The Rolling Stones kicked off their 1972 tour in Vancouver. Fairly certain this was the band's first tour since the expensively-priced 1969 tour that, as if to atone for its high ticket prices, was to end in a free concert at San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, but ended instead at the Altamont Speedway, and we know what happened there.
The 1972 tour was also the one the band invited Robert Frank to document, which he did in a film the Stones took him to court over: Cocksucker Blues (1972). This is the final film in an inadvertent trilogy that included Gimme Shelter (1970) -- a document of the tour that concluded at Altamont -- and before that, Godard's Sympathy for the Devil (1968), which, in its construction of the titular song, shone a light on the destruction of the band's colourist, Brian Jones (1942-1969).
The picture up top shows police escorting two young men in matching "Mac" jackets beyond its frame. They say it was a riot -- the Rolling Stones Riot -- but they said the same of the police action that came to be known as the Gastown Riot ten months before it. But those jackets -- Mein Gott! They look like they were purchased that morning at Woodward's West Hastings.
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