Rolling Stones American Tour 1981
| Tour by The Rolling Stones | |
 |
|
| Associated album | Tattoo You |
|---|---|
| Start date | 25 September 1981 |
| End date | 19 December 1981 |
| Legs | 1 |
| No. of shows | 50 |
| Box office | US $52 million (US$131,716,691 in 2017 dollars) |
| The Rolling Stones concert chronology | |
The Rolling Stones' American Tour 1981 was a concert tour of stadiums and arenas in the United States to promote the album Tattoo You. It was the largest grossing tour of 1981 with $50 million in ticket sales. Roughly three million concert goers attended the concerts, setting various ticket sales records. The 5 December show in New Orleans set an indoor concert attendance record which stood for 33 years.
Initially, lead singer Mick Jagger was not interested in another tour, but guitarists Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood were, as were elements of the press and public, and Jagger eventually relented. As with previous tours, the American Tour 1981 was promoted by Bill Graham.
The band rehearsed for the tour at Long View Farm, North Brookfield, Massachusetts, from August 14 to September 25, 1981. The Stones pre-opened the tour with a warm-up show at the Sir Morgan's Cove club in Worcester, Massachusetts on 14 September. Though billed as Little Boy Blue & The Cockroaches, word got out and some 11,000 fans pushed and shoved outside the 300-person venue. The Mayor of Boston Kevin H. White stopped the notion of any further public rehearsals, saying "The appearance here of Mr. Jagger is not necessarily in the public interest."
The tour's elaborate and colorful stage was the work of Japanese designer Kazuhide Yamazaki. According to Mick Jagger, "Most concerts that took place outdoors at the time were played during the day, probably because it was cheaper, I don't know. So we had the bright, bright primary colors... and we had these enormous images of a guitar, a car and a record—an Americana idea—which worked very well for afternoon shows." Most shows later in the tour featured a cherry picker and the release of hundreds of balloons at the show's end. During the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum stops on the tour, the band played a Friday and Sunday show and USC had a football game in between on Saturday. As a televised football game, viewers could see the full stage set-up and often field goals would land on stage at the East end zone. Two of the three opening bands, George Thorogood, and The J Geils Band were received well, but the third act, a still somewhat unknown Prince barely got through three songs before being booed off the stage.
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