Concert History | Rolling Stones at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum — A Stadium Crowd Cut the First Opener Short

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On October 9, 1981, a Rolling Stones stadium concert showed that a booked opening slot could remain provisional in practice: the audience cut short the first act.

The Associated Press account published the next day in California's *Press-Courier* identifies Prince as the first of three openers at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. It reports that he played only three songs—about 25 minutes—before objects thrown from the audience drove him from the stage. George Thorogood and the Destroyers and the J. Geils Band followed without the same interruption before the Rolling Stones' set.

The episode was not simply a mismatch on a long bill. It exposed an informal gate inside a large stadium show: promoters and headliners could select an opener, but a hostile crowd could deny that performer enough time to complete the assignment. In a 1999 *Bass Player* interview, Prince rejected the idea that the reaction was his doing and placed responsibility on the people throwing trash. A later Pitchfork account, drawing on bandmate Matt Fink's recollection, independently describes the rapid booing and objects crossing the stage.

The surviving sources establish the interruption and thrown objects; they do not identify individual throwers or document injuries. This account therefore attributes neither.

Sources: [Associated Press in the *Press-Courier*, October 10, 1981](https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=gh1KAAAAIBAJ&sjid=DSINAAAAIBAJ&pg=3959,2200686); Karl Coryat's [November 1999 *Bass Player* interview](https://sites.google.com/site/prninterviews/home/bass-player-november-1999); Daphne A. Brooks's [Pitchfork account](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/21843-controversy/).

Coordinate method: [Wikidata](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q849784) places the Coliseum at 34.014169, -118.287781. The independently mapped [OpenStreetMap stadium footprint](https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/443675312) centers near 34.013999, -118.287820, about 19 metres away. The pin uses the Wikidata point at the center of the stadium complex. Precision radius: 180 metres, covering the bowl and field because the October 1981 stage position is not established here.

Image credit and caption: NASA's [November 2008 aerial view of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LA_Memorial_Coliseum_aerial.jpg), public domain as a work solely created by NASA. It shows the empty stadium footprint 27 years later—not Prince, the Rolling Stones, or the 1981 concert.