Saturday, July 27, 2013

Some Girls Live In Texas

On June 10, 1978 the Rolling Stones embarked on their first US tour in three years, which was to last until July 26. The S.E.A.T. tour ('Seventy Eight American Tour') combined small theater shows with huge stadiums. The show at Will Rogers Auditorium, Fort Worth, Texas, with a capacity of 3,000, happened to be one of the smaller ones. In his liner notes to the concert DVD "Some Girls Live In Texas" author James Karnbach recalls:

"It was July 18th 1978, and the crowds outside the venue on that Tuesday evening were excited as well as anxious to get inside the relative comfort and cool of the Will Rogers Auditorium. Billed as 'The London Green Shoed Cowboys' - a ruse that fooled no one, tickets had sold out in the blink of an eye. Fans had lined up for hours before the show and many were about to see the band live for the first time in a relatively small setting.

The 1978 tour started out in Lakeland, Florida on June 10th, and by the time they arrived in Texas the Stones had played 19 shows - and as Billboard Magazine said 'No flash, no gimmicks, just rock-n-roll'. The band for the S.E.A.T. tour included Ian 'Stu' Stewart on piano (the day of the Fort Worth show was Stu's 40th birthday) and piano and organ player Ian 'Mac' McLagan.

When the band had rehearsed in Bearsville, New York they had Jamaican keyboard player Bernard 'Touter' Harvey with them. Unfortunately, his reggae style of playing didn't fit the rock and roll feel the band was looking for and Ron Wood had suggested he phone his old friend and former band mate from Faces, Ian McLagan, to ask if he wouldn't  mind flying to the USA to join the rehearsals and then go on tour. Mac had just two days of getting to know the material prior to the Lakeland gig but it turned out that he was the perfect fit and just what the band had been looking for".

As always, Stu played piano on some selected songs, among which Chuck Berry's 'Sweet Little Sixteen' and show opener 'Let It Rock'. The band had first played 'Let It Rock' on their 1970 tour of Europe, but this was the first US tour on which the audience was getting to hear it live. Watch the video (with a visible Stu!) below: the song sets the pace for a stripped-down, no-nonsense, fast and energetic rock-and-roll show!


Adapted from the following source:
James Karnbach, Anything But Shattered, liner notes to the 2011 DVD "Some Girls Live In Texas", edited by Richard Havers.

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