“Rolling Stones Tour Mop Up!” (1978)

By Marcelo Sonaglioni on March 9, 2025

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The Rolling Stones in the press: “Stones Tour Mop Up!” (1978)

*From Creem magazine (USA), Nov. 1 1978

*Click for more YESTERDAY’S PAPERS

Stones Tour Mop Up? The Rolling Stones’ Some Girls US Tour in 1978 was pure rock ‘n’ roll —loud, fast, and completely unpolished. Gone were the elaborate sets and fancy costumes from the Tour of the Americas in ’75. Instead, the Stones hit the road in the summer of ’78 with a stripped-down, no-frills approach that matched the raw, punk-infused energy of their new album, Some Girls. And let’s be honest, Mick Jagger seemed hell-bent on proving the Stones could still out-rock the new wave of punks trying to take their crown.

The tour kicked off in June in Lakeland, Florida, and ran through July, hitting major US cities with a setlist packed with new tracks like Miss You, Beast of Burden, and Shattered, alongside classics like Jumpin’ Jack Flash and Brown Sugar. Jagger was a maniac on stage—strutting, preening, and basically daring the audience to keep up. Keith Richards, fresh off dodging a potential life sentence for his Toronto drug bust, was in fine form, dishing out slashing riffs while Ron Wood, still the “new guy,” held his own.

Unlike their stadium-filling tours of later years, the Some Girls shows were mostly in arenas and even some theaters—more intimate, more chaotic, and at times, more unhinged. The audience was just as wild as the band, and security was often nonexistent (good luck keeping a bunch of 1978 Stones fans in check). By the time they wrapped up in Oakland on July 26 (on Mick Jagger’s 35th birthday), they had proved exactly what they set out to: The Rolling Stones weren’t going anywhere. They could still take on anyone—and they didn’t need pyrotechnics or inflatable stages to do it. Just raw energy, killer songs, and that signature, slightly dangerous swagger.

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