\n\tThe second season of Laverne & Shirley had just gone into production when Cindy \u201cShirley\u201d Williams came down with viral pneumonia, forcing producers of the hit ABC sitcom to shut down production for two weeks. \u201cYou can bet Cindy received posies from The Fonz since she\u2019s been hospitalized,\u201d reads a report by Shirley Eder that ran in the Colorado Springs Gazette-Telegraph on July 22, 1976, conflating the fantasy world of the Happy Days extended universe with reality in a very odd way. \u201cI don\u2019t know about a romance, but they have been good friends for years.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tWith that important update out of the way, Eder turned her attention to the music world. \u201cThe Rolling Stones<\/a> will headline the Knebworth Fair August 21, and 100,000 fans are expected to attend this medieval festival 40 miles from London,\u201d she writes. \u201cThe whole fair will be under the Stones\u2019s direction this year \u2013 including historical sideshows from acrobats to jousting matches.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \n\tThat\u2019s the extent of Rolling Stones info in Eder\u2019s entertainment column, which goes on to note that Norwegian actress Liv Ullman brought Shirley MacLaine \u201cthree pounds of imported caviar\u201d while visiting her backstage at New York\u2019s Palace Theater, and new footage was being shot for the 1974 movie Earthquake in preparation for a three-hour TV broadcast, but there was much she didn\u2019t mention.<\/p>\n \n\tMost significantly, Keith Richards lost his ten-day-old son Tara due to SIDS on June 6. Just a few weeks before the tragedy, the guitarist was detained by police in London following a car crash where they discovered cocaine in his vehicle. \u201cSince then, the London Daily Mirror has reported the Stones as the unknowing couriers of a drug syndicate,\u201d read a July 15, 1976, report in Rolling Stone.<\/a> \u201cUnder headlines reading \u2018Drug Smuggling Shock for the Stones\u2019 and \u2018Cocaine Hidden in Pop Star\u2019s Bentley,\u2019 news stories told of police suspicion that cocaine and cannabis had been hidden in clothing, jewelry and equipment carried by the \u2018unsuspecting\u2019 Stones and their entourage during their 9-country, 36-day tour.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n \n\tRichards somehow had the fortitude to continue a grueling European tour in the middle of all this chaos and sorrow, but a stadium run through America at the end of the summer was simply too much to ask. He was in desperate need of downtime to process the loss of Tara and deal with his growing drug problem.<\/p>\n \n\tBut the band decided to go forward with their plan to stage a massive concert in Knebworth, England, on Aug. 21, with special guests 10cc, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Todd Rundgren, and Hot Tuna. \u201cIt may be the most memorable rock festival ever staged in Britain,\u201d read an Aug. 19 report in the Belfast Telegraph that seems to be discounting the 1969 and 1970 incarnations of Isle of Wight. \u201cThe Stones seem certain to go on making records and they are currently asking for a large sum of money to put their signature on a recording contract, but they may have finally decided it is time to fade away from festivals and concerts after 13 years of gigging. Says Jagger (33): \u2018I would hate to think I would still be singing \u2018Satisfaction\u2019 when I\u2019m forty.’\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe ludicrous notion that the Stones were going to call it quits after the Knebworth show was all over the U.K. press, likely spread by promoters hoping to move tickets. \u201cSome people close to the group say that, because of the magnitude of the 12-hour event, it could be the Stones\u2019 Swan Song,\u201d read an Aug. 21 article in the Leicester Mercury. \u201cThe stage was still being built in the early hours of the morning \u2013 a day surrounded by polythene lips in the shape of the now familiar emblem \u2013 a gaping mouth. In front of the stage is a hundred-yards-long catwalk which Mick Jagger will use during a two-and-a-half-hour concert \u2013 possibly his longest ever.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u201c[The stage] is understood to have cost about \u00a3100,000 to build,\u201d the article continues. \u201cThe 12 hour long pop concert at the stately home will be staged in an arena capable of holding up to 200,000 pop fans. Thousands of fans \u2013 who pay about \u00a34.50 for the concert \u2013 were already camped outside in tents, wigwams, and make-shift overnight homes early today. People already camping by the site for the concert \u2013 which starts at 11:00 am \u2013 were urged not to light cooking fires because of the danger of grass fire.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n \n\tAs the Stones learned the hard way seven years earlier, grass fires weren\u2019t the only possible dangers at an enormous festival. But unlike Altamont, Knebworth was organized over several months as opposed to a matter of days. And the festival grounds held events in 1974 (Allman Brothers\/Doobie Brothers\/Van Morrison\/Tim Buckley) and 1975 (Pink Floyd\/Captain Beefheart\/Monty Python\/Steve Miller Band) that provided them with a framework.<\/p>\n \n\tThat doesn\u2019t mean everything was easy. \u201cThe British Army will come to the rescue of the Rolling Stones Knebworth Festival on August 21,\u201d an Aug. 2 article in the Press-Telegram read, \u201cby agreeing to install 400 portable toilets on the grounds of the Knebworth estate.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe morning of the event, an ominous item appeared in The Daily Telegraph that surely sent the Stones\u2019 camp into a panic: \u201cHundreds of Hells Angels are expected to descend onto site. Police can call on neighboring [police] forces if there is trouble, and all leave in the county has been cancelled.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \n\tUnlike Altamont, the Hells Angels were unwelcome visitors this time rather than an unofficial security force. And a combined unit of public and private officers was brought onto the grounds to maintain order and avoid any chance of a repeat of 1969, though they apparently were unconcerned about drug use. \u201cThere was a carnival atmosphere and the usual wafts of marijuana smoke, but police said they had made no arrests by early evening,\u201d read a report the Monroe Morning World filed midway through the show. \u201cMarijuana, hashish, and pills were sold openly at the site, but organizations set up to deal with drug users on bad trips said there had not been much demand for their services.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe Stones were supposed to take the stage around 9 p.m., but technical issues throughout the day delayed their set by over two hours. During the downtime, the middle portion of Pink Floyd\u2019s \u201cEchoes\u201d played on a loop as rumors spread the Stones might cancel. But all was forgiven when they took the stage and burst into the song that Jagger didn\u2019t want to still be playing at 40, but was happy to sing at 33.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \n\tIt was their first live rendition of \u201cSatisfaction\u201d since 1972, and an early sign this was going to be a very different show than the one they brought around North America and Europe earlier in the year, even though they were once again joined by pianist\/singer Billy Preston and percussionist Ollie Brown.<\/p>\n \n\tThe surprises continued with their first cover of Chuck Berry\u2019s \u201cAround and Around\u201d since 1966, their first cover of Willie Dixon\u2019s \u201cThe Little Red Rooster\u201d since 1965, and their first \u201cLet\u2019s Spend the Night Together\u201d since 1967. They were technically supporting Black and Blue with this tour, but only played four songs (\u201cFool to Cry,\u201d \u201cHand of Fate,\u201d \u201cHey Negrita,\u201d and \u201cHot Stuff\u201d) from it to make room for standards like \u201cYou Can\u2019t Always Get What You Want,\u201d \u201cTumbling Dice,\u201d \u201cWild Horses,\u201d and \u201cHappy.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tNear the end, Jagger handed over the mic to Preston so he could play his recent solo hits \u201cNothing From Nothing\u201d and \u201cOuta-Space,\u201d before wrapping up the night with fierce renditions of \u201cMidnight Rambler,\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s Only Rock \u2018n\u2019 Roll (But I Like It),\u201d \u201cBrown Sugar,\u201d \u201cRip This Joint,\u201d \u201cJumpin\u2019 Jack Flash,\u201d and \u201cStreet Fighting Man.\u201d They played 28 songs across two-and-a-half hours, one of the longest shows of their entire career, wrapping up after 2 a.m.<\/p>\n \n\tThe Sunday Telegraph sent an older writer, Ronald Payne, to report from the scene like an anthropologist. \u201cHad even a good regiment of infantry been forced to wait hours in the sun in such conditions there would have been a mutiny,\u201d Payne writes. \u201cBut they sat, the big battalions of pop in their unisex uniforms of blue jeans and T-shirts, apparently happy. Up the hillside there ever pours in reinforcements, clutching cans of beer and occasionally flags\u2026There is something about it all of a children\u2019s crusade, the young people look so innocent and take their pleasure so gravely. Yet over them loomed the music, which I fail to comprehend, of such a high decibel count as to make the roar of Concorde seem like the whirring of a clockwork toy.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t(It\u2019s fortunate the music was so loud, since there were somewhere in the ballpark of 150,000 to 250,000 attendees \u2014 estimates vary wildly \u2014 and only two screens with nothing close to the fidelity we\u2019re accustomed to at shows today, even if they were state-of-the-art by 1976 standards.)<\/p>\n \n\tIn The Guardian, writer Robin Denselow compared the event to the Republican National Convention, which nominated Gerald Ford for his first proper term as president just a couple days earlier. \u201cEven with the wildest stretch of the imaginations, it\u2019s difficult to equate Jagger howling through \u2018Street Fighting Man\u2019 with Betty Ford\u2019s victory waltz across the platform to the strains of \u2018I Could Have Danced All Night,’\u201d Denselow writes. \u201cBut in terms of style, both were vast-scale marketing exercises that drew enormous audiences, and both star attractions used old-fashioned showbiz techniques to win the lumps in the throat, wet eyes, and applause.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tOnce the show was finally over, the group was happy to admit they had no plans to actually stop touring. \u201cWe are planning a tour of South America at the moment for next year,\u201d bassist Bill Wyman told the press. \u201cBefore that we are going to the South of France to rest. If possible we should like to come back here again some time next year for concerts.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe future didn\u2019t unfold quite as Wyman envisioned. The Stones somehow didn\u2019t hit South America until 1995, a couple years after Wyman quit the band. And there was no European tour in 1977. The only dates they played that year were the infamous pair of shows at Toronto\u2019s El Mocambo, where they billed themselves as the Cockroaches. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n