas in a row when he wanted to 'get good and drunk'. Of course, he always denied taking coke. I even heard him deny taking it as he was sticking it up his nose...

One night in April 1978, Andy and I had dinner at La Grenouille with Mick Jagger, Jerry Hall, and Barbara Allen. Then we all went back to Mick and Jerry's suite at the Pierre Hotel to listen to an advance tape of the new Rolling Stones album... Mick rolled some joints and poured some coke out on the coffee table.

'Should I try it?' said Andy. 'Just this once to see what everybody's doing? Oh, I can't, I just can't.' Then he quickly stuck his finger in it and rubbed some on his gums. 'It's not really taking it,' he said. 'It doesn't get inside, does it? It's just making my mouth feel funny, like going to the dentist.'

Andy had obviously done this before, and he had figured out a way in his mind to take it without taking it... Then when he thought I wasn't looking, he stuck his finger in the pile and sniffed the coke up his nose.

'You took it, Andy', I said.

'I did not Bob. You're making it up.'

Everyone laughed, including Andy, and when Mick went into the bedroom for a minute, he nudged me and said, 'Do you think Mick will mind if we take some more?' He rubbed some more on his gums, saying again, 'This isn't really taking it.'




And raining coke in the Studio 54....



I am a Frenchie ,as Mick affectionately called them in the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1977 .

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SwayStones
So no coke on 1978 ? Only a provocative attitude ,uh? Funny how some people seem to avoid the subject

I dind't say that. They all have been doing coke since the late 60's, with Taylor, Wood, Richards and Bobby Keys and Ian MacLagan developing severe addictions over the years. There's plenty of stories about Stones and huge amounts of pharmaceutical coke.

What I said is that I don't think there is a relation with coke and Jagger licking Wood's lips. That was just an act to be rebelious, just as the Pistols were spitting on stage and at the audience.

Ps, the reason why Jagger was coarse during the SNL (and they had to play BoB two semitones lower) was that they were partying really hard the night before with John Belushi, also a known coke addict.

Mathijs

"no one can out punk Keith!"-Jagger

Yeah, funny, the punks got their seed planted by Gene Vincent, Jerry Lee, Little Richard... The Stones out punked them in the sixties...Out glammed the glams, with a punk edge. They are fvcked up, hitting life hard, pissed off, scared, and full of artistic expression. New punk. The Punk Meets The Godfather.
'78 is thrilling. THey are so full of raw rock and roll and rolling hard and fast. Dressed in Rubber, swastika shirt, licking lips, great cock shots. Whew, and behind that the flat out hard ass Some Girls fueling their act. Back to the basics and back to being hungry again! Posing? Hell yes! But they had to prove themselves again, add some coke, great ganja, and park avenue apartments. The world was their oyster again. Shattered!

Mathijs ,sorry if I misunderstood your answer .I think I get the point now.

Whitems ,nice description !
How to survive to the 70 's and being still here in the 80's.

Rock critic Robert Christgau had very hard words about the 1978 Tour :"it was an improvement over the group's previous go-around, especially when Mick Jagger stopped prancing long enough to pick up a guitar and get into the good new songs from Some Girls."

From "According to the Rolling Stones" :
KEITH: Mick was always far more interested than me in the pop scene. In the late '70s there were some very interesting things going on with the disco beat- you had that whole "four on the floor" thing, four beats in a bar on the bass drum- and also punk was happening, so there was an interesting juxtaposition.

RONNIE: Those punk songs were our message to those boys. We never sat around talking about punk, but you couldn't avoid it. It was on the news all the time with the Sex Pistols and The Clash and all the other punk bands. It was something that was in the air exactly the same way disco was when "Miss You" came around: we didn't get together and say "Let's make a disco song". It was a rhythm that was popular and so we made a song like that.

KEITH: My attitude has never been to aim anything at the audience: It's "I like this- fling it out".

CHARLIE: The punk stuff was really the mood of the moment. Mick is a great flavor-of-the-month person, so we had gone from playing the "four on the floor" rhythms on "Miss You" to trying to be Johnny Rotten, who was trying to be us, in a way. That was fine with me, because it's all really the same thing.





I am a Frenchie ,as Mick affectionately called them in the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1977 .

Great tour but I cannot watch that SNL performance. I did once and that was enough. To think they were playing as the biggest and best in the world at the time is fkn tragic. Jagger had a coke fked voice and was over performing and singing out of tune and the rest of the band sounded as though they'd just met for first time rehearsals.

Lucky the album they'd just released was so bloody good and sold like hot cakes cos I think had SG missed the mark it may have been the end of them commercially - or at least what they were used to success wise anyway if performing was all they were left to rely on.

Of all the Stones tours since 1972 that I followed, 1978 is the ONE I wish they'd skipped!

Please say it ain't so,Debra!!!!!!!!!!

there's one thing that no one ever mentions about the '78 tour. during that summer they did not know what was going to happen with keith's court case in the fall. they had a press ban to some extent and i always felt that they were going to enjoy that tour on their terms, period. touring on what they know is a great album. good mix of theaters and stadiums. all the "bad" press about the shows was nothing more than whining from rolling stone magazine about how they aren't doing it like they did in '72. same for '75 complains, too. if there is any tour that was totally self indulgent, it was '78. that's why mick always says it was a good tour and why it's one of my favorites.

( why else would Mick lick Ronnie Wood on the lips during the Stones' 1978 Saturday Night Live performance of Shattered ?Just watch at his eyes ,completely @#$%& )

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I believe it was during "respectable"

Cream magazine loved the boys of 78. THey were rock gods again. Regained their roll. Great article on Keith possibly going to jail...Mick saying the Stones would continue if fellow glimmer twin ended up a ward of the state. They shocked Detroit, didn't put it on the tour schedule and then blew into town playing at Masonic Temple a small theater. Caused pandemonium in downtown Detroit. WABX was down there with mics blazing, as 800 folk stormed the doors in the back ally...many got in...
They were bad boys again. Full of swagger, and living loose and dangerous. I remember another article in Cream about Somegirls amazed that Keif, Ronnie, and Mick were harmonizing like "choir boys..." Shadoobee, uh, shadoobee, uh, shadoobee...like the chant of the undead. Spine chillin'.

Its true that all the "Punk" pretenders found out who the real bosses were with this tour! And The Stones has alot of punk bands on the bill at diff venues showing they werent afraid of the competition.

i always felt it was odd on this tour that they went to bigger venues (for the most part - more stadiums) with a more stripped down show than 75/76

They needed the bigger venues in order to make enough money to cover the costs of the small shows, didnt they? I dont know-just a thought. I remember reading in the local Ft Worth paper that their bar bill came to more than what they made on the Will Rogers Aud gig(which was great by the way!)

My favorite concert of all time was the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, NJ on a Wednesday nite...I lost my hearing completely that nite, no buzzes, nothing but dead silence. It stayed like that, which terrified me, until I woke up in a hotel room in Philly with friends to see the Stones in JFK Stadium on Saturday. When I woke up, I could hear a TV playing in the room after 2 full days and nites of complete silence. My hearing has been fine ever since, figure that one out.

I remember all the hype in the papers and radio stations during the 78 tour. I'm glad I went it was well worth it and to top it off it was sunny and outside 90,000.

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squando
Great tour but I cannot watch that SNL performance. I did once and that was enough. To think they were playing as the biggest and best in the world at the time is fkn tragic. Jagger had a coke fked voice and was over performing and singing out of tune and the rest of the band sounded as though they'd just met for first time rehearsals.

Jagger was sick if I am not misunderstood (throat illness they say ..)

I imagine how good they have sounded if Mick's voice had been OK !!The rehearsals looks better than the show itself.
Guitars are great .But Mick's voice sounds horrible especially during "Respectable "

( why else would Mick lick Ronnie Wood on the lips during the Stones' 1978 Saturday Night Live performance of Shattered ?Just watch at his eyes ,completely @#$%& )

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I believe it was during "respectable"
Hbwriter ,of course ,you're right ,it was during "Respectable ".Let's say I wrote the wrong title ' because I was under Mick's performance .



I am a Frenchie ,as Mick affectionately called them in the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1977 .

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Bimmelzerbott
He was amazingly skinny in 1978.

Hasn't changed much...

Im a 78 fan.....A few weeks ago brother Urban Steel...posted the shoes show in Anaheim LA.......this tour is a mystery to me.......its forgotten....but not by us high...ska r&R lers!!

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SwayStones


Jagger was sick if I am not misunderstood (throat illness they say ..)

Err.... um, yeah. Throat illness. The same "throat illness" Bowie had throughout the 76 tour too.

Otherwise know as "What Happens To Your Throat And Voice After You Do Piles Of Cocaine."

J

Thats like the 73 or 75 Zep Tour(or maybe both!!). They open with R n R and on almost all my boots Robert sounds like he cant even make it through the song,much less the concert. Sounds like awful flu and then by the second song or so hes hitting all the notes! Must have been that "numbing" throat spray!

AKA the disappointment tour.

From the crappy opener "Let It Rock" to the string of Some Girls tunes that never seemed to end, to Mick's guitar playin experiment, and the short haircuts, and the afternoon shows that ruined the atmosphere of the concert.

I think that a good start.

THE LAST BIG BAD STONES 'UP AGAINST THE WALL,MOTHERF--KER' TOUR!!!! (of course just my humble opinion)