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May 18 in The Rolling Stones history feels less like a normal day and more like rock ’n’ roll refusing to sit still. From sweaty chaos at Stafford’s Bingley Hall in 1976 to Mick Jagger diving deep into raw blues jams with The Red Devils, the date somehow connects stadium swagger, club-sized spontaneity, jazz experiments, Hollywood premieres, and even falling off ladders while looking for a Leonardo da Vinci book (on anatomy!) Because with the Stones, even accidents sound oddly on-brand.
May 18, 1964: The Stones roll into the Chantinghall Hotel in Hamilton, Scotland, kicking off their very first mini-tour of the country. At this stage the band was still exploding across Britain with a raw, dangerous energy that felt completely different from the polished pop acts dominating the charts. Crowds were getting louder, the hysteria more intense, and every stop seemed slightly closer to chaos.
May 18, 1976: New Bingley Hall, Stafford, England Honky Tonk Women/If You Can’t Rock Me-Get Off Of My Cloud/Hand Of Fate/Hey Negrita/Ain’t Too Proud To Beg/Fool To Cry/ Hot Stuff/Star Star/You Gotta Move/You Can’t Always Get What You Want/Band introduction/Happy/Tumbling Dice/Nothing From Nothing/Outa Space/ Midnight Rambler/Jumpin’ Jack Flash/Street Fighting Man
The Stones unleashed their trademark swagger at Bingley Hall in Stafford—and the atmosphere was electric. As part of the European tour supporting Black and Blue, the concert marked the band’s first UK appearance in almost three years, sending excitement through fans. The venue, better known for hosting livestock events, turned into a hot, chaotic rock den filled with 7,000 people waiting to witness the Stones in full force.
May 18, 1990: The Stones launch their explosive Urban Jungle Tour at Feyenoord Stadion in Rotterdam, Holland, unveiling massive production, giant inflatables and a darker, harder-edged stage spectacle. The opening night introduced one of the band’s most ambitious live eras, combining stadium-scale visuals, pyrotechnics and a powerful setlist spanning decades.
Start Me Up/Bitch/Sad Sad Sad/Harlem Shuffle/Tumbling Dice/Miss You/ Almost Hear You Sigh/Ruby Tuesday/Angie/Rock And A Hard Place/ Terrifying/Mixed Emotions/Honky Tonk Women/Midnight Rambler/You Can’t Always Get What You Want/Can’t Be Seen/Happy/Paint It Black/ 2000 Light Years From Home/Sympathy For The Devil/Street Fighting Man/ Gimme Shelter/Band introduction/It’s Only Rock’n Roll/Brown Sugar/ Satisfaction/Jumpin’ Jack Flash
May 18, 1992: Mick Jagger jams onstage with blues band The Red Devils at the King King club, Los Angeles. Mick got hooked on the The Red Devils after producer Rick Rubin told him to check them out at King King while working on his third solo album Wandering Spirit. After jumping onstage with them a month later they cut 13 raw blues tracks in one marathon Hollywood session. Most were done in just a few takes, no overdubs, chasing that loose old-school Chicago blues feel. Oddly, none of it ended up on Mick’s solo album in 1993.One of those recordings eventually surfaced years later when Checkin’ Up on My Baby appeared on the The Very Best of Mick Jagger complation giving fans a long-overdue taste of the wild blues session Mick Jagger cut with the band back in 1992.
Mick on The Red Devils (1992): “The blues sides were cut with The Red Devils, a band signed to Def American. I used to go see them Monday nights at the King King Club in L.A. and I sung with them a couple of times. We did one whole day of 14 blues sides. Some obscure, some not. We don’t know if we’re going to put them out. We just did them for fun… You go in and out of these things. You think, I know it, I’ve heard it, it’s all in my head. I don’t need to put records on. It’s different when you’re actually playing it or seeing it – that’s something else…
…Listening to blues records sometimes gets to be a bit… But sometimes you go back to it and you say, Wow, this is really great. Especially buying a new collection of something like old spiritual singers that I used to like when I was a teenager that I’d forgotten. God knows they’re pretty heavy and dark. You come back to that and it gives you a bit of a chill. If you go in and buy records that you haven’t heard in a very long time you can get back into it. Playing and singing it – especially with bands like the Red Devils who are a real blues band, they only play blues – you get a sense of, Wow, I was there. When I was 19 that’s what I used to do – just play this music. That was all I did!”
May 18, 1998: The Stones’ new European tour, set to open in Berlin on May 22, is delayed for almost a month after Keith falls off a library ladder at his home in Connecticut (reaching for a book on Leonardo da Vinci on anatomy!) breaking three ribs. Keith: “I was looking for Leonardo da Vinci’s book on anatomy. I learned a lot about anatomy but didn’t find the book.”
May 18, 2000: Eva, Mick Jagger’s mother (Eva Ensley Mary, née Scutts) dies at age 87 from a heart condition. A perfectionist by nature, she worried when her son quit the London School of Economics for rock & roll. Still, the ambition and stamina he became famous for clearly came straight from her.
May 18, 2005: Release of Tim Ries‘ CD The Rolling Stones Project, with Charlie, Keith and Ronnie as guests on five tracks: 1. Belleli / 2. Honky Tonk Women (organ version)/ 3. Slipping Away/ 4. Waiting On A Friend/ 5. Honky Tonk Women
Jazz covers of rock songs usually go wrong in two ways: either musicians keep replaying the same ancient standards, or they turn pop hits into lifeless elevator music. Thankfully, Tim Ries avoids both. His jazzy spin on the Stones songs feels loose creative, and alive (after all he’s been touring with them since 1999, handling woodwinds and keyboards) A few moments may miss the mark, but versions of tracks like Honky Tonk Women andPaint It Black make the album genuinely worth checking out.
May 18, 2007: Keith Richards appears at the premiere of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End at Disneyland in Anaheim, California. Keith, who made a memorable cameo in the film (Captain Teague, father of Jack Sparrow, starring Johnny Depp) walked the red carpet as fans and media celebrated both the movie’s launch and his scene-stealing appearance in the blockbuster adventure.
May 18, 2012: Cyndi Lauper joins Ronnie Wood onstage on Ooh La La at the star-packed ‘Ronnie Wood Alive Party’ charity concert held at the VIP Room inside the JW Marriott furing the 65th Annual Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France.The intimate late-night performance mixed rock glamour, celebrity energy, and a good cause, turning the venue into one of Cannes’ hottest music events. *All photos by Foc Kan
May 18, 2013: Honda Center, Anaheim, California, USA Get Off Of My Cloud/It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll/Paint It Black/Gimme Shelter/You Got Me Rocking/Wild Horses/Bitch/Shattered/Doom And Gloom/One More Shot/Honky Tonk Women/Band introduction/You Got The Silver/Happy/Midnight Rambler/Miss You/Start Me Up/Tumbling Dice/Brown Sugar/Sympathy For The Devil/You Can’t Always Get What You Want/Jumpin’ Jack Flash/ Satisfaction *With special guests Dave Grohl on Bitch and the University Of Southern California Thornton Chamber Singers on You Can’t Always Get What You Want
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