It was 40 years ago Tuesday that the Rolling Stones came to play their one
and only London concert. The five Stones only played about four numbers before
the police pulled the plug, fearing mayhem.
A stage-storming, chair- chucking "riot," to use The Free Press
word of the day, ensued on April 26, 1965. There were a few injuries, including
fans cut when a plate glass door shattered in the pre-concert press.
As often as the tale of the 3,000 fans at the old Treasure Island Gardens has
been told, it is always rewarding to recall the fray.
Some London eyewitnesses to rock history are sure the Stones were playing Off
the Hook -- another swears it was Time Is on My Side -- when the police pulled
the plug.
But did you know Brian Jones played his tambourine after the plug was pulled,
playing on the crowd; that Mick Jagger sported a police officer's hat; that Bill
Wyman showed -- euphemism, please -- a healthy interest in an 11-year-old girl.
One of the assembled multitude, Jan (John) Miszczyk, went home that Monday
night and made notes. Miszczyk says the Stones started with Everybody Needs
Somebody, an R&B hit.
Miszczyk had seen the British Invasion's bad boys up close. "I won a
contest and went backstage and met them," he recalls. "I was taller
than all of them."
The Stones may have been short fellas, but they were hip. Hoping to impress,
Miszczyk went in his tightest pants and his "most pointed" shoes.
Not so the Stones. They were in squared-toed footwear and bell-bottoms. Ahead
of the curve. Cool.
Fashion-conscious Jagger even found a hat to his liking at the concert,
another fan recalls.
"I remember Mick Jagger taking the hat off a policeman and putting it on
and walking across the stage," says Bill Durst. Jagger gave the hat back,
but soon somebody warned fans to sit down or else, Durst says.
It didn't work.
Promoter Pat Quinn -- not the Leafs' mighty Quinn -- watched in horror as the
snow fence in front of the stage, 30 OPP officers and 20 security guards were
tested by a crowd going crazy. The Stones quit the stage. The fans grabbed at
OPP hats, ties, shirts and Charlie Watts' drum stool.
The Stones tried to return, but soon fled to the old Holiday Inn.
"They didn't give us any warning. They just turned off the power,"
Jones said later.
Even if Jagger is Sir Mick now, Jones was the Stone in those days.
Durst says Jones, with his "white blond hair," was the star of the
show. "It was thick and straight. He looked like a frickin' angel."
Jones was much more charismatic than Jagger, Durst says.
"Brian Jones had the greatest hair, I remember that," smiles Doug
Varty. "A girl jumped out of the crowd and hung on to him until somebody
peeled her off."
Jones didn't let the plug-pulling silence him, another fan recalls.
Jack Whiteside had already been fixating on Keith Richards' guitar-playing,
listening and learning as he played the Stones at home.
He noticed Jones that night.
"Brian Jones kept going with the tambourine to the beat . . . 'Off the
Hook, Off the Hook,' " says Jack Whiteside. Jones urged the fans up to the
stage by continuing his tambourine pounding.
Durst, Whiteside, Varty and Miszczyk all found their way into music and can
still be heard around London. The Stones concert, far from scaring them off,
inspired a whole generation.
At the time, it was just cacophony.
"It was so noisy, you couldn't hear anything and then they pulled the
plug," says Sheila Curnoe, who was there with her husband, the late London
artist Greg Curnoe.
After that, the din was worse.
Somewhere in the confusion were the McEvenue sisters, including 11-year-old
Kelly. They were certain their heroes must be somewhere nearby and so they were.
Suddenly, looming large was the Holiday Inn with its welcome to the Rolling
Stones sign.
Who should emerge from the inn to greet the merry sisters but Jones, Wyman
and Watts. Her older sisters were "gobsmacked" into shy silence -- but
little Meg had a fine chat with the British rockers.
"I was an R&B girl. I would have been more excited to meet Sam &
Dave," she smiles.
Still, it was Wyman who seemed the nicest.
At the time, this would be completely innocuous, in keeping with Wyman's
image as the quiet Stone.
From a 2005 perspective, we know Wyman would divorce 20-year-old Mandy Smith,
a former model, in 1990. Wyman had been dating Smith since she was 13.
Such creepiness was far off in 1965. Nothing happened.
That doesn't keep McEvenue from joking about it all now.
Who knows where the evening might have gone, she laughs.
Quinn's brief career promoting British Invasion acts was no laugh. The
Gardens management grabbed his gate receipts to cover the damage.
"I would have done bloody well except for the riot," he has said.
ŠThe London Free Press
