On This Day: A Future Rock Icon Opened for the Rolling Stones, Was Booed Offstage

With decades of hindsight and hits to look back on, it’s hard to imagine a rock icon like Prince ever opening for the Rolling Stones, let alone getting booed offstage. Nevertheless, that’s exactly what happened at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on October 9, 1981.

Prince was the first opening act of the night. George Thoroughgood, the Destroyers, and the J. Geils Band would follow. Then, the Rolling Stones would take over as part of their Tattoo You promotional tour. But before Prince and his band could finish their set, the crowd began hurling jeers, fried chicken, fruit, and homophobic and racist slurs toward the stage.

The “I Wanna Be Your Lover” singer’s set was cut short. He left in tears. And the Rolling Stones? Well, they weren’t exactly the epitome of empathy when they spoke of the incident years later.

Future Rock Icon Booed Offstage After Opening For The Stones

1981 is an important year to consider when remembering this tumultuous concert. The Rolling Stones might have been at the height of their fame, but Prince’s star was still rising. Although Prince was performing fairly well in the R&B and dance charts, he wouldn’t start topping the Billboard Hot 100 charts until 1984 with cuts like “When Doves Cry” and “Let’s Go Crazy.” It’s safe to assume some Stones fans in the Coliseum crowd hadn’t heard Prince’s music before that fateful night.

At some point during Prince’s opening set, the crowd of 94,000 began to grow restless. Prince’s music wasn’t exactly a carbon copy of the Rolling Stones or George Thoroughgood. As tens of thousands of people grew increasingly angry over Prince’s funk-infused set, they began hurling food toward the stage. Those without food to hurl opted for insults of the homophobic and racist variety.

Prince’s bassist, Brown Mark, later said, “Next thing I noticed was food starting to fly through the air like a dark thundercloud. Imagine 94,000 people throwing food at each other. It was the craziest thing I had ever seen in my life. I got hit in the shoulder with a bag of fried chicken. Then, my guitar got knocked out of tune by a large grapefruit that hit the tuning keys.” Mark had only just joined the band when he and his colleagues were booed by Rolling Stones fans.

The Opener and Headliners’ Differing Reactions

As the crowd at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum grew rowdier and rowdier, promoter Bill Graham tried to settle down the crowd by taking the stage. When that didn’t work, Prince and his band cut their set short. The frontman reportedly left the venue in tears. Prince flew home from L.A. to Minnesota on the promise that he would return for the next Stones show at the same venue two days later. (During that second set, he ended the night with “Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad?”)

While there’s something to be said for Prince’s willingness to return to a venue that booed him offstage two nights before, his headlining colleagues were less than supportive when discussing the events years later. “I talked to Prince on the phone once after he got two cans thrown at him in L.A.,” Mick Jagger said in a 1983 interview. “He said he didn’t want to do any more shows. God, I got thousands of bottles and cans thrown at me! Every kind of debris.” That, Jagger argued, was the deal.

Keith Richards was less empathetic: “Prince has to find out what it means to be a prince. That’s the trouble with conferring a title on yourself before you’ve proved it. That was his attitude when he opened for us on tour, and it was insulting to our audience. You don’t try to knock off the headline like that when you’re playing a Stones [concert]. He’s a prince who thinks he’s a king already.”

The tense Rolling Stones concert obviously didn’t have too great an impact on Prince’s career, but we don’t doubt getting booed offstage had a dramatic impact on the future rock icon as a performer (and person).

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