Happy Birthday Charlie Watts: The Rolling Stones Bring ‘Steel Wheels’ To Atlantic City In 1989

Today, Charlie Watts celebrates his 78th birthday. The Englishman is best known as the drummer for The Rolling Stones, though he has worn many hats throughout his tenure with the iconic rock act. When he joined up with Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Brian Jones to form the band in January of 1963, Watts used his skills as a graphic artist to serve as an impromptu creative director, helping design album artwork and tour set-ups in their early years.

While his Rolling Stones bandmates are known for their larger-than-life rockstar personas, Watts has served as a generally calming counterpoint to their extravagant whims. Instead, he has tended to forge his own path, exploring his passion for jazz and other music styles with his various solo and spin-off projects, including the Charlie Watts Quintet. However, his most enduring legacy is that of the Stones’ drummer; he has been identified as one of rock’s greatest drummers, been inducted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame, and ranked No. 12 on Rolling Stone‘s 2016 “100 Greatest Drummers of All Time” list.

For this week’s Sunday Cinema, in celebration of Watts’ next lap around the sun, we’re looking back to 1989, when the Rolling Stones finished off the first leg of their Steel Wheels tour with a three-night run at Atlantic City, New Jersey’s Convention Center. The highlight of the run was the second show on Saturday, December 19, 1989, during which the legacy rock band surprised fans with a star-studded performance featuring guest appearances from Eric Clapton, John Lee Hooker and Guns N’ Roses‘ Axl Rose and Izzy Stradlin.

For each stop on the Steel Wheels tour, the Rolling Stones performed primarily the same setlist nightly, drawing on their tour’s eponymous 1989 album Steel Wheels and their catalog dating back two decades prior. On the December 19 showcase, the 1981 classic “Start Me Up” appropriately began the show, followed by Sticky Fingers‘s “Bitch” and their first Steel Wheels track of the night, “Sad Sad Sad.” 1983 title track “Undercover of the Night” led in a cover of Bob & Earl’s “Harlem Shuffle” (also recorded by the Stones on 1986’s Dirty Work) followed by Exile on Main St.’s lead single “Tumbling Dice.” No. 1 hits “Miss You” and “Ruby Tuesday” sandwiched new song (at the time) “Terrifying” ahead of their first sit-in of the night.

Guns N’ Roses’ frontman Axl Rose and guitarist Izzy Stradlin appeared for a take on “Salt of the Earth,” and Jagger introduced the duo by quipping, “They’ve come all the way east to get their tattoos touched up.” They then launched into their first-ever live performance of the final song off the 1968 LP Beggars Banquet. As a follow-up, the group ran through “Rock and A Hard Place,” “Mixed Emotions,” “Honky Tonk Women” and “Midnight Rambler” before landing in their fan-favorite hit “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”

Next, the Stones’ hosted their second guests of the night. With Jagger exclaiming to the crowd, “We’re gonna play the blues for you now,” Eric Clapton first came out to perform a blistering cover of Willie Dixon’s “Little Red Rooster.” The famed guitarist stayed on for the next song, “Boogie Chillen’,” during which the song’s creator, John Lee Hooker, added his famed emotive vocals into the mix.

The rest of the night found the band completely dialed in, running through fan-favorite tracks as they built to the show’s climax. Richards led the vocals on “Can’t Be Seen” and “Happy” ahead of an ominous take on Aftermath‘s “Paint It Black.” Favorites like “Sympathy for the Devil” and “Gimme Shelter” were paired together before the Stones closed the show with their iconic “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” and encore of “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.”

Notably, the Rolling Stones’ Atlantic City Saturday show was broadcast live on cable television. With a cost of a little under $25 dollars, the performance was hailed as the most successful pay-per-view concert at the time — a pioneering feat that has similarly helped shape concert streaming services as we know it. In celebration of Charlie Watts’ 78th birthday, read a review of the show from 1990 via Rolling Stone, and watch a stream of the full pro-shot performance below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZUgvGEOMGM