“Unfortunately it’s a dodgy profession sometimes,” said Keith Richards when he recalled the moment he used his guitar as a weapon to repel a fan who had rushed on stage.
The incident happened on 18 December, 1981 during a Rolling Stones concert in Hampton, Virginia.
The Stones were performing the last song of their set, (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, when Keith spotted the fan running towards him and singer Mick Jagger.
As Keith recalled in an interview with Kerrang!: “I don’t know what this guy’s doing. He’s managed to avoid the security. You know, ‘This one’s pretty sharp - hello, we’ve got one here!’ He’s on my turf, he’s going for Mick, and I don’t know what he’s gonna do.
“I’m just taking care of my buddy - and he [Jagger] can’t see cos he’s working, you know?”
Referring back to the stage invader, Keith stated: “This guy’s gotta go. He doesn’t belong on the stage. I don’t know what his intentions are. It could be just to say, ‘Mick I love you.’ Or he could put a knife in his back.”
So Keith took swift action, slipping off his guitar and then swinging it at the fan’s head.
“It was a good shot,” Keith said. “I caught him with that Telecaster. Wallop! And what really impressed me was that the guitar didn’t go out of tune!”
Keith said that the fan fell into drummer Charlie Watts’ kit. “He kissed Charlie’s drums a little, too.”
But Keith wasn’t one to bear a grudge. He said of the battered fan: “I got him out of jail. I bailed him out later that night.”
He also said that this kind of incident was not uncommon. “He wasn’t the first,” Keith smiled. “Just the first captured on film.”
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