The Rolling Stones Riot in Long Beach – 1965

Mid-60s and I was interviewing a lot of music people and television people for various magazines in Hollywood. I started out interviewing Sonny & Cher and we became friends during that period. The Byrds were a challenge, but I interviewed them at the request of their agent, Derik Taylor (formerly the Beatles publicity manager). Barry McGuire, The Turtles, Leaves, Love, the Grass Roots, Gary and the Playboys, David MacCullum, Peter Falk, the horrible little punk who fronted the Hermits, Mister ED and the cast, and so on. But not the Beatles (who were in a different league. And not the Stones, whose manager refused to answer my calls or return them.

However, I was granted a press pass of one for their concerts. It was to be held in an indoor sports arena in Long Beach and I rode down in a smoke filled car with several friends who had tickets.

From memory the stadium was set up for basketball with auditorium seating going up each side and a low stage at one end where one of the baskets would be. The seating above the stage was empty with maybe two guards on each side of the section to keep out anyone wanting to sit above the stage.

Once we were admitted my press pass let me cruise around the place getting a feel for the audience and the venue. So I was able to observe what happened rather than be part of it when the proverbial hit the proverbial shortly after the concert started.

The atmosphere was tense from the beginning. Like a martial arts competition waiting for the first blood to be spilled. My smoke induced mellowness gave way to a wariness that had all my senses on alert.

As the Stones emerged from a the team corridor under the seating to the left of the stage the applause and cheers took over. They slowly came up the stairs to the stage and started to settle in to what was a very basic setting for a band of their stature. The audience was starting to get restless again. The Stones could hardly make a dramatic entrance on a stage like that.

All these years later I can’t remember the exact sequence of events, but I think the Stones had had finished their final sound check and were just about to start their first set when a couple of young girls ran across the empty seats above the stage. But the guards couldn’t move as quickly as the girls who’d surprised them.

While one girl was cornered and caught the other manged to climb over seats past the guards and down to front row railing. She hung there like a rag doll while the audience erupted in shouts to “JUMP!” and she dropped awkwardly onto the stage to the side of where Charlie Watts was sitting behind his drums. The Stones were also surprised and slow to react. Charlie had just taken off his suede jacket and carefully draped it over the back of a nearby folding chair. The girl, who’d obviously injured her leg, hopped over, grabbed his jacket, put her face in it and waved it around like a trophy. By that time the stage security got their act together and grabbed the girl she’d dropped the jacket on the floor. Then she was manhandled off the stage to the boos, cheers and jeers of the audience.

Charlie picked up his jacket, held it up and looked at it with disgust as if it now carried a communicable disease. He threw it back towards the folding chair and where it landed again on the stage.

At this point a policeman came up onto the stage and made matters worse. He warned the audience that if they didn’t calm down he’d close down the concert. That led to more booing and Mick took the microphone from the policeman and pleaded for calm. But he ended it by criticizing the policeman’s interference and said something else I couldn’t hear. Whatever it was it made the policeman angry. He countered by taking back the microphone and saying that the concert was now over and everyone should leave peacefully or they’d be arrested. So much for any crowd control skills.

As an observer I couldn’t believe how quickly things got out of control. The audience became a mob. Shouts and threats filled the arena. The police ushered the Rolling Stones off the stage and back into the corridor I was standing next to. I was able to follow them down the corridor to the side of the auditorium. Later I discovered that the doors we were passing led to team dressing rooms, etc.

By the time I got out the back doors and out in the sunlight I found myself close to a field and track. The Stones were being hustled across the field to a helicopter. The blades were already in motion and the Stones had to duck their heads as they ran. Once they were in it immediately took off.

Right in front of the doors was a long, black, stretch limo with tinted windows. Before I could process the helicopter and the limo a screaming mob of what had once been an expectant audience rounded the building and converged on the limo.

Clearly, the Long Beach police hadn’t been prepared for any of this and whoever it was who got up on stage had been inept. While a crowd surrounded the limousine assuming that the Stones were inside, the police started hitting out indiscriminately with their clubs. Meanwhile, as the helicopter banked away from the melee, a motorcycle officer on his big Harley put down his bike and skidded down a street up the hill causing sparks to fly. I was witnessing a real-life fiasco.

I’d only been in another riot once before and that was very short lived. It after a 3I League football game between my high school (Santa Monica High) and I think it was Torrance. It was a grudge match and the post-game testosterone spilled over into the street outside the Corsair Stadium at Santa Monica City College. It got a bit bloody but nothing like this.

A beautiful girl I’d noticed before in the audience had managed to climb up and onto the limo roof and was crawling along the top when a policeman on the hood hit her with his club and split her scalp. I got splattered with her blood as I got pushed back even further by the heaving mob.

The police were panicking and clearly out of their depth. The crowd was berserk. I wondered how long it would be before the mob realized that the Stones were gone. What starts out as an audience can so easily turn into a mob and I never want to experience this again. It was a mess and the reason I still avoid crowds to this day.

But about Charlie Watts. After rubbing her face in it and waving it around the silly girl who caused all this dropped his jacket on the stage where he picked it up, looked it over and tossed it back onto the stage as if it had been spoiled. In a very real way it had. What started out as a Rolling Stones performance ended up as a riot thanks to an immature fan who probably still doesn’t realize the mayhem she caused back then. But I’ll always remember the look of absolute disgust on Charlie Watt’s face as he took the jacket he’d obviously treasured and discarded it on the crappy Long Beach stage of the concert that had been denied him, the Stones and their audience.

Postscript: Later, I heard that the girl who’d climbed over the railing and dropped to the stage had broken her leg. Whether that’s true or not is another thing, but I was always surprised that news of the failed concert and the riot were not mention in the mainstream media. As for me writing about it at the time, I simply wanted to forget about it … and nearly did until someone asked me why I was so adverse to going to rock concerts when I used to interview some of the acts.

The Rolling Stones Riot in Long Beach – 1965 © Robert R. Feigel 2022 – All rights reserved