No mixed emotions about The Rolling Stones
Shoutout to Brad Kyle of
who I met in my very first Substack Office Hours in January 2023, and who persuaded me to write up this story and publish it. Thank you Brad. You’ve inspired me to create a section here on The Muse dedicated to all the serendipitous encounters with celebrities, political leaders, and public figures I’ve had the pleasure to meet in my lifetime so far. Naturally, I’m calling it “Backstage”!Here’s to you and all who live life to the fullest!
It was August of 1989. I had graduated high school, and in a few weeks I would leave Connecticut to fly across the country to California to attend my dream school that I had somehow, against all odds, been accepted to. I was West Coast-bound, California-dreamin’, as the song goes, off to the land of sunshine and endless surf.
But first, I had a show to do. I had been invited to play the Queen of Hearts at a Shakespeare at the Park performance in some little town whose name I really should have remembered, if only for this story.
My job was to regale the audience and keep them entertained before the show started. I was dressed up in a bouncy white dress with big red hearts, my hair all done up in curls and lipstick far too red for my taste. In the middle of this pre-show, I suddenly saw my mother rushing toward me. Oh god what happened, I thought. But the look on her face wasn’t one of emergency—oh good no one died—rather, one of extreme urgency.
“The Rolling Stones are shooting a video and they need dancers!” she blurted out in one breath. I looked at her annoyed.
“Mom, that’s great but I can’t leave the show. I’m playing the Queen of Hearts!”
My mom looked at me as if I’d had a brain injury (considering my answer, I can see that).
“It’s the ROLLING STONES,” she said, incredulous, emphasizing the words to make sure I understood which rock band she was talking about. As in, the world-famous, the legendary, the ones and only, the Stones. You know, Mick, Keith, Ronnie, Charlie, Bill...
“They’ll understand, just tell them you need to leave, now.”
If there is one thing you’ll ever learn about me, it’s that I’m not easily impressed with celebrity. Sure, there’s that breathless awe you feel when you’re in the presence of a ridiculously famous person, but there’s no reason to keel over. They’re not deities (most of them). They’re a human being, who brushes their teeth (hopefully), goes to the bathroom (TMI), eats, drinks, sleeps, dreams, you know, all that. They just happen to be wildly successful/wealthy/adored by millions/etc, unlike most of us. People fascinate me regardless of what their status is. I’ll talk to a janitor with the same level of interest as the Pope himself. Who am I to judge?
I looked at my mom. She had her hands on her hips (yikes). Her eyes blazed holes into mine. It was no use. I had to leave the pre-show this early, to go dance in some rock band’s video. Fine.
A half-hour later the sun was setting and we were pulling up to a warehouse-type building in the middle of the woods. I had no idea where exactly we were; all I remember is a heavily forested area. My mom and I walked up to a non descript door, guarded by a couple of tough guys sitting outside on the steps. They gave us the once-over. A few words were exchanged—my mom had to give them a secret word or phrase, I have no idea what she said exactly, but they were apparently satisfied that she had the right password from a recognized source, and they ushered us in.
The door opened straight into a long sound stage with a wood-paneled floor. Music, lighting, and video production equipment was everywhere; people were rushing about getting things ready for the shoot. We were told we could sit down and wait to be called.
So that’s what we did. At first, it was a trainload of waiting around. There were a few other girls already there; I assumed they were the other dancers. Time dragged on.
OMG it’s him
Then, out of the blue, Mick Jagger walked in. The air instantly electrified. It was as if he was carried in by a wave of electric excitement, a swell of awe I had never felt before.
“Good evening, ladies,” he said in that trademark swagger of his, and moved on. We were left speechless.
We waited another mini eternity. Stage hands were still running around, the dolly track was still being built, and it was getting later and later and… later. I was supposed to work the next morning. But when you’re on a sound stage with the Rolling Stones, none of that matters.
At some point though, I did get a little restless. Got up and went over into a side room where they had a vending machine. I opened the door and found myself face to face with Ronnie Wood, Charlie Watts, and Bill Wyman. It was a pretty small room so I didn’t have much choice but to say hello. So I did.
What else can I say? I had a nice chat with the boys. They asked about me, who I was, what I did. They were genuinely interested. They asked where I was going to school, and I told them I’d just gotten accepted to Stanford and I was leaving in a few weeks. They were impressed. I still remember the look on Charlie’s face: eyes and mouth wide open!
Oh, the juicy irony of the Rolling Stones being impressed by 17-year-old me… one of the finest moments of any lifetime, I dare say. But that’s not what burned an indelible memory into my heart. It was the simple humanity of three rock ‘n roll legends and a young writer chatting near a vending machine.
I went back to the stage and waited some more.
Got mixed emotions? Yep but they’re all good vibes!
Finally, at some point late into the night, the shoot started up. The song was called “Mixed Emotions.” A catchy song that makes you want to get up and dance. Every time I hear it, I think of that night. The other girls and I were shown where to stand, and instructed to dance in place. We’d be the background dancers. I have no doubt some of the girls might have been a little disappointed about that; I had precisely zero ambitions to be a dancer for rock stars so it made no difference to me other than it started to feel a little repetitive, wiggling my hips to the music over and over again. (For those of you who’ve never been on a film shoot, the whole shoot-reshoot-and reshoot again process can get quite tedious, even on a shoot for a song as good as “"Mixed Emotions.”)
But yes, absolutely, it was thrilling and exciting to be on a sound stage shooting a music video with the Stones. Don’t ever let anyone tell me otherwise.
I didn’t get a chance to say good-bye when the shoot was over; I have no idea where any of them were at that point. I was exhausted, and so was my mom, but we had forged a memory to last us a few lifetimes. I can’t tell you how late Mick and the boys and their crew ended up staying, but I’m sure they got to sleep in the next day. I sure as hell didn’t.
The morning after
The very next morning I went to work—a small frame shop in town that I credit with my refined sense of framing aesthetics [she says self-deprecatingly], which I’d need a few decades later when I organized art exhibits for my daughter. At some point around lunchtime, I casually mentioned my evening the night before. Thank heaven my co-workers weren’t handling picture glass at that moment because there would have been a lot of them shattered all over the floor. Instead of glass, their jaws hit that floor, and the questions came flying.
“Whaaaaat? Are you serious you met the Stones OH MY GOD HOW? No way. What were they like?? Did you get pictures? Did you get autographs?”
Umm… oh, I guess I didn’t. Never occurred to me. Silly Birgitte. You had one job. One job.
Well, yeah, that job was to dance in the video and I did it.
[ ... ]
Did you make it in?
Of course, as luck would have it, all of us girls ended up on the cutting room floor. Didn’t make it into the final cut of the video. As a result, there remains no video evidence of our presence on that stage that night—and that’s just fine, as far as I’m concerned! I do agree with what you’re probably thinking… too bad I didn’t think to get an autograph, and too bad smartphones were but a distant twinkle in Silicon Valley’s eye. Maybe when they make an AI that can record our memories… umm on second thought, maybe not. This post will do just fine thanks (please don’t let Sam Altman or Elon Musk read it).
One last thing
There is one other thing I want to share. We’ve all heard how rock stars behave badly. Maybe some of us have seen it. Parties running rivers of drugs, sex, and alcohol. Ultimate fodder for all those hungry tabloids. Well, there was none of that on that night. None of the band members ever looked at me or the other girls the wrong way. Not once. Not once did their eyes lower to some part of my body below my neckline. Not once did they touch me. They were, in three words, the perfect gentlemen. Respectful, courteous, professional.
Should we be surprised? I certainly wasn’t. It wasn’t the first time I had met someone famous, and perhaps I was too young and innocent to worry about anything untoward. But considering what I’d experience later on Hollywood film sets, these rock legends certainly set a high bar for all the others.
A few people I recounted this story to suggested perhaps it was because I didn’t throw myself at them that the Stones were so respectful. Maybe, but based on what I’d see later in the movie business—where I also did not throw myself at any man, however famous or gorgeous—I stand by my original statement. The Stones really rock, on so many levels.
Remember this. Remember that no one is above you, and no one below. If a celebrity treats you with courtesy and respect, that’s the person you want to take photos with. If they treat you like a pile of dish rags, tell them you’ve heard from a friend what fine fellas the Stones are.
And yes, of course you can see the video! Here it is for your viewing pleasure. The very first color shot you see, about 0:04 in, is the stage where I met the Rolling Stones.