Paul McCartney attends The Rolling Stones’ concert in Hyde Park

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On this day, Paul McCartney attended the Rolling Stones’ free concert in London’s Hyde Park. Despite persistent rumours before the event, none of The Beatles joined The Stones on stage.

The concert was filmed for television and Paul can briefly be seen during the end credits.

In the musicians’ enclosure were Paul and Linda McCartney, Eric Clapton and girlfriend Alice Ormsby-Gore, Ginger Baker, Donovan, Chris Barber, Marsha Hunt, Kenny Lynch, Stevie Winwood and Mama Cass. On the stage were Marianne and her son Nicholas, Michael Cooper and Julie Felix. Allen Klein looked after my son Stephen.

Bill Wyman – From “Rolling With The Stones“, 2003

From Wikipedia:

The Stones in the Park was a free outdoor festival held in Hyde Park on 5 July 1969, headlined by the Rolling Stones and featuring Third Ear Band, King Crimson, Screw, Alexis Korner’s New Church, Family and the Battered Ornaments, in front of an estimated audience between 250,000–500,000 spectators.

It was the Stones’ first public concert in over two years, and was planned as an introduction of new guitarist, Mick Taylor, though circumstances inevitably changed following the death of former member Brian Jones two days earlier. The band rehearsed at the Beatles’ studio in a basement on Savile Row, and Mick Jagger and Keith Richards came up with a 14-song set; the Hyde Park concert would be the first time many of the songs had been played before a public audience. The PA system was supplied by Watkins Electric Music, who had handled amplification at previous Hyde Park events.

Fans started to arrive at the park with candles on 4 July in tribute to Jones, and by the morning of 5 July, 7,000 people had already gathered. Jagger read a short eulogy on stage before the Stones’ set began, reading two stanzas of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem on John Keats’s death, Adonaïs, from a calf-bound book. After this recital, several hundred cabbage white butterflies were released. The setlist for their performance was “I’m Yours & I’m Hers”, “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”. “Mercy Mercy”, “Down Home Girl”, “Stray Cat Blues”, “No Expectations”, “I’m Free”, “Loving Cup”, “Love in Vain”, “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”, “Honky Tonk Women”, “Midnight Rambler”, “Street Fighting Man” and “Sympathy for the Devil”. During the 18-minute-long rendition of “Sympathy for the Devil”, a number of African tribal drummers joined the band.

While the event is considered a memorable one by several critics, they also agree that it was not one of the Stones’ best performances, and the guitars played during the concert were out of tune. In a 1971 interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Richards evaluated their performance, “We played pretty bad until near the end, because we hadn’t played for years … Nobody minded, because they just wanted to hear us play again.” The Stones’ portion of concert was filmed by Granada Television and broadcast that September. It has since been released on DVD and Blu-ray. […]

Last updated on February 29, 2024