It’s 1969 in small college auditorium in Fort Collins, Colorado. Roadies finish checking the equipment. Chip Monck pulls the house lights down and runs the show lights up. Sam Cutler, who performed the same duty at Hyde Park, ambles on stage and delivers the line he will deliver again and again for the rest of the tour: “Ladies and Gentlemen, let’s welcome the GREATEST ROCK ‘N’ ROLL BAND IN THE WORLD!”
It sounded good at the time and it would sound better later, but Sam didn’t mean it in quite the way it sounded. Later he’d remark, “At the beginning of the tour the band was rusty. When I first called them ‘the Greatest Rock and Roll Band n the World,’ I meant it sarcastically. Mick got upset. He said, ‘Hey, man, don’t say that. It’s over the top.’ I said, ‘Well either you fucking are or you’re not, right?’” In a way the slogan just made them work harder right from the start. They knew they weren’t going to play for three minutes and be mobbed by 8,000 screaming girls and rushed offstage. They had to play. And they did. That’s one thing about the Rolling Stones: they’ve always worked hard at it.”
