Concert History | Veterans Stadium — A Cold-Rain Show Exposed Who Bore the Weather Risk

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On Thursday, September 22, 1994, the Rolling Stones played the first of two Voodoo Lounge Tour dates at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Alan K. Stout’s contemporaneous Times Leader review identifies the date and venue; the Delaware Art Museum independently catalogs Fred Comegys’s photograph of the band at Veterans Stadium on that exact date: https://archive.timesleader.com/article/860174/despite-water-stones-reign-in-philly-2 and https://emuseum.delart.org/objects/13962/mick-jagger-rolling-stones-concert-at-veterans-stadium-phi

The evening’s historical value lies in how an open stadium allocated weather risk. Stout reported heavy rain, low temperatures, and high winds. The touring stage—described as 220 feet wide, with a 90-foot lighting tower—was mostly uncovered, and the performers were soaked during repeated downpours. The production continued despite the conditions and the stadium’s difficult acoustics.

Airport weather observations independently support the review’s account of the day: Philadelphia International Airport recorded light rain, fog, and 0.74 inches of precipitation on September 22: https://weatherspark.com/h/m/22721/1994/9/Historical-Weather-in-September-1994-in-Philadelphia-Pennsylvania-United-States. Those observations are for the airport, not a gauge inside the stadium, so they corroborate the citywide weather without pretending to measure conditions on the field.

Stout used the experience to question the “rain or shine” policy of outdoor concerts and wrote that a postponement would have been understandable. His review does not reproduce a ticket or promoter contract, so this memory does not claim to know the exact printed terms. What the source does establish is the consequence: the show proceeded, the stage offered limited protection, and audience and performers bore the exposure. That distinguishes this session from the venue’s 1989 Rolling Stones tour opener, when a sound-system failure—not weather policy—was the operational story.

Veterans Stadium was demolished on March 21, 2004, and the former bowl is now represented by markers within a parking area: https://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/literary-cultural-heritage-map-pa/feature-articles/vet-gone-not-forgotten

Coordinate method: the pin at 39.906667, -75.171111 marks the center of the former stadium bowl. Wikidata gives 39°54′24″N, 75°10′16″W: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1545870. A separate USGS-topographic-data listing for the historical feature gives 39.9065019, -75.1707339: https://www.topozone.com/pennsylvania/philadelphia-pa/locale/veterans-stadium-historical/. The two points are about 37 metres apart. A 160-metre precision radius covers their difference and the demolished footprint; it does not claim to identify the stage position.

Cover image: Paul Altobelli, “Veterans Stadium Final Game – September 28, 2003,” photographed September 28, 2003, CC BY 2.0: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Veterans_Stadium_Final_Game_-_September_28,_2003.jpg. Caption: Veterans Stadium in its 2003 baseball configuration, nine years after this concert. The image shows the venue, not the Rolling Stones performance or the 1994 rain. License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/