It was May 6th, 1965, when the Rolling Stones first rolled into Tampa Bay. They stayed at the Ft. Harrison Hotel and played at Jack Russell Stadium in Clearwater, home of the Philadelphia Phillies spring training. The Stadium had a capacity at the time of just under 4,800 people. Which is way less than the 65,000 capacity of Raymond James, where they’re playing on Friday. The city of Clearwater actually only sold 2,657 tickets at only $2 a piece, compared to today’s ticket prices of $67 at the lowest end. And as the story goes, it was at the then named Jack Tar Harrison Hotel that Keith Richards dreamed about a guitar riff that was so good he woke up and wrote it down so he wouldn’t forget it. That riff became one of the biggest songs ever recorded, and the Stones very first international #1 hit, (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.
This was in the middle of the first British Invasion, and the crowd reaction was a newsworthy one, as the Tampa Bay Times reported in the paper the next day: “Screaming teen-age fans of the Rolling Stones rioted here last night, bombarding a police cordon with toilet paper, giant firecrackers and smoke bombs.” The Stones were actually headlining a bigger show with multiple local bands on the bill in a concert sponsored by the Clearwater City Recreation Department. At some point when the Stones were onstage launching into only their 5th song of the night, a large group of some of the 2,600 attendees tried to rush the stage while they played. That created such an almost riot situation, at least for the 1960′s, that they ushered the band off stage into a waiting white station wagon fleeing a pursuing crowd of cheering “young people”, as the Times wrote.
Normally that would sound like most fans got ripped off because the Stones didn’t get a chance to play their fan favorites. But in 1965 they only had a few minor hits on the radio, and none of the songs most people recognize as Rolling Stones songs, really. In fact it was shortly after this concert that the album Out Of Our Heads, with the aforementioned hit single Satisfaction was released and vaulted the band to international superstardom.
And of course now they’re the biggest band in the world, although some Beatles fans would object. But since the Beatles haven’t been a band since the 60′s, and the Stones haven’t stopped being a band, I think the title goes with them.
Tickets for Friday’s show are still available starting at the above mentioned lowest price of $67, and going up from there. It looks like plenty of seats are still available in many of the seating areas. There’s even rear GA standing room only on the floor starting at $147, and a few dozen seats left in the 2nd floor seating areas, starting at $497 a ticket.
Check out audio from their 1994 Tampa show.
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