The Time Keith Richards Smashed A Stage Crasher With His Guitar & Kept On Playing

On December 18, 1981, guitarist Keith Richards celebrated his birthday onstage with The Rolling Stones who performed that evening at the Hampton Coliseum in Hampton, Virginia. The concert was notable not only for falling on Richards’ 38th but also for an unforgettable incident with a stage crasher during a chaotic show-closing take on “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.”

Richards, who today celebrates his 81st birthday, saw the uninvited guest jump onstage, and in a move exemplifying a coolness expressly his own, deftly slipped off the guitar he was playing and smashed it over the head of the stage crashing intruder and, without missing a beat, slipped his guitar back on and continued playing.

Richards’ quick reaction was in part to protect The Stones’ frontman Mick Jagger. When recalling the incident several years later, Richards explained he was concerned not only about Jagger’s safety but also about that the result of the guitar clubbing interfering with drummer Charlie Watts. The quick-acting guitarist also revealed that he tried to make it up to the person on the painful receiving end of his swinging Telecaster.

Asked if he would respond differently to the stage crasher, Richards stated:

“No, I’d do the same thing. The only reason I did it [was] because security was not there. They were two steps behind. I’m watching Mick’s back. I don’t know where this guy’s gonna go. And a Telecaster is a damn good club.

“My only problem at the moment, was, did I put him too far over for Charlie’s drums so that I would screw up the drumming. But I didn’t, and the guitar was still in tune.

“[I]t’s kind of an automatic instinctive thing, you know? I could see security running up but I know they’re not – that he’s gonna get to Mick or get to the center of the stage before any of them. And so I watched my man’s back, you know?

“I bailed him [the stage crasher] out afterwards. All right? He didn’t spend the night in jail. He still owes me 200 bucks.”

On Keith’s 81st birthday today, revisit the wild events from his 38th birthday captured in the officially shared video of “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” posted below:

[Originally Published: December 18, 2023 | Updated: December 18, 2024]