Rolling Stones The Great Political Canadia Trudeau Scandal

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How the Rolling Stones pulled off their pair of secret gigs in Toronto, Canada in 1977 and the political scandal that ensued with guitarist Ronnie Wood. -----GET A SECRET VIDEO PLAYLIST----- Sign up for email news and get a link to my secret playlist with 10 of my best stories. https://bit.ly/3emyloM -----CONNECT ON SOCIAL----- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rocknrolltruestories Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RNRTrueStories Twitter: https://twitter.com/rocktruestories Blog: www.rockandrolltruestories.com Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/RNRTrueStories #trudeau #rollingstones #ronniewood Back in 1977 The Rolling Stones had a pretty ambitious idea. They wanted to fly unannounced into Toronto, Canada play two secret gigs to a room full of Rolling Stones fans, record the performances and then fly out without many people finding out. The Stones would settle on the El Mocambo nightclub to do the gigs. The club’s booker would pencil in the venue’s calendar on march 4-5, 1977 a band called April Wine to buy them some cover. The band that was set to open for April Wine would be a group called The Cockroaches, which was the alias the Rolling Stones were using. Now on the day of the first show the band would rehearse upstairs and soundcheck. Anybody who walked by the club during that time probably thought they heard a Rolling Stones cover band. Who would’ve really thought the Stones would’ve showed up to Toronto unannounced anways? There was then the last part of the puzzle which was the most difficult part. Getting fans to the gigs without knowing they were going to see the Stones. The band’s management would team up with a local radio station called CHUM FM which held a contest asking listeners what would you do to see the Rolling Stones? Duff Roman who was the person behind CHUM FM would recall to the National Post. “The plan that we constructed, was to have a contest: ‘What would you do to see the Rolling Stones play live?’ This way we could select the 300 top entries and guarantee that real fans would be there for the event. The prize would be a chance to see April Wine at the El Mocambo nightclub. People wrote in and we cherry-picked the best ones. As you might expect, there were lots of nude Polaroids. When the band came in to judge the winners, they slipped the photos into their pockets and took them home" he'd say. The Stones were in Toronto for a week during the two secret shows and they stayed at the Habor Castle Hilton. It was during this stay that Keith Richards was busted for drug possession a few days prior to their shows. Now it wasn’t exactly the type of news coverage they were hoping for, but it wouldn’t be the end of the bad press coverage as we’ll get to in a bit. Now the radio station chartered a dozen or so buses and told the winners of the contest to meet them at the radio station where they would then be driven to the venue. Roman would remember “I got onto the mic on one of the buses and said, ‘I have some bad news. There’s a change to the show tonight.’ People were disappointed and started to boo. I continued: ‘Along with April Wine, you’ll also be seeing a band called the Rolling … yes, the… Rolling Stones!’ And for a moment, people sat in utter bewilderment. Then there was a lot of cheering and shouting when they realized where they’d be going.” Now keep in mind Margaret Trudeau and her husband Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau had a 30 year age gap between them and she was never a fan of the media attention or political life and one story mccleans described how once, at Harrington The night the Stones played their first concert it was coincidentally the pair’s 6th year wedding anniversary. Rather than spending time together the pair were apart. Margaret was spotted both nights at the Stones shows at the El Mocambo night club and would be staying at the same hotel as the band, albeit 10 floors apart. She would arrive both nights in the company of singer Mick jagger and guitarist Ronnie Wood. And the public would soon learn that Margaret’s relationship with her husband was in shambles and unbeknownst to the public was that they were already separated at this point in time. Later that night according to MaLeans magazine she went to a Stones party back at their hotel. One guest would tell the magazine . “She really pooped the party,”Nobody could relax.” and she was accompanied by security as well.. When the Prime Minister’s office was asked to comment on her appearance a Trudeau spokesman simply said “It’s her private life, and she’s on record as saying she wants to lead it the way she wants to.” It was alleged in the media and by those in attendance those two nights that Margaret had in fact had a relationship with Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood. In fact in Wood’s biography he would reveal a 1977 encounter with as he put it “a lovely dark haired women at a Toronto Hotel.