It's not Sir Morgan's Cove in Worcester, but Gillette gets nod for Rolling Stones show

More than four decades after playing a small club in Worcester, the Rolling Stones — aka “The Greatest Rock & Roll Band in the World” — are slated to rock Gillette Stadium in Foxborough.

A May 30 show was announced Tuesday.

Mick Jagger, 80, Keith Richards, 79, and Ronnie Wood, 76, will be touring North America behind their latest chart-topping (and recently Grammy nominated) album “Hackney Diamonds.”

“Hackney Diamonds” is the Stones’ first studio set of new material since 2005's “A Bigger Bang.” To date, the Rolling Stones, who celebrated its 60^th anniversary last year, have sold over 250 million albums worldwide.Worcester music fans recall a pair of Rolling Stones shows in the city, notably the one Sept. 14, 1981. The band performed a last-minute show at Sir Morgan's Cove, a small Green Street nightclub.

At the time, the band was at Long View Farms studio in North Brookfield; Jagger and his bandmates were itching to put on a show.

When word spread that the Stones were in the city, thousands showed up on Green Street. The Cove held 235; about 4,000 showed up.

ROCK HISTORY Exiles on Green Street: 40 years ago, Rolling Stones rocked Worcester's Sir Morgan’s Cove

In 1981, the Rolling Stones played 14 songs in just under an hour.

Not only did they only play three songs off “Tattoo You,” the Stones opened the set with two Muddy Waters tune (“Everybody Needs Somebody to Love” and “Mona”) before kicking into the first Stones song of the night, “Under My Thumb.”

At the Cove, the Stones would go to play live staples that included “Miss You,” “Shattered,” “When the Whip Comes Down” and “Honky Tonk Women,” as well as the live debuts of “Let It Bleed,” “She’s So Cold” and “Start Me Up,” the latter being one of three songs from the then three-week-old release, “Tattoo You” (with the other two songs being “Neighbours” and “Hang Fire”).

“As the band played 'Hang Fire,' Jagger, Wood and Richards exchanged knowing smiles as they ran around trying to reproduce the harmony vocal passage as it was record on the new album 'Tattoo You,'” Robert P. Connolly wrote in the Sept. 15, 1981 edition of the Worcester Telegram. “Between songs Jagger would run to a song list that was taped to a post at the front of the stage. Then, with a graceful pivot, he would turn his back to the audience and jokingly encourage his guitarists or shout, 'Are you ready?'”

After “Start Me Up” and “Brown Sugar,” Jagger introduced “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” which closed the set.

The legendary Cove show was not the first Stones' show in Worcester. On April 30, 1965, the band performed at the Worcester Memorial Auditorium. Bob Eubanks, who is best known for being the host of "The Newlywed Game," was the producer of the Stones tour including the Worcester stop.

The “shaggy hair and shabby dressed” Stones played to a screaming mob of teenagers during their only New England appearance on the 1965 tour, Jack Tubert, reported in the May 1, 1965 edition of the Worcester Telegram.

“From across New England, and from as far away as Brooklyn, N.Y., the youngsters came, upwards of 3,000 of them, to wail and weep and toss confetti at the sight of the London five,” Tubert reported.

Two days after the ’65 Worcester gig, the Stones played “The Ed Sullivan Show” for the second time, performing “The Last Time,” which was the first-time the band performed a Jagger/Richards-penned original on the show.

In Worcester, Jagger was “jumped” by four girls as he and the group stepped from limousines beneath the Auditorium. And the girls “scratched and tore at his clothing, digging into the back of his left hand,” Tubert wrote.

Jagger said that girls have been jumping out at the Stones since they skyrocketed to fame a year earlier (in 1964), but few came at him more unexpectantly than the four who has just grabbed him, Tubert reported.

“They’re getting better at it,” Jagger said.

A bevy of young girls tried to breach the barricade outside the green room and a young girl was thrown out of the Auditorium after she tossed a “flashbulb” at the stage from about rows pack, which was “still the $4 section,” Tubert pointed out.

According to Tubert, the youngsters started gathering at the hall before 6 p.m.

The crowd, which was “predominantly girls” (according to Tubert), was in a “tizzy” by 9:47 when the curtain swept back and the Stones rolled out.

Twenty three minutes later, at 10:10 p.m., the show was over and the Stones collectively drove away $3,500 richer, Tubert said.

Tubert said the Stones (Jagger, Richards, Brian Jones, Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts and Watts’ bride of six months, Shirley Watts) were “a likable lot.”

Sponsored by AARP (no kidding!), group members get early access to “Stones Tour ‘24 Hackney Diamonds” tickets. Presale begins at 10 a.m. local time Nov. 29 through 10 p.m. local time Nov. 30.

Tickets for the general public go on sale at 10 a.m. local time Dec. 1.

Not counting New England Patriots’ owner Bob Kraft private parties, the Stones last played the Bay State July 7, 2019, for a “No Filter Tour” stop at Gillette, which was less than three months after Mick Jagger had life-saving heart surgery to replace a damaged heart valve.

Despite his health scare, the “feisty, fist-wailing and finger-pointing” Jagger led the Stones (which included Watts, who died Aug. 24, 2021 at the age of 80) through a triumphant, two-hour, 15-minute, 20-song set which included a two-song encore.

During one point of the 2019 concert, Jagger said the Rolling Stones played Boston 29 times, even though they were playing in Foxborough. I wonder if those 29 times included playing at Sir Morgan’s Cove in Worcester Sept. 14, 1981?

Slated to perform in 16 cities across the U.S. and Canada, the Foxborough date of “Stones Tour ’24 Hackney Diamonds” is the only one in New England, at least, for now.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Mick Jagger and Rolling Stones to perform at Gillette Stadium