The Rolling Stones - 50 years ago today!

It suddenly hit me today that it’s been virtually 50 years since my friend Matthew Taylor and I bought black-market tickets to see The Rolling Stones at Earls Court Arena in London in May 1976.

Fifty years.

How the hell did that happen?

What is even more frightening is that I can still remember almost every detail of that night.

Back in those days, concert security took cameras incredibly seriously. If they found one on you, that was it, you were thrown out immediately, your film was confiscated, and your evening was over before Mick Jagger had even shaken his hips.

And trust me, they searched properly.

This wasn’t today’s quick little glance in a bag. They practically frisked you like you were attempting to smuggle nuclear secrets into East Berlin.

So naturally, being young, ambitious and not remotely sensible, we decided we absolutely had to get cameras into the show.

I hid cameras everywhere.

Under my jacket. Under my arms. Down my trousers. I even had one of my Nikon lenses down my underpants, in a place it was never originally designed to go.

I looked less like a music fan and more like a man who had robbed a camera shop.

But we got through security. I was becoming more adept at getting through security. Every gig was a challenge. Matthew was another story. He often failed and often got caught. So many other people I knew were at this gig, including some of my school friends.

Once inside, Matthew and I managed to work our way right down to the very front of the stage. A few moments later, the show started. This tour was known as the Starfucker tour. The stage was in the shape of a star and opened up like a flower, and I remember Mick Jagger running up the edge in front of us as the stage mechanically opened and lay down more like a stage. Suddenly, there they were, The Rolling Stones in full flight.