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| Daethgod |
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,18733633-16947,00.html
Shoot, it's the Stones on tour
Photographer Christopher Simon Sykes shares with Iain Shedden his memories of an amazing 1975 rock'n'roll adventure
April 07, 2006
GUITARIST Ronnie Wood is still considered by some fans as the new guy in the Rolling Stones, yet when he walks on to the stage at Sydney's Telstra Stadium next Tuesday it will be nearly 31 years since he replaced Mick Taylor in the most successful rock'n'roll band of all time.
The group is making its sixth visit to Australia, performing in Sydney and Melbourne as part of its A Bigger Bang world tour. Almost 45 years into their career, the Stones are packing stadiums, just as they did when Wood joined them to take part in what was, in 1975, the biggest rock tour yet staged.
The Tour of the Americas, as it was called, came on the back of the band's It's Only Rock'n'Roll album and its scale - playing to crowds of up to 80,000 fans, an entourage of 60 people and a private plane, dubbed the Starship, for the group's inner circle - set the benchmark for rock extravaganzas. A lotus-shaped stage and a giant inflatable penis added to the media attention that surrounded the tour.
Back then young English photographer Christopher Simon Sykes was about as far removed from rock'n'roll debauchery as you could get, taking pictures of country houses for a living and putting together a photo diary for a Formula One racing team.
But a chance meeting with the Rolling Stones' financial adviser Rupert Loewenstein changed all that. When Sykes discovered that the Rolling Stones were considering doing their own photo diary of the TOTA, he volunteered his services. Only weeks later he was on a plane to New York and from there set off on a two-month jaunt during which he was given unlimited access to the Stones at work, rest and play.
It was an unprecedented opportunity to document the lifestyles of Wood, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman, and Sykes shot thousands of photos, from Milwaukee to Los Angeles, of the band and the whole touring circus.
Some of those photos found their way into the diary of the tour, sanctioned by the band, in 1978, but since then many of the shots have lain in the basement of Sykes's London house. He held an exhibition of some of the material in London three years ago and is now about to release a limited-edition book of his experiences, which not only includes hundreds of behind-the-scenes shots of the tour but also his diary entries and pieces of Stones memorabilia such as set lists, letters and comments from the band's tour manager, "Commander" Peter Rudge.
It was a time, Rudge notes in the book, when "English aristocrats rubbed shoulders with blue-collar Americans; people who normally drank beer and watched baseball were asked to coexist and work with people whose ways of relaxing were far more exotic and in some cases illegal".
Apart from Taylor's drugs-assisted departure, Richards had his own heroin problem at the time, but musically he was about to forge a partnership, with Wood, that many felt was long overdue. And Jagger, always the showman, was in charge, the man taking care of business in the manner that has kept the Stones a live attraction for so long.
For Sykes, however, the mere fact of being in such exalted and unusual company was an ordeal, at least in the beginning.
"I had never had anything to do with the rock world then," he says in his plummy English tone. "It was like going to school for the first time, walking into a strange world full of people you didn't know."
He had met Jagger before in the Stones' early days in London, which probably counted for something when the singer had to decide whether to use Sykes for the diary. But when he arrived in Milwaukee 10 days into the tour, the photographer was unsure of how he would be received.
"A rock'n'roll tour is not just the band," he says. "It's an enormous entourage. It's quite nerve-racking. When I arrived in Milwaukee, no one knew who I was. I didn't have a security pass so they said I could stand on the stage. There were about 80,000 people. Standing on the stage looking down was an incredible sight and that moment was astonishing. Something I shall never forget."
Until that point Sykes wasn't sure how much access he would have. From then on it became clear that he would have carte blanche to shoot anywhere, anytime.
"I couldn't really believe I was part of it," Sykes says. "If you have carte blanche so you can be a fly on the wall, you have to be sensitive to the atmosphere, but on the whole ... you become slightly invisible.
"I was in a lucky position in that I was there just to take pictures for the book. I could blend into the background."
Sykes settled into his task, producing a wealth of live shots of the band from every angle and in every combination, while candidly capturing the stars and their guests and hangers-on backstage and zooming in on anything that caught his eye, from a backstage pass to a sea of faces.
The images of the band away from the concert stage, in transit on the Starship or relaxing in the dressing-room are perhaps the most revealing. Jagger, of course, loves the camera and plays to it in any situation, while the other Stones often look as if they stepped into shot by accident, as they probably did.
As fun as it must have been, Sykes says there was a professionalism in the organisation, from the band down, that differed from the public perception of the tour as one big, long party. It would have been easy for a novice such as Sykes to be corrupted by the archetypal sex, drugs and rock'n'roll lifestyle, but he says that he had no intention of getting lost in a cloud of indulgence on his first trip to the US.
"I was determined not to stay in bed all day," he says. "I wanted to try and look around. I convinced Mick to come with me. We had a very funny day out near Atlanta up a mountain."
One of his favourite shots from the book is of Jagger in an off-guard moment at Niagara Falls. Another is of Richards in black leather leaning against a wall backstage.
The novelty of shooting the tour wore off, however, and Sykes was glad when it ended. By then, chances of capturing anything new had all but evaporated.
"If you're on the road for three months, six weeks into the tour you can notice the dip in energy, then for the last three weeks or so it comes back. Even if you're staying in luxury hotels, it's quite draining. I was quite pleased when it was over, to be honest."
For Sykes, the end of the tour was also the end of his brief career as a rock photographer.
"I felt at the end ... being a rock'n'roll photographer ... I wasn't going to pursue it. Following a band around and, night after night, just watching them gets quite boring ... and deafening."
Since his once-in-a-lifetime experience with the Stones, Sykes has concentrated on his earlier passion and has made his name photographing the interiors of some of Britain's stately homes and country manors for magazines. He has also written two books: The Black Sheep is about wayward members of families, and The Big House deals with his upbringing in Yorkshire. He is editing the memoirs of his friend Eric Clapton, due to be published next year.
Although he has never had the urge to get on a tour bus since the 1970s, Sykes is proud of the time he spent with the self-styled "greatest rock'n'roll band in the world".
"It all seems so glamorous when you're on the outside of something like that," he says. "When you're in among them ... they're just doing their job. I was struck by what hard work it was. It was impressive seeing that it was hard graft. They were making a lot of money, but they were earning it."
The Stones continue to earn money. Their income last year was estimated at $US152million ($208 million), according to Forbes magazine, second only to U2, who also have spent the past year on the road. In the Stones' case, however, those earnings are becoming less dependent on album sales. It's the songs from their extensive back catalogue that large numbers of fans pay to see performed, rather than the band's more recent efforts.
The sets from the Stones' Licks tour of Australia three years ago, for example, weren't all that different from the ones they were performing to hordes of Americans and Canadians in 1975. The focus was on songs from '70s albums Exile on Main Street and Sticky Fingers, as well as '60s hits such as Satisfaction and Honky Tonk Women. The A Bigger Bang show mixes it up a little, but only a few recent songs are included.
Sykes, however, is full of admiration.
"The incredible thing is that they still put out," he concludes. "They still make the hair on your neck stand up. It amazes me, really, that they still have the power."
TOTA '75 - The Rolling Stones Tour of the Americas 1975: The Diary, Photographs and Memorabilia of Christopher Simon Sykes is a handmade book and boxed set with more than 600 previously unpublished photographs and memorabilia. Limited edition of 2500, with 50 reserved for Australia. Available next month exclusively from Hedley Books, Melbourne, for $875 (Commander boxed set) and $1450 (Deluxe Starship boxed set). Inquiries: (03) 9499 2645. |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
Good read over saturday morning coffee, thanks Daethgod.
[Edited by Ten Thousand Motels] |
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