Tour of Britain, 1963 September 1963 - November 1963

Tour of Britain, 1963 In Detail

The 1963 British Tour was The Rolling Stones’ first time the band took to the road. They weren’t headlining. The Everley Brothers and, more appropriately, Bo Diddley had top billing, with another influential character, Little Richard joining the tour later.

It wasn't glamorous. Locations like The Gaumont Theatres in Doncaster and Hanley haven't gone down in history as great venues. But the challenge of playing two sets a day to half full houses in provincial theatres was all part of the plan .The apprenticeship of mastering the riffs and honing the hooks in public was necessary; and it's not as if the band didn't enjoy playing live gigs.

What they weren't particularly prepared for - and who could be? - was the way the audiences began to behave. Although the term Beatlemania wasn't coined publicly until November, and The Beatles were certainly getting more of the headlines, the crowds were beginning to go wild for the new music.

An unofficial off-tour gig at the Majestic in Hull in mid-October, between tour concerts in Manchester and Liverpool, saw The Rolling Stones get their first proper mobbing.

Things were moving fast. The hysteria continued, to a greater or lesser extent, as the tour continued through Glasgow, Birmingham, Nottingham and Southampton, concluding with gigs in Ipswich and London (the legendary Hammersmith Odeon) on November 2nd and 3rd respectively.

During the tour, The Stones had found time to record I Wanna Be Your Man, at De Lane Lea Studios in London - a formative experience for Keith, who always sought to record when the band were hot off the touring treadmill because the live work kept them honest and in good touch with their music.

The song, a Lennon and McCartney number, also triggered another of the great songwriting partnerships of modern times, prompting Richards and Jagger to push their own collaboration beyond covering their own favourites songs and start writing their own.

By the time the single was released on November 7th, the tour was over, but The Rolling Stones were only just beginning.

On the other hand, this tour is also marked by some as the very beginning of the end for the band's founder, who had been discovered to be taking a higher wage and other privileges, as due reward for his role as 'leader' of the band. That was never going to work.