TOTA 75 as a tour diary is nothing short of complete. In his role as diarist no area was off-limit for Christopher Simon Sykes and the result is a massive and absorbing 27,000 word text to accompany his many hundreds of photographs.
Alongside his diary and running throughout the book there are tour schedules, set lists, budgets, daily newsletters from tour manager Peter 'Commander' Rudge, personnel lists, sight-seeing tickets, night club passes, Rolling Stone magazine articles, letters home and postcards. The perfect accompaniments to the text and photography.
Christopher Simon Sykes: 'I knocked on Ronnie's door and Mick opened it. With a big smile he pulled me in and introduced me to the inmates. 'Christopher, this is Ronnie. I'm telling them you're doing a diary of the tour, right?' I said to Mick I reckoned it would take me quite a while to get settled in. He took me aside and said, 'Look Chrissy, if there's anything you need, come and ask me. Don't bottle it in just ask me. Don't worry, I'll look after you, and I'll tell everyone why you're here.' At last I began to feel reassured. Next stop was Keith's room...'
Christopher Simon Sykes: 'The staging is radically different to the indoor shows. Instead of on the Lotus Petal stage, the band perform on a huge platform raised high above the audience on scaffolding and covered by a white and yellow tent that sweeps down from above them like something out of a medieval pageant. The show goes on till well after sundown, by which time the Commander is bored and starts playing games with the stadium’s electronic scoreboard.'
Wednesday June 25th
'Wednesday Night! And after the show it’s down to New York’s hottest night spot, Le Jardin, for the Stones’ ‘Thanks to the TOTA Crew’ party. As this was supposed to be solely for the crew plus one guest each, security at Le Jardin was tight with special elevator passes issued to guests so that they could get up to the Penthouse, in which the party was being held. Needless to say, when I arrived I found the whole of New York had infiltrated the guest list and were milling around the balloon-decked bar. Somehow when The Rolling Stones do anything everyone knows. I did at least meet a real groupie - her name was Sunshine and she told me proudly, caressing her bosom, that she tried hard to give herself wherever she could. Judging from the exposing qualities of her clothes, I doubt if she had to try that hard.'
In an extract from the book's Foreword, Peter Rudge, the TOTA '75 Tour Manager, succinctly sums up the logistics of this huge Rolling Stones' tour:
'We were60 people from all walks of life thrown together for two months. To some, this was their first and only tour, to others it was the first of many, and to a few of us, it was just another day at the office. We had nothing in common except for one goal - to get five people on stage each night. English aristocrats rubbed shoulders with blue collar Americans - people who normally drank beer and watched baseball were asked to co-exist and work with people whose ways of relaxing were far more exotic and in some cases illegal.'
Saturday July 26th
'Today is Mick’s birthday, and Annie and I go out in the morning to try and find him a present. The one thing I know he loves to have wherever he goes is a good cup of tea, so we decide to buy him an electric kettle and a supply of tea bags from Jacksons of Picadilly. There is a party on board the Starship en route to Indiana, with cake and balloons, and Mick opens his presents then. The kettle is a success. The show tonight is in Bloomington - ‘I thought that was a department store,’ says Mick - and there is a surprise plan to get the audience to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ during the show. Gloomy old Paul Wasserman comments ‘But this is Indiana. We’ll probably have to pass out word sheets.’'
Friday 8th August
'On the last night of the tour madness finally sets in. Much to the astonishment of the audience, all the musicians come on stage wearing Afro-‘Billy Preston’- wigs, somehow obtained by Mary Beth. At the end of the show there is a free-for-all with members of the TOTA party, also bewigged, all joining the band on stage for a dance-up. After 10 weeks on the road it is hardly surprising that there is something of an end-of-term atmosphere in the dressing rooms after the show with everyone jostling and bustling, posing for photographs, shaking hands and bidding farewells first to the members of the band, and then to each other. When the lights finally do go out there will be no more Daily News Sheets or hourly orders and every man will be, once again, on his own.'
