KEEF: “I’ve Only Fallen Over Twice In 15 Gigs!”

Contrary to legend, out on the road The Rolling Stones attempt to lead as normal a life as one can expect when living out of a suitcase and relying on room service.

Sure, madness abounds; but invariably it’s restricted to the periphery.

And there it remained when the Stones hit New Orleans for The Big One—in excess of 80,000 kids under the roof of the breath-taking Superdome, for what turned out to be the biggest-ever indoor concert staged in entertainment history. Well over one million greenbacks were grossed at the box office, while untold thousands were exchanged at street level; over 10,000 bootlegged t-shirts were seized in one raid alone.

Days before the actual event, jetloads of fans poured into New Orleans from neighboring states, giving local and national radio and television stations an excuse to whip up the excitement. And it seemed that with few exceptions, every ticket-holder had what they assumed to be a logical excuse to drop by the hotel to parley with the Stones.

The Stones were booked into the Royal Orleans under pseudonyms, but that was no real obstacle to the more enterprising gate-crashers.