June 26, 1966

Covering a Rolling Stones performance can be a hairy experience.

Like last night at the Civic Arena where the British group played to a nearly packed house of screaming youths.

An interview with one of the fans went something like this.

"Pardon me, Miss, I'm from The Press, and …"

"My name's Ed."

"Sorry about that. Your shoulder-length hair, purple velvet jeans and high-heel boots threw me off a bit."

"S'all right. Whadaya want?"

"I guess you get quite a few comments on your attire.'

"Yeah, I get mistaken for a woman every now and then, but only from the back," Ed reported.

"I'll buy that. Now, how old are you and where do you go to school?"

"I'm 18, but I don't go to school."

"Oh, you've graduated. Where do you work?"

"I didn't graduate, I got thrown out because I wore my hair long and dressed this way, but don't print that."

At this point, one of Ed's buddies chimed in.

"Let him write it, Ed. It'll make the school look bad … people will know these teachers don't know anything about fashion."

Ed wasn't the only one sporting unorthodox attire. The Arena last night looked like an avant garde clothing designer's fashion show.

Some girls were stunningly (?) attired in brightly colored, hip-hugging bell-bottomed slacks and lace-fringed blouses which just about made it below their rib cages.

Others showed up in variations of surplus Army uniforms. A few, who apparently couldn't find the key to their fathers' World War II foot lockers, made the scene in skirts, plain blouses and even rather nicely tailored suits.

Police had to smuggle the Rolling Stones into the Arena past waiting mobs of girls armed with autograph books and cameras.

"You won't be able to get any pictures standing here," Donna Marie DiLeonardo, 14, of 421 N. St. Clair St., East Liberty, told Press photographer Don Stetzer. "There will be too much confusion."

"What do you mean, confusion?" he asked.

"When we try to get at them," she explained.

Police, however, thwarted any attempts to "get at" the long-haired singing group by prematurely abandoning their posts and announcing that the Rolling Stones had already arrived.

They must have gone in. All the fuzz (police) are leaving," said one dejected girl, 17.

There were some members of the older set in attendance, people like Mr. and Mrs. Lee McClory of 1053 Hastie Road, Castle Shannon.

"The only reason we're here is on account of our three kids," explained Mr. McClory.

Linda McClory, 16, and her brother, James, 12, waited anxiously nearby while Mary Beth, 6, rested in her father's lap.

Mary Beth said she ordinarily wore glasses, "but I took them off to look nice for the Stones."

"Do you have an aspirin?" Mrs. McClory moaned, half in jest.

Inside, the 7,000 shouting fans went into near hysteria when one of their idols, Mick Jagger, fell to the stage, grasping his hand, which apparently was shocked by the microphone he was holding.

The show was interrupted when he was helped to his dressing room.

"What the heck are they talking about?" asked an electrician, called in to repair the mike. "It only has 150 ohms going through it, and that's less than one watt…. and they were standing on a wooden stage. My kid gets shocked worse than that when he pokes his finger in a light socket."