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When The Rolling Stones rolled up to the Alamo in 1975, it wasn’t exactly a quiet moment of reflection—it was more like history accidentally walking into a very well-lit photo studio. On their way from San Antonio to Kansas City, all five Stones and the rest of the band turned a stop at one of America’s most sacred landmarks into a strange blend of tourism, performance, and controlled chaos. Somewhere between paying respects and striking poses, the line between authenticity and staging got pleasantly blurry.
Add a British newspaper reportedly paying £4,000 for the shoot, and suddenly “spontaneous visit” starts sounding like a polite fiction. It’s Only Rock ’n Roll (But I Like It) by The Rolling Stones feels like the unofficial soundtrack to the moment, where even props, flags, and cameras became part of the show. The result is a slightly absurd collision of rock star ego, media spectacle, and American myth-making—because of course the Stones didn’t just visit the Alamo, they turned it into content before content was even a thing.
It was June 4, 1975 and The Rolling Stones made a brief, slightly surreal pit stop at the Alamo on their way from San Antonioto Kansas City—part history lesson, part photo opportunity, and mostly, it seems, a carefully staged detour for the cameras. The band paid their respects to the site and its fallen defenders, posed for the obligatory shots, and generally did what rock stars do best when handed a national monument and a photographer: turned it into content.
Later it emerged that the visit wasn’t entirely spontaneous reverence. London newspaper The Daily Mirror had reportedly paid the band £4,000 for a special photo shoot at the landmark—because nothing says “American history” quite like a British newspaper commissioning rock stars in cowboy country, right? As props were unpacked from oversized cartons, the Stones casually dug in, half amused, half performing, as if the Alamo itself had become just another set on tour.
The Rolling Stones, Flags, and Fury at the Alamo – 1975 Scene
Mick is covered in the British flag. In the crotch of his jeans, Keith began to cram Confederate flags, while holding a confederate one, with a menacing appearance. Ronnie, who is sporting a halter top, is also holding the Texas flag. Bill is donning a coonskin hat, while Charlie is just glaring. The Daily Mirror guy yelled at para-Stones musicians Billy Preston and Ollie Brown because he was so happy with the merchandise he was receiving. What he didn’t anticipate was that Bill Wyman would decide to leave as well after the first pictures after hearing that.
Cameras, Chaos and Controversy: The Stones Hit the Alamo
According to journalist Chet Flippo, who was covering the tour for Rolling Stone magazine: “I said to Tour Commander Peter Rudge, ‘You just set back Anglo-American relations by a hundred years’. He just laughed. The Stones had their photo opportunity and that was all that mattered”. Time magazine, in fact, ran a picture as the lead item of its People page in the June 23, 1975 issue. The accompanying text, as is Time’s wont, was glib and cute and insubstantial and meaningless: “Although they will play to 1.5 million fans during their three-month tour of the Americas, Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones are only tourists in some places. After two performances at the San Antonio Convention Center, the British rock megastars decided to pose for pictures at a famous Texas landmark.“
Fake News at the Alamo: Jagger’s Quote and Time’s Tall Tale
Flippo: “Jagger and company stepped aside and regrouped for their photo, then headed for beir next concert in Kansas City. ‘I don’t know what it is or where it is’, joked Jagger of the Alamo later, ‘but we’ll never play it again. The sound as awful. It wasn’t even on the itinerary and I hate daytime shows anyway’. The only problem is that it is also wrong. That incident didn’t happen. I was curious about it, since I had been at the Alamo at the time and I knew that no one from Time magazine had been there. I later looked up the Time correspondent’s file on which the item had been based. It had been sent to Time in New York City from a Boston-based Time correspondent eight days after the Stones had posed at the Alamo”.
The correspondent’s file was even more vague and lacking in detail than was Time’s People page entry. It read, in part: “Before they hopped on a plane to meet their next engagement in Kansas City, they wanted to see the Alamo. It was a quick stop—just a few minutes to snoop around and pose for a couple of pictures. As they were posing against a wooden door outside one of the Alamo buildings, the door opened and a woman in her sixties, oblivious to whom she was speaking, said, ‘Would you mind not leaning against the door? You’re blocking our way to the Alamo’ “
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