The one band so good they infuriated Mick Jagger: “Jagger was mad”
Ever since the 1960s, Mick Jagger did the most damage the minute that he got onstage with The Rolling Stones.
It’s one thing for him to be a phenomenal singer in the studio, but it’s staggering that someone that has been around as long as he has still has that same energy whenever he hits the road singing ‘Satisfaction’. But when you look at the people that The Stones have shared a bill with, there were a few times where the openers drove Jagger up the wall before he even sang a note.
Because when you think about it, having any opening act in rock and roll can be a double-edged sword. It’s one thing to bring someone that’s middle-of-the-road that will keep everyone satisfied while they grab a T-shirt, but the minute that someone starts showing up the main event, it’s enough for anyone to start shaking in their boots and wonder what the hell they’re going to throw at the audience to match what they just saw.
The same thing happened with Black Sabbath when taking out Van Halen or Kiss on the road. These were kids with fire in their bellies and willing to take over the world if they believed hard enough, but when it came to The Stones, they were at least capable of not aligning themselves with anyone too good. They wanted to give the people something a bit separate from the traditional rock and roll, and on paper, getting a band like Lynyrd Skynyrd felt like the most innocent thing in the world.
After all, the Southern rock outfit was a bit more rustic than what The Stones were known for, and since Keith Richards had a fixation with music that leaned towards country, it wasn’t out of the question for all of them to have a good time together. Then again, they probably should have checked to see what people like The Who were dealing with when they took Skynyrd out on their American tour for Quadrophenia.
The spectacle of seeing rock and roll legends was already in the air, but Ronnie Van Zant ran that band like a well-oiled machine whenever he played, and when hearing all of their solos, it’s insane to think that they managed to compose everything on their records. There was never an improvised note throughout ‘Free Bird’, so when Jagger saw them, he probably had the same sensation that Eric Clapton had when he saw Duane Allman play for the first time.
It was nice to have a band like that helping to sell tickets, but guitarist Gary Rossington remembered a few angry reactions from Jagger when they went out on their first tour with them, saying, “Mick Jagger was mad. It took their breath away to see how well we went over and how we broke their only rule: don’t go out on the tongue.” Even if they respected Jagger’s wishes about stage etiquette, he probably would have still been shaking a little bit.
Jagger could hold his own singing country songs, but when listening to what Skynyrd did so naturally, it was going to be a bit more difficult for him to sell it. ‘Far Away Eyes’ may have been a case of him taking the piss when he opened his mouth, but when you hear ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ or ‘Gimme Three Steps’, this was a band that had studied all of those old country players and managed to give it the same kind of excitement that people like The Stones could in the early days of the British invasion.
While Skynyrd’s classic period was caught way too short when Van Zant passed away in a plane crash, the fact that they could give The Stones a run for their money said a lot more than what their records could. They thrived on being a live band, and there’s a good chance none of them would have a problem saying they blew The Rolling Stones offstage every night they performed.
