April 17, 1967: What happened the day The Rolling Stones visited Greece for the first time?
The year 1967 was of great importance for both the Rolling Stones and the Greeks, in a different way for each one.
It was the year of extreme conservatism, the imposition of dictatorship, an absolute absurdity for Greece. It was also the beginning of the break-up for the band, given the situation of Brian Jones, who was struggling with his abuses and low self-esteem. However, on January the 20th, the Rolling Stones released the album “Between the Buttons” which also included the famous songs “Let’s spend the night together” and “Ruby Tuesday”. A few months later their European tour from Sweden would begin and end in Athens with a concert scheduled for 3 full hours.
The 1960s were undoubtedly the most interesting decade in world history, as all of the political, social, and cultural events that have occurred, affected, and changed the whole world. The most important was the student uprisings and protests, murders of leaders and activists, racial discrimination, extreme conservatism, the great awakening of the counterculture, and the flourishing of rock music that the youth of this decade were very focused on.
Young people were the protagonists of this change and music played a key role in their actions and struggles. The 1950s rock and roll opposed the conservative lifestyle and strict patriarchal model of the family, while the ’60s rock challenged the political system and fought for its rights. Throughout the 1960s, young people were struggling and fought for their rights while the bands were weaving the soundtrack of the revolution.
In 1960s Greece, rock had not yet been fully assimilated as a new kind of music, as it was the era of parties and dance, that is, its entertainment version. “The youth, according to Paschalis Arvanitidis (former member of one of the most popular Greek rock bands of the ’60s, the Olympians), “danced a lot, as this was the fashion of the time, but did not learn musical instruments”. This was changed by the impact of the Beatles in 1963 and more specifically the well-known Beatlemania, the “exotic disease of the time” as described by Giannis Petridis.
Therefore rock music ‘entered’ the Greek society and at the same time was associated with all the evolutions in the country. The most important political and social event was, without exaggeration, the imposition of the military dictatorial regime on 21 April 1967, which lasted until 1974. After this event, a tyrannical and anti-democratic regime was established in Greece which was the culmination of Greek conservatism.
It was just a few days before the imposition of the dictatorship in Greece, that a historical musical event occurred which undoubtedly helped even more young people to express themselves through rock music. The event was the famous Athenian concert of the Rolling Stones on Alexandra Avenue which was organized by the music magazine of the time, called Modern Rhythms.
This concert was the first and largest to be organized in Greece and took place at a time when the Stones’ career was at its peak and the Greek people were looking forward to seeing a band of this range playing live in a conservative country such as Greece. The support for this concert was undertaken by Greek bands, the most popular Athenians of the time, such as Idols, MGC, We Five, Loubogg but also Dakis, Tasos Papastamatis (former singer of Forminx) and the Italian singer Guidone.
Several historical scholars, journalists, and especially people of the music industry who happened to be there, have at times described the situation that prevailed, at this, exciting for the youth, evening. In particular, the number of people who arrived at the stadium was large (about 12,000 have been mentioned) and at the same time, there were police forces that had clear orders to arrest any young person who would be “out of line” in the sense of the aberration that the enthusiastic rock and roll dance had at the time. In short, the “chaos” that would prevail later was unsurprising!
On March 22nd, the 77th issue of the music magazine Modern Rhythms was released with a bombshell news story about that time, “It’s neither an April Fool’s lie nor a publicity stunt. The Rolling Stones are coming!”
April 17, 1967, on a Monday, the stadium on Alexandra Avenue was preparing to welcome Brian Jones, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Bill Wyman, and Charlie Watts for the closing of their European tour. This tour was the last to include Brian Jones, the band’s original founder.
The band arrived on different flights, thus disappointing the already disappointed audience who waited for them at the airport as Nikos Mastorakis, the organizer of the concert, had informed them that the first 80 who would welcome them would win free tickets for the concert. On the contrary, all they “won” was to get beaten later at the complex’s hotel residence, Hilton, where they rushed for autographs, but police had already flooded the venue earlier and waited for them.
A fairly interesting event before the big night of the concert was the press conference the band gave to journalists of the time, answering their questions with satirical style and humor. “Are you loved by each other?” the reporter asked to get the answer “Yes, and the proof is that we sleep together in the same bed”, which was partly true since from autumn 1962 until the summer of 1963 Brian, Mick and Keith shared a tiny apartment in London’s Edith Grove where they drank, listened and played music, disagreed, and that’s how the Rolling Stones came about.
The events that followed led to the early end of the concert and left the band and audience disappointed. There is confusion about what really happened that night as there are many different points of view. There are those who claim that at some point during the concert, a Stones fan wanted to offer them flowers (red carnations in particular). On the contrary, there are those who claim that the flowers were offered to the public by Tom Keylock, the road manager of the band, who was near the stage at the time of the concert.
Whatever is true of these two cases, one thing is certain. This act was regarded as a communist one by the authorities and was followed by the interruption of the concert where the lights went out, the “class” was disturbed and the Stones quickly left the stadium in the dark.
At this point it is worth noting, as Manolis Dalukas says, that this barbarity of the authorities comes in essence from society itself: “Police officers simply express the deep dislike that “serious” and “minded” adults feel towards the vitality of young people. For the conservative society of the time, rock is a matter of dirtbags and bums.”
This concert event reflects only one of the many aspects of society, but particularly important since from that evening onwards, the policy of the dictatorship implemented was aimed at bringing youth (geysers and teddy-boys!) back to the “right path” from which they were supposed to have been removed the previous years.
The band’s bassist, Bill Wyman remembers very well that day as well as the subsequent ones, since he stayed with his family in Athens after the concert.
“We experienced another madness in Greece at the beginning of 1967. They put us in the Panathinaikos Football Stadium, with the public in the seats and 3 rows of police, so they wouldn’t be allowed to leave the seats. Of course, as soon as we started the concert they all found themselves in the downstairs area, running and confronting the police and they stopped the concert about 3 times.”
“The police beat them with batons, really vicious. Tom Keylock was with us because he worked for Keith and we had all these big bouquets of flowers that we were going to hand out to the public, but we couldn’t give them away. Tom then says, ‘I’ll do it’.”
“He then took the flowers, jumped off stage running, and got into a fight with the police who broke his nose or wrist. The next day everyone else left for England, while I stayed on holiday and got stuck there because two days later there was the military coup — that’s probably why the police were so nervous. And then we didn’t tour again until Hyde Park and America in 1969.”
The great radio producer Giannis Petridis remembers that evening very characteristically since it was one of the most important concerts which he has attended. At that time he was serving in Larissa and took the day off to come to Athens only for the concert. In the morning, he reportedly went to the airport to see them when they arrived where the police were waiting, giving him a glimpse of what would follow in the evening. While he was at the concert he was running from here and there trying to find a way to sneak in the backstage! As he confided in me, he’ll never forget this day.
“I have seen The Rolling Stones in several concerts since that day of 1967. The band had such an evolution mainly on stage, that it rightly took the title, ‘the greatest rock n roll band in the world’. Several of their subsequent concerts, I place them in the best ones I have seen in my life, but the first time can’t be surpassed by anything”.
From that day on, the Rolling Stones visited Greece again for a concert in 1998 at OAKA with an audience of 79,000 spectators. 2006 would have been the third time they would have played for the Greek public if it had not been for the accident of Keith Richards, who was seriously injured after falling from a palm tree in New Zealand.
Would it be naïve to think about a third concert now, since the Stones are still performing live? We may be able to see them live in Greece in the near future. The Alexandra Avenue stadium, perhaps?
