by Jo Wood
It was a very different Jamie who came to see me on the verge of tears one day. ‘How can you ever forgive me for all the bad things I’ve done to you?’ he asked. ‘I’ve stolen money out of your purse, I sold stuff of Dad’s. How can you have me as your son?’
I hugged him. ‘Because I love you and I knew that you’d be all right in the end.’
I hadn’t really known that, but I’d dearly hoped so – and Jamie, to his immense credit, came through.
24
The Fiji Four
The Fiji Four arrived tired and weary,
With aching bones and eyes all bleary,
They looked at the sky full of rain
And thought the weather might be a pain.
The following day the skies were blue
And they settled in to a holiday anew . . .
An island cove they did discover
Occupied by them and no other,
With music, booze and loads of food,
They quickly got that island mood.
They drank and laughed, they swam, they ate,
All their needs on the island were met . . .
Until just one of the Fiji Four
Decided that he wanted more,
To climb a tree and swing from a branch,
He thought he might have a chance
To be as young as he could be
So he swung right out of that old tree . . .
Oh boy he came a cropper
And whacked his head, good and proper,
So for a couple of hot days
He hid his pain in so many ways,
But, alas, he was flown afar
Where he turned the hospital into a bar.
So the Fiji Four then became just two,
With two on Fiji, the other two flew . . .
But the memories that they had
Were really good and not all bad,
And when Fiji one is better and well
They’ll sit together and will tell
Of the island cove they did discover
And the love they had for each other,
Cos the Fiji Four will rise together
And will be four in hot weather,
As where there’s sun and sea and sand
The Fiji Four will find that land . . .
From 1989 to 2006 the Rolling Stones spent years on the road and travelled the globe many times over. It was a real privilege to be part of such an incredible experience. As you can imagine, all the different tours merge into one in my mind. I have so many memories, so many tales – so many blanks! We’d usually spend a few days in each place, then move on to the next, so life was a disorienting blur of flights, dressing rooms and hotel foyers. I would wake up in the middle of the night in another hotel room and not have a clue which country I was in.
One night in Rome, Spin got up needing to pee, opened a door that he thought was the bathroom and found himself out in the corridor. Before he realized his mistake the door had closed behind him, leaving him stuck outside, stark naked. He eventually managed to find a service closet and had to go downstairs to get a spare key wearing nothing but a chambermaid’s apron. I hate to think what the view was like from behind . . .
I’d always tried to make our hotel rooms feel like home, but now we were spending so much of our lives on the road I travelled with a little two-ring electric stove, a frying-pan and a saucepan so I could prepare home-cooked meals. I had really gone off room-service food, and not just because I was getting more health conscious: the boys were often smuggled out of hotels through the kitchen to avoid the crowds and some were so disgusting, you really wouldn’t have wanted to eat anything that was produced in them.
I transported my stove wrapped in a towel, but one day I opened it to find a burn on the towel and realized I should come up with a safer alternative. I worked with a designer to create a fabulous custom-made portable stove: dual-voltage with drawers for a kettle, toaster and pans, plus storage space for organic dried goods, like pasta and beans. When we arrived at a hotel I’d nip out to the nearest organic store to stock up on ingredients while waiting for the luggage, and then I was ready to knock up anything from mincemeat stew to fish with rice. If Ronnie suddenly declared he was starving at 1 a.m. in the Ritz-Carlton I’d just whip up bacon and eggs. I had a bit of trouble with fire alarms at the beginning, so I’d put a shower cap over the sensor before I started cooking. We rarely used room service on tour again.
The best ever Stones gig, in my mind, was Buenos Aires. The band played there on several occasions, but the first and most memorable time was in February 1995. The Stones were the first major international group to perform live in Argentina and the fans were hysterical before we’d even touched down. In scenes reminiscent of Beatlemania, thousands of people were waiting behind barriers to see the boys at the airport, and as we drove out of the airport’s gates to Buenos Aires, our convoy was surrounded by vehicles. Ronnie and I were travelling with Charlie and Shirley, and we all stared open-mouthed as cars swerved as close as they could so their passengers could manoeuvre their whole bodies out of the window to try to touch our car as we sped down the motorway.
It was even crazier when we reached our hotel: thousands more fans were waiting outside. As our car inched through the crowd, they started banging on the doors and trying to climb on the roof. It was actually quite scary. Then, suddenly, one of the fans managed to slide down the window and grabbed hold of Charlie, who totally lost it. ‘Fuck off!’ he screeched. It’s the only time I’ve ever seen Charlie Watts lose his cool.
I had never been to Argentina before and was stunned at the beauty of Buenos Aires; its Baroque buildings and tree-lined boulevards bringing to mind a South American version of Paris. I was lucky enough to be able to get out for a bit of sightseeing, but the fans were so crazy that the boys were confined to the hotel for two weeks. It was like the time we were in Singapore during the SARS outbreak: total lockdown. Mick, Ronnie and Charlie had terrible cabin fever, but it suited Keith perfectly as he never liked leaving his hotel room anyway: if you asked if he wanted to come out to a restaurant he’d say, ‘Why do you need to go out for dinner when you’ve got perfectly good room service?’
The band played eight gigs in Argentina in 10 days. On show day the doors of the venue would open at 11 a.m. and all the fans ran in, positioned themselves right next to the stage and stayed there, peeing and crapping into plastic bags, then tossing them on to the floor, until the Stones went on at 11 p.m. And when the show eventually started – well, I’ve never seen an audience reaction like it. I spent most of those shows watching the crowd rather than what was happening on stage. This huge mass of people would jump in time to the music, all moving and swaying as one; at one point, they unfurled an enormous Argentinian flag with the Stones tongue logo in the middle and stretched it right across the stadium over everyone’s heads. Security had to wear plastic raincoats because the fans showed their appreciation by spitting and the guys at the front ended up drenched. It was mind-blowing.
Just like in Argentina, the Stones were the first major Western music act to play in China – although here the audience’s reaction was rather more muted. The Chinese authorities blacklisted a number of Stones songs with sexually suggestive lyrics, but otherwise they treated the band as honoured guests.
Shanghai reminded me of Gotham City, all smog and skyscrapers. On our last night we had a roomful of people all desperately trying to get rid of their stash of weed before we flew out to Australia the following day. I hadn’t touched the stuff for ages, but had one little puff, then promptly turned green and had a panic attack. I had wanted to hang out with my family that evening, as the kids were all going home the next day, but I had to go straight to bed. That was one of the last times I smoked a joint.
When we were on tour we all used to rate the shows as to which had been the best. If Buenos Aires had exceeded expectations, the one in Johannesburg definitely failed to live up to them. We had all been excited about going to
South Africa, most of all me because of my family’s link with the country, but in the event the audience was subdued. While we had expected to see lots of black African faces, the crowd was predominantly white. I had invited 25 of my cousins to the gig, none of whom I’d met before, but in the event they ignored me and spent the whole time talking to Ronnie – I was a bit miffed about that, too!
You could generally predict how audiences would react, depending on where you were. America was always reliably fantastic: that whole yeah, man, rock ’n’ roll! attitude. Germany was another place where you knew the fans were going to be brilliant: they would always be totally transfixed by Mick, their faces intently following him around the stage. But for me the most fascinating people were the Japanese, especially the first time we went there in 1989 before the country became more Westernized. Rather than needing lots of security at the front of the stage, Jim ‘JC’ Callaghan, the Stones’ head of security, would just point to a line on the floor and tell the fans not to cross it – and they never would. During the show the audience would applaud after each song, then fall silent as they waited politely for the next one to start, and at the end people would file out row by row without being instructed to do so.
What they might have lacked in bad-ass attitude, however, they more than made up for in other ways. The Japanese fans worshipped the boys, showering them with presents: one little girl made these incredibly detailed Jo and Ronnie dolls. And they were always so sweet and gentle and welcoming to us. I had my fortieth birthday in Tokyo and, despite my horror at reaching this grand old age (I wrote in my diary, ‘seems like a joke – I’m 26 or no age’), I had a wonderful party at the Hard Rock that continued in our hotel room well into the next day. The Japanese promoter had jackets made for Ronnie and me with ‘Party Central’ on the pocket, as our room was always packed with people.
Our visits to Tokyo started my love affair with Japanese cuisine. I’ve never been squeamish about food, so I happily tried whatever was offered to us – even the more exotic dishes. During one of the many incredible sushi banquets, I was presented with a little green morsel presented on a shell. ‘Lobster brain,’ smiled our host. It tasted surprisingly sweet. Another delicacy we tried was fugu, the famously poisonous blowfish that kills if it’s not meticulously prepared. It was nice: very mild and fishy. Nowadays, whenever I go out for sushi I’ll always skip the salmon and tuna and go for the more interesting options.
I’d always be up for trying the regional delicacies wherever we were, such as croc burgers in Australia (which tasted like fishy chicken) and fried crickets in Mexico (exactly like peanuts). Sticking to the local cuisine was a strategy that paid off. In India the band’s accountant, Coach, got terrible food poisoning from a cheese sandwich, but I had vegetable curry and rice and was absolutely fine. I loved India, but we had a sticky moment when we were travelling between Mumbai and Bangalore. Our plane was sitting on the runway waiting to take off when I looked out of the window and saw a chunk of metal hanging off the wing. Some men were clustered around it, looking like they were trying to fix it back on, but that did little to reassure me. A ripple of unrest passed through the plane as more and more people noticed what was going on. I pointed this out to Keith, who watched the men hammering away for a few moments. Now, Keith is not prone to panic – quite the opposite. We once flew through a cyclone en route from Australia to New Zealand and, as we rattled around the plane like beans in a can, I totally lost it.
‘I hate this!’ I wailed. ‘We’re all going to diiiiiie!’
Keith turned round to me, cool as anything, and said, ‘If you don’t like it, darling, you shouldn’t come on tour.’
This time, though, Keith slowly picked up his bags and stood up. ‘I’m going to get off this plane,’ he announced to the other passengers. ‘Everyone who wants to come with me, we’re leaving now.’
Every single person followed him.
Over the years I had grown to hate flying: you go on enough flights and you’re bound to have a few hairy moments – and those were enough to put me off planes for life. Once we were island-hopping in the Caribbean in a small plane and had to circle during a storm while waiting for permission to land. As we ricocheted around the clouds and I readied myself for the crash that I was convinced was about to happen, I looked at the kids, trying desperately to summon some motherly words of reassurance: Leah was fast asleep and Ty was busy with his computer game. My little boy glanced up and gave me a big grin. The pilot later told me it had been the worst conditions he’d ever flown through, but I don’t think Ty had even noticed.
It’s difficult to pick a favourite out of all the countries we travelled to over the years, but I fell deeply in love with Brazil. On one of our visits we met an artist who offered to lend us his house in Recife, the country’s most northerly town, so off we went, Ronnie and I, with the kids, and Leah’s friend, Becca, who luckily spoke Portuguese. We had been driving for ages and it was late at night when we turned onto a little dirt track that plunged into the jungle. As the road got bumpier and the vegetation got thicker, Ronnie was freaking out. ‘Where are you taking me? You don’t know anything about this place!’ I tried to reassure him, but then we passed a couple leaning up against a tree having sex and I began to wonder if I’d made a huge mistake.
What am I doing dragging my little Rolling Stone out into the wilderness?
Just as I was thinking of turning back, we rounded a final corner and the track opened out onto a stunning starlit beach, at the end of which sat the most beautiful little house. It was a magical place. Ronnie still wasn’t happy, though. He loves being around people, and here we were, so far from civilization that the few people we did meet had no idea who he was. Then one afternoon, after we’d been in Recife for a few days, he came back from a wander along the beach with a huge grin on his face.
‘You won’t believe what’s happened to me,’ he said, excitedly. ‘I was walking down the beach and I bumped into this guy who said, “Your album is the only one I’ve brought on holiday”!’ They’d had a long chat – and now he knew there was a fan in the vicinity Ronnie’s mood perked up no end.
On our last night I was packing the bags and tidying up when I heard Ronnie calling from outside. It was about 3 a.m.
‘Jo! JO! Come here now!’
I rushed outside to find him staring up at the sky.
‘Look at that star,’ he said, pointing. I was stunned to see what looked like a cluster of lights hovering low over the sea, the beams reflected on the waves, gently pulsing.
‘Ronnie, I don’t think that’s a star, I think it’s a UFO. Quick, go and get your glasses.’
But as Ronnie ran inside, the star – or whatever it was – suddenly shot across the horizon at a 45-degree angle, stopped dead, then zoomed off into space. From the unearthly way it moved and the speed it went, I knew it could be nothing other than some kind of spacecraft. The next day the headlines in all the papers read: ‘UFO invades Brasilia’. Clearly hundreds of other people had come to the same conclusion.
On another trip to Brazil, Ronnie and I were lucky enough to watch the Rio carnival as guests of Brahma beer. On our first day there we were chatting with the head honcho of Brahma and I made some throwaway remark about how I’d love to be in the carnival.
‘You want to be in carnival, Jo?’ he said. ‘Okay, I’ll send you the outfit tomorrow.’
Yeah, right, I thought. Like that’s going to happen. People prepare for months – sometimes years – to be on the carnival floats. They were hardly going to let some 40-something English chick wobble along with them.
But the next day I was in my hotel room when I got a call from Bobby Keys, who was on the trip with us. ‘Hey, Jo,’ he said. ‘Your carnival outfit is in my room.’
I couldn’t believe it. It was actually happening! ‘What’s it like, Bobby?’ I was so excited.
‘Well, lemme put it this way,’ he said, in his Texan drawl. ‘It’s two dots and a dash.’
He wasn’t
exaggerating. The ‘costume’ consisted of a white G-string and two very small shells, plus an enormous white and silver headdress covered with shells, glitter and feathers. Beautiful, but worryingly brief.
‘I can’t wear this,’ I told the Brahma guy, when he called later. ‘I’m a mother!’
‘You English girls.’ He chuckled. ‘I knew you wouldn’t go through with it . . .’
I paused. It seemed I had no choice. ‘Well, I’d better try it on, then,’ I said finally.
I was to appear on the Mangueira float, from the world-famous Brazilian samba school, but it didn’t leave until 7 a.m. so at midnight I went with Ronnie, Bobby Keys, Nick Cowan and his wife Julie to watch the rest of the parade, carrying my little outfit with me in a bag. I watched the floats going by thinking, That’s going to be me up there soon! I was so excited I didn’t even have a drink. At 5 a.m. I was taken away to get changed, Julie with me for moral support, but when I opened the door of the dressing room to find 12 gorgeous girls shimmying into the same outfit as me, I got a serious case of stage fright.
‘Julie, I can’t do it,’ I muttered, staring in horror at my fellow hot-bodied dancers. ‘Look at them! They’re eighteen years old – I’m in my forties! This is nuts.’
‘Jo, you can’t walk out now,’ said Julie, although I could tell from her appalled expression that she was thinking exactly the same thing. ‘Come on, you can do this.’
An hour later I found myself walking along the street towards the Mangueira float in my two dots and a dash. I’d decided to wear shiny tights, but had forgotten that my tummy would be on show so had ended up with shiny legs and a bright white midriff. Never mind, I thought. I’ll probably be hidden away at the back. But when I reached the float one of the girls pointed to a little platform in the shape of a large shell about 15 feet off the ground and told me, ‘You’re going up there.’