OT Stones; great song choice for tonight's Covid-19 Concert

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"Van the man" Agreed. Joni Mitchell - never much of a fan until she did Coyote that night, Neil Young had one of his best vocal live performances and you had to love Ronnie Hawkins.
I have a friend whose father was living in SF at the time. Had tickets to the show and succumbed to ****** mother's guilt for not coming home for Thanksgiving that year. I think he sold it before knowing what the event was turning into.

That was one of Neil Young's great performances... shockingly his jaw did not dislocate from the massive amount of drugs he was on that night. They had to remove some cloudy skies from his nostrils in post production. Fun fact, they also had a room in the back that was painted white, decorated with oversized noses and played a tape with sniffing sounds on repeat
 
Saw them in 81 at the tangerine bowl and thought they were old as **** then. The start me up tour. Van Halen played as well for the only city they played in with the stones during that tour.


Rock Super Bowl XII!

T-Bowl had some great concerts. Sadly, that's where Randy Rhoads died, the day before Rock Super Bowl XIV.
 
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Let It Bleed, and Sticky Fingers. Their Apex. And that was it for me. Their best stuff was with Mick Taylor.


Some Girls is an amazing album, they managed to pull themselves out of a drugs-alcohol haze for a transcendent album. If you count from Beggars Banquet up through Some Girls, the only other bands that have had a run of 8 or 9 years of rock solid albums would be The Beatles and Led Zeppelin. Every other band had ups and downs over a decade, including The Who.

Regardless of artistic/social impact, my top Stones albums are:

1. Some Girls - first Stones album I could buy in the store when it first came out, amazing cover, great songs from start to finish, this was also the same time period when they wrote "Start Me Up", which didn't make the LP.
2. Sticky Fingers - same great album cover, I don't think I ever saw the album in a store without someone having broken the plastic to play with the zipper, and OBVIOUSLY great, great songs all over the album.
3. Let It Bleed - edges out BB because it probably has a couple of extra classic songs, and the Let It Bleed lyrics are just filthy and quintessential Stones lyrics.
4. Beggar's Banquet - come on, Sympathy AND Street Fighting Man and a rejected cover, the best Brian Jones era album, could have benefitted from a bit of Mick Taylor.
5. Exile - amazing from start to finish, not as many "hits", but an album to just enjoy for an hour, all kinds of different styles across a double album.
6. Goats Head Soup - underrated Mick Taylor album, this is also the same time period when they recorded "Waiting On A Friend" (Mick actually plays on this song on Tattoo You), and Heartbreaker is an all-time great.
 
From 68-72 they put out Beggars Banquet, Let it Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile. It’s an unparalleled run


First 6 Zeppelin albums are near-perfection (I never liked The Crunge, but they actually played it in concerts as a part of Dazed and Confused).

Help!/Rubber Soul/Revolver/Sgt. Pepper's/The Beatles/Abbey Road/Let It Be (not counting US or soundtrack compilation type albums).
 
Wow. Didn't know that. That's wild.


Rhoads played his last show on Thursday, March 18, 1982, at the Knoxville Civic Coliseum.[18][19] The next day, the band was heading to a festival in Orlando, Florida. Osbourne recalls his final conversation with Rhoads that night on the bus involved the guitarist admonishing him over his heavy drinking.[20] The last thing Rhoads said to him that night was, "You'll kill yourself, you know? One of these days."[20]

After driving much of the night, they stopped at Flying Baron Estates in Leesburg, Florida, to fix a malfunctioning air conditioning unit on the bus while Osbourne remained asleep.[10][20] On the property, owned by the Calhoun Brothers tour bus company, there was an airstrip with small helicopters and planes.[10] Without permission, tour bus driver and private pilot Andrew Aycock took a single-engine Beechcraft F35 plane registered to a Mike Partin.[21][22] On the first flight, Aycock took keyboardist Don Airey and tour manager Jake Duncan with him as passengers.[20] During this first flight, Duncan later revealed that Aycock began "buzzing" the bus in an attempt to wake drummer Tommy Aldridge. The group then landed and a second flight soon took to the air with Rhoads and makeup artist Rachel Youngblood aboard. Though afraid of flying, Rhoads wanted to take some aerial photos of the countryside for his mother. He had tried unsuccessfully to coax bassist Rudy Sarzo to join him on the flight; Sarzo chose to get some extra sleep instead.[10]

During the second flight, more attempts were made to "buzz" the tour bus.[21] Aycock succeeded in making two close passes, but botched the third attempt. At about 10 a.m., after being in the air for approximately five minutes,[22] one of the plane's wings clipped the top of the tour bus, breaking the wing into two parts and sending the plane spiraling out of control.[23] The initial impact with the bus caused Rhoads' and Youngblood's heads to crash through the plane's windshield.[20] The plane then severed the top of a pine tree and crashed into the garage of a nearby mansion, bursting into flames.[5] Rhoads (25) was killed instantly, as were Aycock (36) and Youngblood (58). All three bodies were burned beyond recognition, and Rhoads was identified by dental records and personal jewelry. According to Sharon Osbourne, who was asleep in the bus and awoken by the crash, "They were all in bits, it was just body parts everywhere".[23] Though the entire group were quite distraught, the remaining band and crew members were forced to remain in Leesburg for an additional two days,[5] until preliminary investigations were completed.[23] Rhoads' brother-in-law flew from California to Leesburg to identify the guitarist's remains.[23] Ozzy Osbourne's official statement to crash investigators was:

At approximately 9:00 a.m. on Friday, March 19, 1982, I was awoken from my sleep by a loud explosion. I immediately thought that we'd hit a vehicle on the road. I got out of the bed, screaming to my fiancée, Sharon, 'Get off the bus.' Meanwhile, she was screaming to everyone else to get off the bus. After getting out of the bus, I saw that a plane had crashed. I didn't know who was on the plane at the time. When we realized that our people were on the plane, I found it very difficult to get assistance from anyone to help. In fact, it took almost a half-hour before anyone arrived. One small fire engine arrived, which appeared to squirt three gallons of water over the inferno. We asked for further assistance, such as telephones, and didn't receive any further help. In the end, we finally found a telephone and Sharon phoned her father.[24]
Keyboardist Don Airey was the only member of the band to witness the crash, as the rest were still asleep in the bus.[5] In his account, he explained that he was standing beside the bus taking photos which he planned on giving to Rhoads later. He told of seeing a struggle in the ****pit between Rhoads and Aycock as the plane approached the bus, seconds before the crash.[10] He gave the following eyewitness account:

I had my camera and was taking photos of the plane to give to Randy afterwards. I had my telephoto lens on and could tell that there was some sort of struggle going on board the plane. The wings were rapidly tipping from side to side. At one point the plane almost became perpendicular, no more than six feet off the ground. That's when I put down my camera and saw the plane right in front of me. I quickly crouched to avoid getting hit and looked over my shoulder and watched it clip the bus, crash into the tree and explode on impact into the garage.[10]
As the band members on board the bus were all shaken from their bunks by the impact and tried to figure out what had happened, bassist Sarzo recalls side-stepping broken glass in his bare feet and looking through the gaping hole to see tour manager Jake Duncan outside rocking back and forth on the ground screaming "They're gone! They're gone!" Drummer Tommy Aldridge took a fire extinguisher from the bus and ran towards the crash site in a vain attempt to put out the fire. Tour manager Duncan, who had been on board the first flight, explained that although he had been concerned about the pilot's behaviour, there was no sense of foreboding:

It all seemed so innocent. When we arrived this morning, Andy offered Don and me to take us up. I must admit it got a bit scary when he started buzzing the bus trying to wake Tommy up. But after a few attempts we just landed. That was it.[10]
Rhoads was afraid of flying and Youngblood had a bad heart. Rhoads originally had no intention of getting in the plane, and Duncan explained how the guitarist ended up on the doomed flight:

Well, right after we landed Andy came up to me and told me that he was going to take Rachel up for a ride. And that being aware of her heart condition he assured me that he was just going to take it easy, circle the property a couple of times and not pull any crazy stunts. So when Randy heard that, he decided to join them so he could take some aerial shots with his camera.[10]
The band was scheduled to perform at an outdoor festival called Rock Super Bowl XIV later that day in Orlando. Though the event was not canceled, promoters offered refunds to all ticket holders.[5]

Bob Daisley and Lee Kerslake, who had recorded Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of a Madman with Rhoads and had been recently fired from Osbourne's band, were together in Houston, Texas, with Uriah Heep later that day when they got word of the accident. Kerslake recalled the moment he heard the news:

I was already sitting at the bar when Bob Daisley came into the bar. I turned and looked at Bob and said, '****, you have gone all white. What is wrong?' Bob said, 'Lee, there was a plane crash this morning and Randy was in it ... and he is dead.' That was it. Oh God, to hear that – I just turned and cried my eyes out. Bob and me were crying our eyes out over him, cause we loved him. He was such a lovely guy.[25]

Rhoads' tomb, San Bernardino, California
Rhoads' longtime girlfriend Jody was in her car when she recalls hearing a block of songs from Blizzard of Ozz on the radio before the DJ announced the accident and the news that Rhoads had been killed. She was too distraught to continue driving.[10] When close friend and future Quiet Riot drummer Frankie Banali heard the news, he frantically got in touch with Rudy Sarzo to make sure he was OK. He immediately sensed that Sarzo was having a hard time continuing without Rhoads.[26]

In the hours following the crash, the band and crew called loved ones to assure them that they were safe, as news reports hadn't yet named the victims. Sarzo found a church near the hotel they had been taken to and went inside to pray. The church was empty aside from one man at the front, crying uncontrollably near the altar. Sarzo was moved by the overwhelming grief this man was dealing with. Eventually the man cried out "Why? Why?" and at that point Sarzo realized it was Osbourne.[10]

When fellow guitarist Eddie Van Halen learned about the crash he sensed immediately that the pilot "had to have been ****ed up when it happened", saying in an early 1982 radio interview, "You don't fly that low and smash into a tour bus and then hit the house. (The pilot) was jerking off. That's just plain stupidity. I feel so sorry for (Rhoads)."[27]

Aycock's estranged wife Wanda had spent that last night on the bus and the band were well aware that the driver was attempting to reconcile with her. Witnesses described the driver's state of mind as agitated in the hours before the fatal crash. According to witnesses, Wanda emerged from inside the bus shortly after the second flight took off and was standing in the doorway watching the plane as Aycock made his final approach. Airey and Sarzo both surmise that Aycock, having suddenly seen his estranged ex-wife appear, may have snapped and made the impulsive decision to kill her by crashing the plane into the bus. Speculation regarding motives aside, Sarzo believes that the driver/pilot's troubled emotional state that day, worsened by the effects of the cocaine and the fact that he hadn't slept, was directly responsible for the accident. Given the struggle in the ****pit described by eyewitness Don Airey, Sarzo came to the conclusion that Rhoads' actions in the last seconds of his life prevented a direct hit with the bus, which would have potentially killed the pilot's ex-wife as well as everyone else on board.[10]

Ozzy Osbourne later admitted that Aycock had been seen doing cocaine all night prior to the crash.[20] It was later confirmed after autopsy that Aycock's system had tested positive for cocaine. Rhoads' toxicology test revealed only nicotine.[10] The NTSB investigation determined that Aycock's aviation medical certificate had expired[21][22] and that Aycock had been the pilot in another fatal crash in the United Arab Emirates six years earlier.[20] Sharon had been aware of that prior crash but hadn't informed tour manager Jake Duncan or anyone else of Aycock's history. In the moments after the crash, she immediately admonished tour manager Duncan for allowing their people into a plane with a pilot who had been awake and using drugs all night, telling him "Don't you know that man had already killed one of the Calhoun's kids in a helicopter crash?"[10]
 
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We have some rock aficionados on here - how about Robbie Robertson and the the Weight? **** I loved the Band, the Last Waltz to me was almost better than Woodstock.

But if you followed what happened between him and the Band (long before Levon Helms died), then you know why he had to do get musicians around the world - because he screwed the rest of the BAND so bad, none of the originals would play with him again.



 

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Sticky Fingers is the best album of all time.
Lol. To each his or her own. It wasnt even the best album of that year. By the time Sticky Fingers came out, my musical taste had taken a decidedly Progressive turn. And with Jethro Tulls Aqualung, Yes’ Fragile, Gentle Giants Aquiring The Taste, Genesis - Nursery Cryme (I think thats 71) and the fusion of the Mahavishnu Orchestras Inner Mounting Flame all coming out (and Zappa, King Crimson, and Pink Floyd) I had plenty to listen to and the Stones had run their course. John McLaughlin, now there’s a guitar player.
 
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Rhoads played his last show on Thursday, March 18, 1982, at the Knoxville Civic Coliseum.[18][19] The next day, the band was heading to a festival in Orlando, Florida. Osbourne recalls his final conversation with Rhoads that night on the bus involved the guitarist admonishing him over his heavy drinking.[20] The last thing Rhoads said to him that night was, "You'll kill yourself, you know? One of these days."[20]

After driving much of the night, they stopped at Flying Baron Estates in Leesburg, Florida, to fix a malfunctioning air conditioning unit on the bus while Osbourne remained asleep.[10][20] On the property, owned by the Calhoun Brothers tour bus company, there was an airstrip with small helicopters and planes.[10] Without permission, tour bus driver and private pilot Andrew Aycock took a single-engine Beechcraft F35 plane registered to a Mike Partin.[21][22] On the first flight, Aycock took keyboardist Don Airey and tour manager Jake Duncan with him as passengers.[20] During this first flight, Duncan later revealed that Aycock began "buzzing" the bus in an attempt to wake drummer Tommy Aldridge. The group then landed and a second flight soon took to the air with Rhoads and makeup artist Rachel Youngblood aboard. Though afraid of flying, Rhoads wanted to take some aerial photos of the countryside for his mother. He had tried unsuccessfully to coax bassist Rudy Sarzo to join him on the flight; Sarzo chose to get some extra sleep instead.[10]

During the second flight, more attempts were made to "buzz" the tour bus.[21] Aycock succeeded in making two close passes, but botched the third attempt. At about 10 a.m., after being in the air for approximately five minutes,[22] one of the plane's wings clipped the top of the tour bus, breaking the wing into two parts and sending the plane spiraling out of control.[23] The initial impact with the bus caused Rhoads' and Youngblood's heads to crash through the plane's windshield.[20] The plane then severed the top of a pine tree and crashed into the garage of a nearby mansion, bursting into flames.[5] Rhoads (25) was killed instantly, as were Aycock (36) and Youngblood (58). All three bodies were burned beyond recognition, and Rhoads was identified by dental records and personal jewelry. According to Sharon Osbourne, who was asleep in the bus and awoken by the crash, "They were all in bits, it was just body parts everywhere".[23] Though the entire group were quite distraught, the remaining band and crew members were forced to remain in Leesburg for an additional two days,[5] until preliminary investigations were completed.[23] Rhoads' brother-in-law flew from California to Leesburg to identify the guitarist's remains.[23] Ozzy Osbourne's official statement to crash investigators was:


Keyboardist Don Airey was the only member of the band to witness the crash, as the rest were still asleep in the bus.[5] In his account, he explained that he was standing beside the bus taking photos which he planned on giving to Rhoads later. He told of seeing a struggle in the ****pit between Rhoads and Aycock as the plane approached the bus, seconds before the crash.[10] He gave the following eyewitness account:


As the band members on board the bus were all shaken from their bunks by the impact and tried to figure out what had happened, bassist Sarzo recalls side-stepping broken glass in his bare feet and looking through the gaping hole to see tour manager Jake Duncan outside rocking back and forth on the ground screaming "They're gone! They're gone!" Drummer Tommy Aldridge took a fire extinguisher from the bus and ran towards the crash site in a vain attempt to put out the fire. Tour manager Duncan, who had been on board the first flight, explained that although he had been concerned about the pilot's behaviour, there was no sense of foreboding:


Rhoads was afraid of flying and Youngblood had a bad heart. Rhoads originally had no intention of getting in the plane, and Duncan explained how the guitarist ended up on the doomed flight:


The band was scheduled to perform at an outdoor festival called Rock Super Bowl XIV later that day in Orlando. Though the event was not canceled, promoters offered refunds to all ticket holders.[5]

Bob Daisley and Lee Kerslake, who had recorded Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of a Madman with Rhoads and had been recently fired from Osbourne's band, were together in Houston, Texas, with Uriah Heep later that day when they got word of the accident. Kerslake recalled the moment he heard the news:



Rhoads' tomb, San Bernardino, California
Rhoads' longtime girlfriend Jody was in her car when she recalls hearing a block of songs from Blizzard of Ozz on the radio before the DJ announced the accident and the news that Rhoads had been killed. She was too distraught to continue driving.[10] When close friend and future Quiet Riot drummer Frankie Banali heard the news, he frantically got in touch with Rudy Sarzo to make sure he was OK. He immediately sensed that Sarzo was having a hard time continuing without Rhoads.[26]

In the hours following the crash, the band and crew called loved ones to assure them that they were safe, as news reports hadn't yet named the victims. Sarzo found a church near the hotel they had been taken to and went inside to pray. The church was empty aside from one man at the front, crying uncontrollably near the altar. Sarzo was moved by the overwhelming grief this man was dealing with. Eventually the man cried out "Why? Why?" and at that point Sarzo realized it was Osbourne.[10]

When fellow guitarist Eddie Van Halen learned about the crash he sensed immediately that the pilot "had to have been ****ed up when it happened", saying in an early 1982 radio interview, "You don't fly that low and smash into a tour bus and then hit the house. (The pilot) was jerking off. That's just plain stupidity. I feel so sorry for (Rhoads)."[27]

Aycock's estranged wife Wanda had spent that last night on the bus and the band were well aware that the driver was attempting to reconcile with her. Witnesses described the driver's state of mind as agitated in the hours before the fatal crash. According to witnesses, Wanda emerged from inside the bus shortly after the second flight took off and was standing in the doorway watching the plane as Aycock made his final approach. Airey and Sarzo both surmise that Aycock, having suddenly seen his estranged ex-wife appear, may have snapped and made the impulsive decision to kill her by crashing the plane into the bus. Speculation regarding motives aside, Sarzo believes that the driver/pilot's troubled emotional state that day, worsened by the effects of the cocaine and the fact that he hadn't slept, was directly responsible for the accident. Given the struggle in the ****pit described by eyewitness Don Airey, Sarzo came to the conclusion that Rhoads' actions in the last seconds of his life prevented a direct hit with the bus, which would have potentially killed the pilot's ex-wife as well as everyone else on board.[10]

Ozzy Osbourne later admitted that Aycock had been seen doing cocaine all night prior to the crash.[20] It was later confirmed after autopsy that Aycock's system had tested positive for cocaine. Rhoads' toxicology test revealed only nicotine.[10] The NTSB investigation determined that Aycock's aviation medical certificate had expired[21][22] and that Aycock had been the pilot in another fatal crash in the United Arab Emirates six years earlier.[20] Sharon had been aware of that prior crash but hadn't informed tour manager Jake Duncan or anyone else of Aycock's history. In the moments after the crash, she immediately admonished tour manager Duncan for allowing their people into a plane with a pilot who had been awake and using drugs all night, telling him "Don't you know that man had already killed one of the Calhoun's kids in a helicopter crash?"[10]
Crazy the pilot had a deathwish. Looks like they may have died either way if he would have crashed the plane into the bus. Wild story. Very sad to lose talent like that.
 
Crazy the pilot had a deathwish. Looks like they may have died either way if he would have crashed the plane into the bus. Wild story. Very sad to lose talent like that.


Whether it was a deathwish, a stupid prank, or massive amounts of cocaine, we'll never know, but I definitely think that Randy was trying to pull the plane out of a dive that had them headed towards the bus. Without that effort, Ozzy & Sharon probably die, as well as the rest of the band, Quiet Riot never reforms (Rudy Sarzo), maybe Ronnie James Dio stays in Sabbath, etc.
 
Speaking of Ozzy and Sabbath by the way, here is something to think about.

Both Ozzy in Sabbath and DLR in Van Halen were lead singers who sang WITH the riff, while Dio and Hagar were lead singers who could sing across the riff. Personally, I prefer Ozzy and David Lee, but I can certainly admire the vocal ranges of Ronnie James and Sammy.
 
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