Hey, there! Log in / Register
That James Brown concert not the only one Kevin White arranged to prevent rioting in Boston
By adamg on Wed, 07/18/2012 - 11:05am
Today's the 40th anniversary of a Rolling Stones concert at the Garden that almost didn't happen. On their way to the show, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards got into a scuffle with a photographer at TF Green Airport and wound up in jail. As thousands of hopped-up Stones fans waited at the Garden and Stevie Wonder played on and on, Boston Mayor Kevin White desperately worked the phones, finally convincing Rhode Island State Police that if they didn't release the pair, there'd be rioting in Boston. They sped up 95 with a police escort.
Neighborhoods:
Topics:
Free tagging:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
What?
This doesn't jive with the common nostalgia of a peaceful and orderly Boston that has recently given way to a degenerate and crime ridden youth that we have today.
You know, the reason why we spend 3 million bucks babysitting a bunch of park squatters, or shutting down half the city every time a sports team wins a championship.
Did they not get the vapors in the past, and protect the city with excessive spending and force?
Different Drugs
The concert-going crowd in those days, as opposed to sports crowds these days, was... What's the best way to put it? More mellow? In any case, folks smoking weed were much less likely to scuffle than folks consuming vast quantities of alcohol are. I'm not saying there weren't as many pinheads around, just that they weren't, as a rule, quite so chemically motivated.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Some Visual Evidence
Zzzzzzzzzzzz
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
That photo could be attributed to the fact that the band didn't
come on until 12:45AM.
Are you making
an argument for later closing times?
:o)
Urban America went into full fledge rapid decay in the 1970s
Rioting, rampant violent crime, drug traffickers shooting 5 year olds in drive-byes, endemic antisocial behavior, high homicide and violent crime rate, collapse of the middle class in urban areas, extremely high rate of broken families, out of wedlock births, massive number collecting social services in order to survive, etc. ALL stem from the mid to late 1960s onward. A societal transmogrification occurred between roughly 1960-1970, from relative peace, prosperity, low violent crime rates, urban decay, 'white flight', etc. to what we have in the post 1960s era, up to today.
$3M spent...
"You know, the reason why we spend 3 million bucks babysitting a bunch of park squatters"
"We" didn't spend $3M; Boston Police did. It had everything to do with BPD throwing huge resources at a bunch of peaceful hippies, not the hippies needing $3M worth of babysitting.
Also, most evenings, it was just two cops in an idling paddywagon. They were mostly dealing with interlopers coming to the camp to steal things.
Oh, I know
I'm just pointing out our modern hysterics, and rather dumb allocation of resources and money in our post 9/11 / post Seattle WTO world.
You want a fun read of security theater, go read up on the British installing surface to air misses in London for the Olympics. We're crossing over the threshold from embarrassingly overreactive, into "I swear I read that in fiction" territory.
Is your use of the term
Is your use of the term "paddywagon" pejorative or literal? I can't say retard around here without the PC police ...
And anyway, "WE" did spend $3M. Who do you think funds BPD ops?
What could have been more thrilling?!!
Sitting in the hot Garden with all those other people sweating their asses, when Da Mayah comes out and says "The Stones have been busted, but I sprung em! Ladies and gentlemen, the shitty of Boston proudly presents the Rolling Stones!"
I have a lousy tape of it somewhere in this mess...
No problemo
I'd have left after Stevie anyway.
Really?
By any and all Stones fan's estimation, the 72 tour with Mick Taylor was the best Stones tour ever. His musicianship pushed the rest of the band to be their best, just take a listen to the Brussels show from that tour!
Mick Taylor
Possibly the most underrated guitarist in rock history. Glad to hear someone else give him his due.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Mick Taylor AND Bobby Keys
On saxophone. The tour supported Exile on Main Street. One for the ages.
Here's the basic tour set list. Sick.
"Brown Sugar"
"Bitch"
"Rocks Off"
"Gimme Shelter"
"Happy"
"Tumbling Dice"
"Love in Vain"
"Sweet Virginia"
"Loving Cup"
"You Can't Always Get What You Want"
"All Down the Line"
"Midnight Rambler"
"Bye Bye Johnny"
"Rip This Joint"
"Jumpin' Jack Flash"
"Street Fighting Man"
Rhode Island State Police
Same guys who shut down all the roads in RI in 1994 because the organizers of Lollapolluza didn't deliver the right unmarked bills in the right bags to the right places?
Mick Taylor aside
Just not much of a Stones fan, so I shouldn't even have commented. I'm blaming the heat. On the other hand, I do love Stevie, it seems almost criminal to have him opening for them.
Stones were HUGE then, peakng artistically
Stevie was a genius but a Motown R&B artist in 72, not a superstar.
I don't see anything criminal at all. Sounds like a great bill.
Hendrix, Monkees
Hendrix opened for The Monkees for a couple of weeks. Everybody opens for someone at some point!
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
The circumstances of the Stones concert
There was a reason for the concern about a potential riot at the Garden that night. Most of the available police in the city had been deployed to the South End, which, in those days, was not the yuppie paradise it is today. How quickly people, forget. In those days the South end had a primarily Latino population and was a rather depressed area. A few days before the Stones concert, a Puerto Rico Day celebration in Blackstone Square somehow got out of hand and something like thirty five people were arrested and many more injured. The Tactical Police Force had been called in, and if you remember the famed TPF, they seldom arrested people with the greatest of tact. Looting, rioting and general unrest ensued in subsequent days. Add to this tens of thousands of people in the sweltering, un-air conditioned Garden, and you have a cause for concern. Like with the James Brown incident, Kevin White pretty much saved the day. I can't imagine that happening today.
Keith Jagger Mick Richards
Keith Jagger
Mick Richards ...
Of course I remember the TPF..
during the busing, the kids in the Bunker Hill projects got so sick of taking beatings from them, they'd throw rocks at them from the roofs of the BH projects.
When the cops came barreling down the street after them in their motorcycles, some of the kids had strung high test fishing wire across the street and when the cops came down the street, blammo!
It was a happy day in this city when they disbanded the TPF.
Thanks for the full and
Thanks for the full and accurate explanation of that night.
Mayor Kevin White made a speech to the public asking for calm.
The speech was later ironically called Mayor White's 'City in Flames Speech.'
I was there, Honest to God!
I was there, Honest to God! Trip down Memory Lane...That summer I was a 19 yr. old coed living in a cold-water flat in the North End ($85.00/month-no bathroom, I kid you not- toilet in a closet in the common hallway). I came home from my summer work-study job (that's another story!) and found a note on my door from my cousin. He had 2 balcony tickets he couldn't use for the Stones' concert that night at the Garden. Of course, I went, don't recall with whom. Sometimes, Life really is magical!