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If you think one random date can’t sum up the chaos, swagger, and sheer unpredictability of The Rolling Stones, think again. May 3 reads like a highlight reel nobody planned: gritty club beginnings, global domination, street-level clashes, courtroom drama, and the kind of comebacks most bands wouldn’t survive once, let alone repeatedly. It’s not just a timeline—it’s a pattern of reinvention wrapped in attitude. One day you’re dodging trouble, the next you’re redefining stadium rock. Typical Stones logic, really: keep moving, keep playing, and never make it easy to pin down what happens next.
May 3, 1963: Star And Garter Pub, Ricky Tick Club, Windsor, England
May 3, 1964: Palace Theatre, Manchester, England
May 3, 1965: While walking through the streets of New York City, Mick, Keith, and Brian suddenly find themselves in a tense confrontation when a group of five guys start hurling insults at them, mocking their appearance and calling them “faggots.” What begins as verbal harassment quickly escalates, tempers flare, and the situation turns physical.
May 3, 1976: Deutschlandhalle, Berlin, West Germany 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/Nothing From Nothing/Outa Space/Midnight Rambler/ It’s Only Rock’n Roll/Brown Sugar/Jumpin’ Jack Flash/Street Fighting Man
May 3, 1979: Mick shows up in court in London for his divorce from Bianca Jagger. She had officially filed back on May 15, 1978, at the High Court of Justice, saying she’d been living in England for at least a year and that the last place she and Mick Jagger shared was London. What followed turned into a drawn-out, transatlantic legal saga, with hearings bouncing between London and Los Angeles. By May 1979, a judge in L.A. steps in and ordered temporary financial support for Bianca while the whole thing played out.
May 3, 1994: The Stones arrive by presidential yacht (the ‘Honey Fitz’) to Pier 60 in New York City for their press conference announcing their 1994-1995 Voodoo Lounge World Tour, also announcing bass player Darryl Jones and Chuck Leavell will join them onstage. Mick: “We’ve done it by land and we’ve done it by train… I hate that thing where you say it’s the last tour and beg for sympathy, like if you don’t come, you never see them again. I’m not going to say it’s the last tour. I think it’s a mistake to say that.”
Darryl Jones, about getting the job: “I tried not to get too attached to the outcome. After we did the record, Mick said he thought I did a good job, and Keith said he’d like to have me hang around again. But I didn’t really get the word, officially, on the tour until a couple of months ago.”
May 3, 2000: The Stones come together for the first time in almost a year gathering at the Half Moon pub (in Putney, London) for a wake honoring Keith Richards’ longtime bodyguard, Joe Seabrook. The mood was somber but also full of shared memories, as friends and bandmates paid their respects. At one point the atmosphere shifted slightly when Keith Richards and Ron Wood picked up instruments and slipped into an impromptu jam session
May 3, 2004: Keith Richards makes a surprise appearance, joining (X-Pensive Winos bandmate) Waddy Wachtel onstage at The Joint in Los Angeles. The moment feels loose and spontaneous, with Richards slipping right into the groove, trading riffs and soaking up the vibe.
May 3, 2013: Staples Center, Los Angeles, California, USA (first show of the 2013 North American Tour) Get Off Of My Cloud/The Last Time/It’s Only Rock’n Roll/Paint It Black/Gimme Shelter/Wild Horses/ Factory Girl/Emotional Rescue/Respectable/Doom And Gloom/One More Shot/Honky Tonk Women/Band introduction/Before They Make Me Run/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 Mick Taylor (on Midnight Rambler), Gwen Stefani (on Wild Horses), Keith Urban (on Respectable) and the Cal State Long Beach Cole Conservatory Chamber Choir (on You Can’t Always Get What You Want)
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