Awesome / The Rolling Stones (Band)

• Merry Clayton's incredible guest performance on "Gimme Shelter" is a Moment Of Awesome in itself. Recorded long after her bedtime, while she was in curlers and pajamas. And she was pregnant.^note A real tragic part of this is that the strain of the performance actually caused her a miscarriage. This is her vocal isolated.
• The 1972 North American Tour promoting Exile on Main St.. The Texas shows captured on film in "Ladies and Gentlemen, the Rolling Stones".
• During one show in 1981, shortly after John Lennon's murder, when rock stars were understandably wary of Loony Fans, the Stones were in the middle of "Satisfaction" when Keith spotted a lone fan climbing on stage and making a dash for Mick Jagger. Keith Richards calmly turned down the volume on his guitar, hit the guy over the head with it, strapped his guitar back on, turned up the volume and kept playing without missing a beat. Then he went down to the police station and bailed the guy out.
  Keith: Security was not there. I'm watching Mick's back.
• For Charlie Watts, the one time he lost his temper. Mick Jagger had called him in the middle of the night, referring to him as "[his] drummer." Watts got dressed in a suit, shaved, then punched Jagger so hard the only reason he didn't go flying out the window is because Keith Richards caught him, and that's only because Richards had lent Jagger his wedding jacket.
• They announced their 1975 North American tour by calling a "press conference" at a hotel in Midtown Manhattan, then pulling up to the front entrance on the back of a flatbed truck loaded with amps and instruments and performing "Brown Sugar" on the spot.

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