To coincide with the release of Martin Scorsese's Stones film Shine a Light, RBP presents Robert Greenfield's fly-on-the-wall Rolling Stone account of life on the road with the band in 1971 – complete with a supporting cast that includes Anita Pallenberg, Bianca Jagger, and Gram Parsons.--Barney Hoskyns, Editorial Director, Rock's Backpages

"Boogie, Bobby, boogie," Marshall Chess is saying over and over to Bobby Keys in the seat next to him, slamming out the phrase and laughing, as they talk about old-time saxophone rides.

"Booo-gey, Booo-gey," Anita Richard, née Pallenberg, is sing-songing in the back of the plane, making the word sound lime an errant German nickname for Humphrey Bogart.

Boogie, a small brown and white puppy dog, is about to fall asleep in the arms of Anita's husband, Keith. The doors of the midnight flight from Glasgow to London are about to close. Conversations buzz and hum. Only the tops of heads and the outsides of elbows are visible.

What could be nicer? Flying home from Glasgow in the midnight hour after two good shows before packed houses of people from out of 1957 (brass blonde ladies screaming and clutching at their heads whenever Mick showed his ass to the audience).

Contentment positively flows from seat to seat, the engines are about to rev, it's five, four, three, two minutes to takeoff. When down the aisle comes a blue-jacketed airline official, all the way to the back seat where Keith and his dog recline. And the official says: "That dog flies by prior arrangement only sir, you'll have to get off the plane."

"What?"

"I'm sorry, sir, I warned you in the airport. How you managed to slip by me on to the plane I don't know but you'll have to get off now."

"Look, I've flown BEA, TWA, Pan-Am." Keith Richards, singer, composer, lead guitar player, Rolling Stone, is reciting a list of every airline he's ever been on. "To San Francisco, to places you or this airline have never been..."

"You have to supply a box, sir."

"I happen to know that section of the Geneva Convention very well; you have to supply the box. This is ridiculous. It's an emergency. My wife and family are here, we have to get home to take my child to a doctor tomorrow."

"I'm sorry, sir."

"We just want to get home. Is it that important? Just let us leave."

"The rules, sir."

"I know the rules. Get this plane going, we're not moving." Exit the official. Re-enter the official with two large blue Scottish policemen.

"Ere, wot's the law doin' 'ere? Come to arrest us all, have you? Oy, you you, oy." A big Scottish cop is doing his best to ignore Mick Jagger, who is lying flat on his backbone in a seat, naked to the waist save for a blue nylon windbreaker someone has thrown over him after he gave away his sweaty T-shirt on stage.

"Oy, oy," Mick says loudly, a saucy schoolboy trying to get the police to notice. He reaches out to jangle at the cop's sleeve.

"Now, now, chummy," the cop says, leaning over. "No one's done nothin' yet, why should we arrest anyone?"

"He's come to arrest the dog," Keith says.

"Wot you doin' 'ere," Mick demands of the cop, "A little dog like that. A puppy." His face falls. "You should be ashamed."

"Ooo called the law," he wails. "Arrest us."

"Chummy," the cop says, "I wouldn't give you the publicity."

"Chummy?" Mick demands. "Sir...look..."

"Don't curse me, I saw you say f--k, don't go curse me..."

Beautiful, Mick. All they have to do is search the luggage and it's 20 years in the Glasgow jail.

"Anita," Mick says, "Go find the captain."

Beautiful, Mick. Mata Hari Anita, all crocheted stockings and tiger hot pants, sent to seduce the captain of the airplane as it stands on runway in Glasgow.

"Goooo," Mick googles. Marlon, Keith's 18-month-old son, googles back and laughs. The cop is outflanked, bewildered, surrounded by little kids, slinky ladies, rock stars. Mick... beautiful.

"We'll put him in Charlie Watts' orange bag," Marshall Chess, the solution maker says, meaning the dog, "Is that OK?"

"Yes," says the cop.

"No," says the airlines official.

They trundle the dog off and put him in the hold and an hour and a half later, the plane touches down in London. Boogie doesn't freeze to death at all but instead comes spilling and sliding out on to polished airport floor.

Everyone speeds home in chauffeur-driven Bentleys and long back Dorchester limousines and the incident is quickly forgotten, just another minor laugh-filled moment with the Rolling Stones on tour. Or, as Bobby Keys shouted on sweaty night in a Newcastle dressing room with his arm wrapped about Charlie Watts' head, "Gawdammit Chawlie, rock 'n' roll is on the road agayn."

*** 

Everyone in London washed their hair and stood in line on Sunday for the Rolling Stones at the Roundhouse, a metaphysical gig of the first order, a long time coming. The right band in the right place and a chance to see a city turned out.

Scalpers huddled and quoted: "Seven pound for a ticket-–wait a minute, you're a student, ain't ya? Six."

A girl faints just outside the stage door and is carried in. Forty-two people crowd the dressing room. The showers run to keep the cans of beer and coke cold. One heavy spade says to another, "Are you black, man?" and passes a joint. Bowls of sliced lemons for the tequila, bottles of tequila, bananas, nuts, raisins and a room that's a groupie's who's who.

Dave Mason in a forest green velvet jacket, ex-Mad Dogs Jim Gordon and Snaky Jim Keltner. Eric is coming. Chris Jagger. Outside, Family, Edgar Broughton, the Faces. Upstairs, John Peel, Tom Donahue, the entire pop press, the straight press, the music business, a gaggle of PR men, a clutch of record execs, a congregation of super-dressed screamer freaks.

Joyce, the Voice, whose tripe it is to be all trippy and sometimes grab the microphone on stage for unscheduled raps, has somehow slipped away in the dressing room like she was born to pop stardom.

"Excuse me," she says talking directly to Bianca Jagger, "but didn't I see you with Osibisa in their dressing room last week?"

What? What is this? Hold on--Joyce the Voice has just asked Bianca, of the inscrutable face and blinding smile, of the mysterious eyes and gin rummy ways, she has just asked Mick Jagger's lady, "Aren't you a groupie for this band I know?"

"What is Osibisa?" Bianca asks politely.

"Oh wow," Joycie straightfaces, not knowing when she's been cut dead. "There is someone with your exact vibration around. I mean, like a twin sister. You know? Someone who is walking around with your face."

Bianca rolls her eyes white upwards. They remove Joyce.

Out in the hall someone is trying to sign Gram Parsons to a contract. "Apres moi le deluge," he says as the door swings open and a stream of people spittle out, having been asked to leave.

One hour late the second show starts. A tough set in which the mikes go dead during "Street Fighting Man" and ping pong balls, yellow flowers, and white confetti pour onto the stage. The band is celebrating, out of sea green champagne bottles. The tour is over and it may be a while before there's another. Rock and roll is a young man's game.

As for the audience, well, they're so super-hip and spaced, they dance only because they're supposed to. In London, the Stones are a social phenomenon.

You can't dance to a social phenomenon. The Rolling Stones are a good band. Pick up on them sometime.

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