December 7, 1989 The Rolling Stones Hoosier Dome

A look back….

DAY TWO

December 7, 1989

THE ROLLING STONES

Hoosier Dome

Indianapolis, IN

December 7, 1989 was day two of back-to-back sold out shows with The Rolling Stones. During the first night they approached me about having a crew party after the show and I contacted my friend Jeff Dunaway who owned St. Elmo’s at that time. I explained that everybody would pay for their own food and drinks and attendance would be up to 250 people starting at 11:30 PM. This worked out perfect and the party lasted until roughly 6:00 AM. All members of the band attended and blended in with everybody. I distinctly remember Mick Jagger charming several local ladies. Word got out and the local media had their TV cameras outside in the early morning hours.

A few things about the backstage and the bands dressing room. If you had an all-access pass you could go into the bands dressing room and hang out and talk with whoever would talk with you. This was somewhat different from other bands, and it made for a memorable experience. In the dressing room I arranged for a regulation pool table, set up and balanced along with a regulation pool table light hung precisely over the table at the correct height. They also wanted an old-fashioned juke box with 45 RPM records and the records needed to be oldies…late 50’s / early 60’s. I found one and they loved it!

Mick Jagger had a separate dressing room and in it was a stair-master. He would get on the stair-master and do a vigorous 20-minute workout prior to the show to loosen up.

The band was nothing short of spectacular for both shows. One thing that is unique with The Rolling Stones live are the little mistakes that they tend to make and yet they perform perfectly.

On a personal basis this show will always be special to me as it was the only show of mine that my mother attended. They gave her an all-access laminated pass with her name on it and she could have gone into the dressing room if she so desired.

Here is the set list. Note that it is a bit different from the previous night. Another great thing about The Rolling Stones is they play live and improvise at times.

1.????Start Me Up

2.????Bitch

3.????Sad Sad Sad

4.????Undercover of the Night

5.????Harlem Shuffle

6.????Tumbling Dice

7.????Miss You

8.????Ruby Tuesday

9.????Angie

10.??????Rock and a Hard Place

11.??????Terrifying

12.??????Mixed Emotions

13.??????Honky Tonk Women

14.??????Midnight Rambler

15.??????You Can't Always Get What You Want

16.??????Little Red Rooster

17.??????Can't Be Seen

18.??????Happy

19.??????Paint It Black

20.??????2000 Light Years From Home

21.??????Sympathy for the Devil

22.??????Gimme Shelter

23.??????It's Only Rock 'n' Roll (but I Like It)

24.??????Brown Sugar

25.??????(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

26.??????Jumpin' Jack Flash

A few days before the show I was tasked with an interesting request. A fun fact about The Rolling Stones is they loved professional boxing. Coincidently on the same night of the second show in Indianapolis there was a HUGE pay per view fight featuring Roberto Duran and Sugar Ray Leonard of a fight taking place in Las Vegas. As we (Sunshine Promotions) had been involved with the local legendary boxing promoter Fred Berns many times promoting boxing and pay-per-views I called him and asked if we could buy a download of the fight and he said of course. The next step was to rent a portable satellite and a big screen TV and a VHS recorder. At that time most satellite signals were not scrambled so it was easy to record. The plan was to record the fight so that the band could watch it on their flight after the show on their chartered MGM Grand 707.??The fight began just after the band started their set. However, when the band ended their show the fight was heading into??the last round which meant that we needed to get the video tape to them in a creative way. Just before the show and fight ended I got with the head of the Indianapolis Police Department that was assigned to our show and said that I needed help on something, We had already arranged for a police escort to lead the many band vehicles to the airport during their runner from the stage. Usually, this process takes less than a minute and the houselights are still down to keep the audience in the venue. Back to the head police officer…I requested a motorcycle officer for a special task. They moved a few people around and within a few minutes I had an awesome police officer and his motorcycle, and he was into this. The band finished and departed to their awaiting vehicles to make their way to the airport. The fight ended and I handed the VHS tape to the motorcycle cop along with a $100 bill and he took off for the airport in the cold night on his motorcycle driving very fast with his lights blinking! He caught up with the band vehicles as they were arriving at the airport and gave the VHS tape to one of the Dunn Brothers who worked for the band. The police officer returned to the Hoosier Dome and said it was one of the greatest experiences of his life! How fun!!!

Please share your thoughts and experience from this show or any other Rolling Stones show.