Me and the Rolling Stones» European Tour

In the spotlight

ron schneider — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 18:41:52 +0000

I don’t recall how I got this picture. It is the Paris show at the Palais des Sports and in the spotlight is my one year old son, Eric Schneider. Looking over him is my ex, Jane, with the glasses and I believe the woman looking from the left is Rose, Mick Taylor’s ex..

Bring on the Dancing Girls

ron schneider — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 19:22:23 +0000

Until you read this, only two people in the world knew about it, Chip Monck and myself. We were in Paris for the 1970 European Tour and we went to the Crazy Horse Saloon. For those of you that don’t know (Le Crazy Horse Saloon is a Parisian cabaret known for its stage shows performed by nude female dancers and for the diverse range of magic and variety ‘turns’ between each nude show..). Those that know me would probably say, typical, and that would be the idea for the European Tour for the Rolling Stones to include the Crazy Horse show. I have to stress the the show was not like the typical nude review, this was amazingly beautiful and artistic. We also were considering broadcasting it as well ( when I say we, I mean Chip and I, as no one else knew about the concept. Of course we would have to make it an adults only show but I always thought it was a great idea.. The Rolling Stones and the Crazy Horse Girls.. (I would appreciate any comments as to what you would have thought of that show).

Anyhow, we had to research it…yeah I know…:-) We spent some time with the owner at the time Alain Bernardin, (the Crazy Horse -”it corresponded with his vision: “[Magic] is a dream. There is no show that is more dreamlike than a magic show. And what we do with the girls is magic, too. It’s the magic of lights and costumes. These are my dreams and fascinations that I put on stage) who said he liked the idea and had to think about it. After a bit of time he came back and said that whereas it was a good idea it wouldn’t work. He said that within two weeks of leaving Paris, all the wealthy Dukes, Princes, Barons etc would come out and basically seduce the girls into coming with them and we would not have a show and worse than that, he would lose all his girls. I still liked the idea of a live broadcast but we got busy and that was that.

So what to you think? Leave a comment and let me know!

European Tour 1970

ron schneider — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 19:31:44 +0000

For another first – a European Tour experience: When we were in Paris, we had a few days rest period while we were staying at the George V Hotel. The wives / girlfriends spent a lot of time shopping and found out that you could buy things at the designers and have it sent to the hotel where the consierge would pay for them and add them to the hotel bill. I believe the bill was over $50,000 (a billion dollars in today’s money) and we had to come up with a way to pay for it. At the time, the Stones record deal with Decca was coming to an end and there were rumors that the Stones were leaving. I contacted Decca and said that it would be nice if they picked up our Paris hotel bill. They did but it didn’t help as the Stones went to Atlantic..
and here is the Rolling Stones office European Tour letterhead …for those that care..

A SEX story..

ron schneider — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 19:04:42 +0000

Forty years ago Denmark was branded the country with the most liberated society on Earth as there was no censorship. We were in Copenhagen for awhile, using that location as our base for touring Scandinavia. I had this idillyc idea that we were in a place were sex was beautiful without guilt and the judgement of society and with that thought in mind we, in this instance meaning the married couples and not the Stones, went to a ‘sex’ club. It was like any nightclub, people dancing, drinking, sitting at tables and then the announcement that the show would begin and to all look to the center of the dance floor. A bed dropped down from the ceiling onto the middle of the dance floor. An announcement was made, which we would learn later to be–’tonight was Thursday and it was S & M night’.. A woman came out in a little ‘nighty’, jumped on the bed and shortly began playing with various vibratrors and herself. A man in an black outfit and mask came out and I noticed that a lot of the women that were walking around as hostesses disappeared. He pulled out a cat of nine tails and began whipping her. The first thing that all of us thought was that it was a fake and even when we saw blood, we figured it was fake as well. After awhile we realized that even if it was fake..it had to hurt. They had sex and then the man carried the woman off and as they passed, we saw the welts on her and realized, it wasn’t fake. (So much for love, beauty, romance and the lack of Victorian rules–it was hardcore, for money). After they left, the hostesses came back and I asked one of them what was going on.. she said that a lot of the hostesses couldn’t stand to watch but that the woman featured, loved it and was pissed that she had to wait a week between shows. She was forced to wait until her bruises healed.. So much for all our beautiful ain’t sex grand illusions.. At the sex club I found that they did a traveling show . As a surprise for Mick, I hired an act to go to his room at the hotel one night (not S &M). I remember this because at about 1:30AM there was a knock on my hotel room door and it was Mick..he wanted some money to keep the show going..!!

1970 European Tour

ron schneider — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 03:24:29 +0000

I just found this on wikipedia and it brought back memories… of violence. Funny that no one followed up after the 1969 Tour (especially after Altamont), if they had they would have seen…The Rolling Stones‘ 1970 European Tour was a concert tour of Continental Europe that took place during the late summer and early fall of 1970.

Following a tradition set since the band’s earliest days, the tour was not without its altercations. The show at Råsunda stadion in Stockholm on September 4 was interrupted by police who feared that fans, provoked by Jagger, would storm the stage. The singer duly responded by pointing the microphone to the police on stage and soon after suggested the audience would sit down for the next song (the slower “Love in Vain”).^[1] On September 14 a thousand or so forged tickets were rejected at a show at Ernst-Merck-Halle in Hamburg; two hundred policemen were needed to handle disappointed fans. Two days later at Deutschlandhalle in West Berlin, there were nasty battles between assorted youths and the police before the show, and some 50 arrests were made. Then on October 1 at Milan‘s Palazzo Dello Sport, two thousand youths tried to crash the gates to get into the show. Police had to use tear gas to quell the riot; there were injuries among both the policemen and the crowd, and 63 arrests were made.

I recently had an interview and they asked what surprised me most about being on the road with the Stones… I answered, ” getting out alive.”

European Tour 1970 Paris

ron schneider — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 17:41:57 +0000

OK ..first, in a weird way, the film GIMME SHELTER, came about due to the 1970 European tour. In those days when you toured Europe, you were lucky to break even and one of the ways to promote the tour dates was via film of the songs. The filmed songs were shown on TV (prior to MTV). The Stones wanted to film two of their songs from the Madison Square Garden date. I believe they wanted Wild Horses and Brown Sugar the list expanded to 4 songs that we hired the Maysles to film..from this filming for the European Tour, GIMME SHELTER evolved.
Now for Europe at this time.. there was violent unrest in many of the cities. Driving to the Paris show, we had to swerve in and out between overturned burning cars–coming out of an underground parking lot in Rome, a large stone was dropped on our limo from above. There were a lot of dangerous situations, even in our motel in Copenhagen..nearly had a sledgehammer fight with construction crews that were working when we tried to sleep..
At the Paris show while I was roaming around back stage, I opened a door behind the stage and walked into a giant room that was filled with black clothed riot gear armed French police. As I have stated earlier, another interesting note from the Paris concert: word got to Chipmonck that the Hell’s Angel’s were there and one of them had a gun. We were told that we could spot the Angel’s because they were shirtless with badges stuck into their chests. Chip got to them and asked if they had a gun…the guy said yes but it was a starter’s pistol and he just wanted to shoot it in the air.. he reconsidered..
and then there was the audience in Paris. All the royalty had come out and they were in the front rows of the concert..the show started and the audience charged to the front of the stage in an unruly show…the Dukes, Duchesses, Counts, Countesses, Prince’s and Princesses got up and left…
Speaking of Chip…when the show’s were on, I was always checking to make sure our exit was clear amongst other things. Many is the time that we had to escape quickly. As I was making sure the exit route from the stage was secure, I noticed that one of the French police was blocking the stairs chatting up the girls around the stage.. I asked for the stairs to be clear and he just ignored me so I pushed him off the stairs…(PS.I’m a little guy)–he grabbed my arm and a couple of other gendarmes grab me as well…our stage guys grabbed my other arm and I was in the middle of a tug of war… cops trying to pull me into the back to beat me and my crew trying to save my ass…Chip climbed over and jumped into the middle and in his soothing voice of Woodstock voice..calmed the situation…