herb4 said:

^^^It was like that everywhere^^^

I looked it up and the Stones had several black opening acts over the years so just saying "he was black" is too lazy. I'm sure it didn't help matters though.

https://rickkeenemusicsce...ince-1962/

Rufus, The Meters, Gap Band, Peter Tosh, Black Uhuru, Living Color, Lenny Kravitz, Tina Turner, Etta James, Screamin Jay Hawkins...go look. Shit, the Stones whole sound is "black" and rooted in or blatantly ripped off from blues and r&b.

So I'm gonna put it down disco backlash, the falsetto, the bikini briefs (even Jagger never went there), homophobia and, if I had to guess, I'd bet that "Jack U Off" wasn't working for em much either and my have been what tipped the scales. Weird to think about but if, at that time, Prince had a setlist that could have included The Ride, Calhoun Square, Xanalee, Joy in Repetition, I Could Never the Place of Your Man, The Truth and shit like that, it might have turned out differently.

That, and wear some god damned pants lol.

By 1981, rock and roll fans were openly hostile to disco and even Stones fans were not keen on "Miss You" and "Emotional Rescue" and die hards hated the band for doing those tracks. I liked them but at that point I was liking a lot of different musical styes that my cohorts weren't embracing even though they loves the Stones.

It came up in another thread, but busing opened my eyes and ears to a lot of stuff I wouldn't have heard otherwise but others I knew were more..."tribal" about it and didn't dig anything that wasn't Led Zep and shit like that. Weird, again, because all that stuff is straight up blues and r&b and Jagger pushed the edge of sexuality constantly so who knows.


Sorry....rambling

Trivia time- 'Miss You' was a revenge song that Mick Jagger wrote to get back at his ex Bianca who frequented Studio 54, which was THE disco in New York City. The song was a huge hit and I'm sure it brought a smile to Mick's face when he thought of how often it got spun by the dj at 54.

Audiences weren't sophisticated and thought a Black man playing rock at a Rolling Stone concert was an afront .....what's easy to forget is that people went through a really dumb period and the idea that the Rolling Stones appropriated Black blues was totally lost on a lot of their fans. The rock crowd was really segregated. Remember Rolling Stones were the first to play stadiums, and it was still a new concept. It didn't exactly bring out the best in people.

BrownMark talks Prince & the Revolution, the bass in Purple Music & the Minneapolis scene/sound

2.1.2015

This is an exclusive interview with Mark "Brown Mark" Brown from The Five Count radio show in Mankato, Minn.

Brown Mark

Yeah, you know the thing about the Rolling Stones, I don't talk to journalist too much because they... I was always reluctant to give interviews throught my career. And one thing about the Rolling Stones concert and just an example It wasn't as bad as what a lot of the press made it.
If you go to any Rolling Stones concert IDK if you've ever been to one, but u have a hostile audience, you had 94.000 people packed into a stadium, festival seating so everyone was standing it was hot fire hoses spraying the people down like cattle, and with that kind of an atmosphere you're going to get an very irritable crowd. And they wanted to see the Rolling Stones.
So here we come out and where somebody knew and we're a new group, they didn't know who were were. There were a handful of fans that knew who were were and they worked their way up to the front. But for the most part that was a Rolling Stones crowd so when we got up there it wasn't that they were booing us or didn't not like Prince, it was a typical reaction from a Rolling Stones crowd. One persons starts throwing food from one side of the stage next thing you know we are in the middle of a food fight, it was pretty amazing because it looked like clouds of debris flying from one end of the stadium to the other. lol and we just got caught in the crossfire. It was just a typical reaction of Rolling Stones audiences, I've seen it many times before. And what happened is the announcer went out and he kind of barked at the people "You guys are being disrespectful blah blah blah" Next thing you know they were booing, they weren't booing at us, they were booing what he was saying. The papers took that a whole different way. But the Rolling Stones, man what an awesome gig. When I went out there and I saw all those people I was like WOW so this is the big time.

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That Time Prince Got Booed Off the Rolling Stones' Stage

Bryan Wawzenek

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"Next thing I noticed was food starting to fly through the air like a dark thunder cloud. Imagine 94,000 people throwing food at each other; it was the craziest thing I had ever seen in my life," remembered bassist Brown Mark, who had just joined Prince's band. "I got hit in the shoulder with a bag of fried chicken; then my guitar got knocked out of tune by a large grapefruit that hit the tuning keys..."

Putting aside the infamous L.A. gig opening for the Rolling Stones, what's the most insane thing you've ever seen or experienced onstage? And as mortifying as that first Stones show was, how did you find the overwhelming courage to do it again the second night? So much respect is due to you all.

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Dez Dickerson: The folklore surrounding those shows is fairly epic, especially regarding how things went down Day 1 versus Day 2. The shows took place with a day off in between, on Friday and Sunday, and we had a very different experience on the first show than the second. The response after the first song on the first day was something I'll never forget — the sound of 120,000 people cheering is almost overwhelming. In addition to rank and file fans, there were hundreds of Hell's Angels in the audience. They did not look favorably on a short black man wearing high heels, leg warmers, bikini underwear and a trenchcoat, singing in falsetto, on the Stones' stage, and they let us know, along with a few other similarly inclined individuals. They threw paper Coke cups and booed heartily, but they were outnumbered by those who cheered us.It was enough to rattle Prince, though, who exited the stage early and left the band onstage to fend for themselves. He left the stadium and went straight to the airport, returning to Minneapolis. Bill Graham, the promoter, got up onstage and cussed out the people he singled out as troublemakers, and he got booed. The word that went out between Friday and Sunday is that we had been booed off the stage, which was not true — Bill got booed, we just cut our set short. A station that broadcast live from the stadium misreported the booing thing, and the legend grew until Sunday, by which time thousands came to the show intent on running us out of town. In the interim, after attempts by both our managers and Mick Jagger to convince Prince to come back and do the second show, I was asked by management to call and talk to him. We talked for 45 minutes, and I convinced him to get on a plane and come back. It was a bit like landing on Normandy Beach on stage the second day, but we did our entire set and left on our terms — that was important to us.

You were there for the Rolling Stones gig. Tell me a little bit about that. On one hand is there a sense of pride, for lack of a better term in a way because it's a confrontation, you're getting attention. Or was it really awful?

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Bobby Z:

It was a feat. It was literally an accomplishment to survive it. That's what the Rolling Stones thing was, it was really just an accomplishment to survive it.

It was a crowd that really didn't quite understand him yet and artist who thought maybe the Rolling Stones' audience would get him a little earlier. I'm sure they all do now. Stones fans are probably big Prince fans. Everybody's a Prince fan. It was just a cross-section of timing, society, what he was wearing, which was basically the Dirty Mind stage wear: Bikini briefs, leg warmers, high heels and a trench coat. He was courageous and brave and thought he could win over 80,000 people at the L.A. Coliseum at two o' clock in the afternoon.

The Stones didn't go on until seven at night, so you know that these people, either the acid's kicking in at two or whatever's happening at two but they want the Stones. As soon as they hear, "Hello," the roar of the crowd, they weren't ready for Prince and maybe Prince wasn't ready for them in some ways. It was a debacle, a physical hurling of objects, which is not something you sign up for when you become a musician.

Prince: The Story of 1999 bonus feature: Dr. Fink, 'When Prince sang live, he was just impeccable'

by Andrea Swensson
January 3, 2020

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Dr Fink:

Well, just having the opportunity to open for the Stones, being youngsters from the Midwest who looked up to all those guys, was really a dream come true; a fantasy fulfilled, as you might think.

Unfortunately, it was a bit disappointing because of the reception that we received by quite a few of the audience members. I know there were people out there that were more polite, and probably gave us the benefit of the doubt, but then you had these people out there that didn't seem to appreciate what we were about, and so we took the stage, we started to play, and then people were flipping us the bird and they were booing and they were throwing food and bottles and cans and crumpled-up paper cups. We were all nearly pelted with stuff. I know I got pelted, actually, in my head with one of those crumpled-up paper cups. It did sting.

But what was interesting is I thought that the Rolling Stones had more of a '60s counterculture kind of audience that would be more peaceful than this, so I was a bit surprised by that. So it kind of took on that Hell's Angels edge, since they allowed the Hell's Angels to still be their security force, even at that time. So you had this faction of unruly types that didn't really quite get what Prince was doing. So you had a mixed-race group of people up there, mixed gender, Prince was dressed in his trench coat and his thigh-high stockings and high-heeled boots and just looking radical compared to what they were used to, although Mick Jagger used to come out in kind of sexy clothing at times.

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Mick Jagger, of course, appreciated Prince. He personally asked us to come and do that show, and he begged Prince to come back and do the second show in spite of the first one being as disappointing as it was. Unfortunately, the second show went about the same, but I will tell you that even the Stones fans threw shoes at Mick, up onto the stage. So I just wanted to let you know they just were in general not the nicest people. And I'll never forget what Mick said during the show once there was just a stage full of people's shoes up there. He said, "I ain't a frickin' doormat! What are you doing? What are you thick people doing?" So he was complaining too at the violence and just the rudeness of these people. So yeah, it was really surprising.

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Yeah, there was definitely some booing there at the end, wasn't there? The issue is they weren't ready for that kind of overt slang sexuality, and I think that's what took them by surprise.

"Jack you off," yeah! I don't think they appreciated — I gotta tell you, when Prince presented that song to the band back in the day — and we all played on that song, by the way — in the studio, and I was concerned, actually. As much as I thought "OK, he's gonna shock — it is the shocker — it's for shock value in a lot of ways," and that's what he was about. I did say to him, I said, "Are you worried that this could have an adverse reaction?" He shrugged his shoulders and [said] "Yeah, that's the point."

I've talked to some of your bandmates about the experience, but what comes to your mind when you think about that experience?

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Lisa Coleman:

Oh, wow, that was just something I will never forget, and that whole experience was so unreal, because first of all, when the opportunity came up, it was really exciting. We hadn't ever done anything like that before. We were still pretty much playing little clubs and theaters, driving around in a station wagon, and then this opportunity came up because, I guess, Mick Jagger had seen us in New York or something like that, and he really thought Prince was something special, and he thought what a great idea: let's have him open for us at the sports arena, and I think that was a little too far-fetched of an idea for most people.

We traveled out there, out to L.A. — I'm actually in LA right now, so — when we came out here we were so excited, and just feeling like this was going to be something new and something really big, but we were really well rehearsed and trained, you know, so we tried to just be cool, like, you know, "No big deal, we can do this!"

...When we started playing, it was just so weird. It was like, "What is the crowd doing? They don't seem to be behaving the way most crowds act when we play." And they just started throwing stuff.

And I just remember like this bottle whizzing by my head, and it landed between me and Bobby, and we both got splashed with bourbon or something, and Bobby was like, "I'm going to use my cymbals for shields!" And I was like, "I'm wide out in the open — help!"

And then I just saw Prince go running by me on my left-hand side, and he just ran all the way up the stairs, and we all looked at each other like, "What do we do?" We'll just finish the song, and we ran up the stairs too.

It was so confusing. I still think about it, and think how did that many people? — it really was like mob mentality, because I think even if a couple of people were there thinking, "Yeah, Prince is kind of cool!" or "Who are these people? Let's listen," they were just turned immediately into, "Boooo! What are these strange freaks onstage? Get 'em outta here!"

It was insane. And then we all went back to our various hotels and whatnot, and we heard that Prince had flown all the way home — like, he went up the stairs, into a car, got his suitcase and got on a plane and was out of there. And I think it was Dez who ended up calling Prince and talking to him, saying, "Come on, man, this isn't what we are. We're fighters, and this is what we're going to have to be up against all the time."

And it was big lesson for us, and even though, you know, we had come out of the box outrageous and kind of punky, it was like we thought we were up for some trouble, and little did we know like really what trouble was until that day. So when that really happened, I think it also gave Prince a new kind of courage, because there was a sea of people as far as the eye could see, literally in front of him as if those were the people he was going to have to address, you know, to be the great artist that he wanted to be. You know, this was a battle that was going to have to be won, or at least faced — faced down. So he came back for the second show, which almost seems outrageous because we were so hated.

But we came back and did the second show. We did as much as we could. We were still getting stuff thrown at us, and lots of booze and middle fingers were flying, you know, but we got through it and we did the best — we rocked it and we ran off that stage, and like, "That was horrible — why did we do that?"

But, you know, it's become like this legend now. I don't know how many people have faced something like that, like literally being in a Coliseum is like Roman — like, "This is the Coliseum, isn't it? And there's tigers out there, and they wanna kill us!"

Lisa Coleman:

And I just remember walking down those stairs. There's like a huge stairway down at the Coliseum going to the stage. And I just remember feeling really nervous, like something unknown was going to happen. But in our minds I think we thought it was going to be something great!

http://thelisacoleman.com...years-ago/

Posted on October 8, 2016 by Lisa Coleman in music, news, update

That time we played with the Rolling Stones... it's hard to believe that was 35 years ago. About 8 years ago I produced a radio show about that experience. Attached here is the segment from my internet radio show, musicLAB. It's the master track of the piece so you won't hear any breaks or chatter. I hope you enjoy

RJOrion said:

because he was black.

The Rolling Stones have had a black bass player for almost 30 YEARS.

So, no.

SoulAlive said:

The cool thing is....just a few years after this fiasco,Prince was on top of the music world.Suddenly,everyone wanted to see him in concert.

That's the way it ALWAYS is. Do you think the people seeing The Doors in 1966 thought they were seeing anything special?

Prince was boo'd simply because the world hadn't caught up to him yet. That's the way it always is.

AnnaStesia10 said:

My step-dad was at the show and he remebers it like it was yesterday. He said he was getting high with one of his buddies up in the seats so he wasnt close, but saw him come on stage. He said Prince stood out because of his "prancing" around. Basically cuz of Prince's gay vibe, the way he looked and not because of his music, it was an issue. My dad said the crowd had bikers, Hells Angels-types and mainly white rock-n-rollers and to him it was a bad booking. He did see the crowd revolt against Prince and the band and throw a ton of stuff at them. I also work with a lady who was at the show as well, and she was up close so close enough to see his full outfit and she remembers thinking like whoa, what the "f" do you have on. She remembers seeing him wearing garter belts and his underwear under his trench coat, but I believe he just had on his thigh high black stockings. And she too said yeah the crowd was rough on him and there were biker types, hard ass dudes up in the front. I feel the main "ish" was Prince's attire, his mannerisms, the look of the band, But it was not the music maybe yes Jack U Off wasn't the best pick but that was Prince - bold. This crowd back in 1981 was just not ready for him and I do agree maybe it wasn't the best booking for that concert line-up and crowd. [Edited 1/15/20 0:57am]

Now I think about it, I don't think I've ever heard the term to "jack someone off" to mean anything other than masturbating a man, apart from the song 'Jack U Off' where the subject of the "jacking" is a woman. Doesn't 'jack' in this context means mean to pull, pump or hoist?

Given that the guy was already dancing around the bikini briefs and heels it wouldn't be too farfetched for the crowd to think he was singing about pulling a guy off. That was the song he was performing when it all kicked off right?

It could well have been that Prince's act was too gay for them. Maybe if his set list was different we'd have seen a different outcome. Still, if it's true that this incident lit a fire under his ass and motivated him to make '1999' and all the great music he recorded in '82 then we're all better off for it.

Mick always had his fingers on the pulse of the next big thing. He liked Prince, and you could even tell in the 1981 press conference that he was excited when he said his name.

That Time Prince Got Booed Off the Rolling Stones' Stage

Bryan Wawzenek

Mick Jagger:

After Prince played "Jack U Off," one fan remembers promoter Bill Graham coming on stage in an attempt to calm the field-level hordes, to little avail. Prince and pals stopped the set partway through their fourth song, "Uptown," amidst a stadium's worth of boos. Stones fans had successfully turned Prince away.

A frustrated and upset Prince was reportedly crying backstage, vowing to skip the second show two days later. He flew home to Minnesota without the band. A round of calls from his manager, his guitarist Dez Dickerson and Jagger encouraged Prince to try again on Oct. 11.

"I talked to Prince on the phone once after he got two cans thrown at him in L.A. He said he didn't want to do any more shows," Mick recalled in 1983. "God, I got thousands of bottles and cans thrown at me! Every kind of debris. I told him, if you get to be a really big headliner, you have to be prepared for people to throw bottles at you in the night."

Here is a very entertaining description of exactly what it's like to be an "opening act" by Henry Rollins. Very much worth your 4 minutes...........

it won't let me paste the link but search this on youtube FUNNY AS HELL: Henry rollins jokes about metalheads and iron maiden

I doubt anyone there even heard the lyrics to Jack U Off to the point where it led to this... I could imagine his clothes and "prancing" put some of the rowdier and drunker members off, add a bit of racism (even if only a bit), a bit of still simmering disco sucks mentality, and the fact that everyone in a crowd loves to act as one and it all combines into what it was.

More importantly, they won, Prince left the stage and abandoned the show. They say the second night was even worse, which makes sense to me because the worst members of the crowd knew they had rattled him and wanted to do it again, and even worse, and brought their mates this time.

comment by a fan on this video of W&L https://www.youtube.com/w...ENP0mxEGTo

He's someone who was there during one of the shows. very interesting :

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Myself and my then-girlfriend were inn that crowd, maybe in the 30 or so rows mentioned. Here is my experience. We were already "fly's in the milk", if you get what I mean. I'd never been to a rock festival up to that point, ever, in my life. I'm a musician that grew up loving The Stones' music, and then came Prince, who was a big influence on me as a musician, so it was a win-win situation seeing the 2 groups. I was anticipating a great show. Being some of the few blacks in the crowd was already a nerve-racking experience. But it went way beyond that: there were drugs being sold, smoked, inhaled, dropped-you name it, and I'd never been around that type of environment, ever. Especially on that scale. I guess it was just typical for a Stones concert. We just tried to keep to ourselves and be quiet. Well, Prince comes on, and the crowd started saying all kinds of things, saying some very negative things. I was shocked, but I was hoping it would just die down. But it didn't. We tried to just concentrate on the show, but people began throwing things-first food, then shoes, bottles, whatever they thought would reach the stage and I guess inflict injury upon its target. I remember Brown Mark watching someone near us hurl a bottle his way. He watched it heading his way, then at the few seconds before impact he sidestepped it, never missing a note! Impressive, but so unnecessary. I was crushed by the whole experience. At the time, I was in a semi professional band trying to make it myself, and I thought 'Wow', is this the type of thing I'd have to look forward to? It really put something into my head. The most profound thing that came out that day was this: After Prince and the band got off stage, maybe an hour later, there was a girl in the crowd with a radio blaring. She had it on a radio station that was playing a variety of music. Prince's hit song "Sexy Dancer" comes on, and people were getting into it around us. I had to speak up. I said "you guys like that song playing right now?" They all said "yeah this is cool". I replied "that's funny, because you just booed him off stage"! Total silence. Total, awkward, silence. They had no idea who Prince was. I'll never forget that day

mydrawers said:

RJOrion said:

because he was black.

The Rolling Stones have had a black bass player for almost 30 YEARS.

So, no.

These shows happened almost 40 years ago, you don't think a considerable portion of their fanbase might have been at least a little racist? Also, just because they've had a black bassist for a while doesn't mean the racism was magically poofed from their fanbase. You'd be surprised how many racists still enjoy art created by people of color in spite of their bigotry.

mydrawers said:

RJOrion said:

because he was black.

The Rolling Stones have had a black bass player for almost 30 YEARS.

So, no.

This was 1981. When things were different. And an opening act is not the same as a band member. Geezus, I cant beliee this has to be explained.

laytonian said:

From a 2005 post here: Basses Mark Brown said although he knew Prince to be straight, "When you talk about street lingo, where I come from, guys don't jack girls off," Brown noted. "Prince didn't understand that-Prince was in his own world."

Right. Its called "F...B...." for lack of a better term. And I dont believe Prince didnt know that. Especially by 1981 lol.

RODSERLING said:

He should have performed rock in front of the audience of the Rolling Stones (I m yours, Bambi, Part Up, Ronnie talk to Russia, Annie Christian) without emphasinging so much on his [Snip - luv4u] look.

He started his set with Bambi.

With songs like Head and Jack U Off, Prince was de-genderizing very genderized terms of the time. People ahead of their time are, at times, villified until the rest of the world catches up. Ketchup!

Plus, those were all Keef fans .

RODSERLING said:

It was clearly up to the young Prince to adapt to this audience, like, if you go to a jazz Festival, well, you perform jazz. . He should have performed rock in front of the audience of the Rolling Stones (I m yours, Bambi, Part Up, Ronnie talk to Russia, Annie Christian) without emphasinging so much on his [Snip - luv4u] look. .

Rod, you trying to get yourself banned or something? lol. Dont go out like that.

I'm guessing that the Stones stopped using Hell's Angels as security shortly after...not due to these particular shows, but the industry itself changing. Still, I am a bit surprised to learn that they were still using these guys after Altamont. Using the Hell's Angels for concert security wasn't unheard of for bigger bands back in the 60s, but I figured that Altamont would have given the Stones pause for future gigs. Guess not, jesus.

PliablyPurple said:

I'm guessing that the Stones stopped using Hell's Angels as security shortly after...not due to these particular shows, but the industry itself changing. Still, I am a bit surprised to learn that they were still using these guys after Altamont. Using the Hell's Angels for concert security wasn't unheard of for bigger bands back in the 60s, but I figured that Altamont would have given the Stones pause for future gigs. Guess not, jesus.

What are you talking about. They didnt use HA as security on the Tatoo You tour. It was only for one concert in 1969, infamous Altamont concert.

rdhull said:

PliablyPurple said:

I'm guessing that the Stones stopped using Hell's Angels as security shortly after...not due to these particular shows, but the industry itself changing. Still, I am a bit surprised to learn that they were still using these guys after Altamont. Using the Hell's Angels for concert security wasn't unheard of for bigger bands back in the 60s, but I figured that Altamont would have given the Stones pause for future gigs. Guess not, jesus.

What are you talking about. They didnt use HA as security on the Tatoo You tour. It was only for one concert in 1969, infamous Altamont concert.

Read the above Dr Fink quote.

For those who think Prince had it bad, this might highlight the Stones crowed to understand.
I don't know what it is really(nothing against the Stones) but why they drew such a crowed?...
well lol A rebellious image 'sex drugs and rock n roll'

Prince and his band got off easy

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https://www.ranker.com/list/rolling-stones-hells-angels-security/erin-mccann

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According to Mick Taylor, "About five minutes after we arrived, just after we got out of the helicopter, I was with Mick [Jagger] and there were a couple of security guards with us, and a guy broke through and punched [Jagger] in the face."

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One Hells Angels member jabbed Stephen Stills in the leg with a bicycle spoke several times. Ace of Cups' Denise Jewkes suffered a fractured skull from a thrown beer bottle. As Jefferson Airplane played, Marty Balin noticed a group of Angels attacking a man near the stage and tried to break it up. An Angel hit him in the scuffle, knocking Balin unconscious, and causing him to miss the rest of his band's set.

.

As members of the Hells Angels began kicking, punching, and hitting concertgoers with shortened pool cues, an abundance of wine, speed, and acid helped fuel their behavior. Not only did the Angels go after people who came too close to the stage, but they also interfered with the bands in order to get to those they felt were breaking the rules.

They walked across the stage in the middle of sets, grabbed microphones from people trying to make announcements, and gunned their bike engines while bands played, drowning out the music. A photographer made the mistake of taking pictures of the Angels and ended up with his film confiscated and a swollen face. Somewhere between 100 and 200 Angels stood on the stage throughout the show, leaving very little room for the bands to perform.