The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus is a British concert film hosted by and featuring the Rolling Stones, filmed on 11–12 December 1968. It was directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, who proposed the idea of a “rock and roll circus” to Jagger. The show was filmed on a makeshift circus stage with Jethro Tull, The Who, Taj Mahal, Marianne Faithfull, and the Rolling Stones. John Lennon and his fiancee Yoko Ono performed as part of a one-shot supergroup called The Dirty Mac, featuring Eric Clapton on guitar, Mitch Mitchell (of The Jimi Hendrix Experience) on drums, and the Stones’ Keith Richards on bass. The recently formed Led Zeppelin had been considered for inclusion, but the idea was rejected. (As the Who’s Pete Townshend recalled, an earlier idea for a circus-themed concert tour had been floated; it would have featured the Stones, the Who, and the Small Faces.)
The film was meant to be aired on the BBC, but the Rolling Stones withheld it, contending that they did so because they felt their performance was substandard; they were clearly exhausted after 15 hours of filming (and some indulgence in drugs). It was Brian Jones’ last appearance with the Rolling Stones; he drowned some seven months later while the film was being edited. Some speculate that another reason for not releasing the film was that the Who, who were fresh off a concert tour, upstaged the Stones on their own production. The show was not released commercially until October 1996.
The project was conceived by Mick Jagger as a way to promote the Stones’ album Beggars Banquet beside conventional press and concert appearances.[6] Jagger approached Lindsay-Hogg, who had directed promos for two Rolling Stones songs in 1968, and would go on to direct the Beatles’ Let It Be documentary, to make a full-length TV show for them. According to Lindsay-Hogg, the idea of combining rock music and a circus setting came to him when he was trying to come up with ideas; he drew a circle on a piece of paper and free-associated.[3]
The Rolling Stones and their guests performed in a replica of a seedy big top on a British sound stage—the Intertel (V.T.R. Services) Studio, Wycombe Road, Wembley[8]—in front of an invited audience. The performances began at around 2 pm on 11 December 1968, but setting up between acts and reloading cameras took longer than planned, which meant that the final performances took place at almost 5 o’clock in the morning on the 12th.
By that time the audience and most of the Rolling Stones were exhausted. It was only due to Jagger’s sheer enthusiasm and stamina, and Lindsay-Hogg’s patience and encouragement,[3] that they kept going until the end. Regardless, Jagger was reportedly so disappointed with his and the band’s performance that he cancelled the airing of the film, and kept it from public view. Pete Townshend recalled:
When they really get moving, there is a kind of white magic that starts to replace the black magic, and everything starts to really fly. That didn’t happen on this occasion; there’s no question about that. They weren’t just usurped by The Who, they were also usurped by Taj Mahal – who was just, as always, extraordinary. They were usurped to some extent by the event itself: the crowd by the time the Stones went on were radically festive.
Lindsay-Hogg recalled that the Stones’ Brian Jones had phoned him the night before the scheduled filming in order to inform the director that he would not be participating in the film. “I hate the Rolling Stones,” Jones told him. Lindsay-Hogg spoke with Jones for about twenty minutes and convinced him to come to the filming.[3] It would prove to be Jones’s final public performance with the Rolling Stones. For much of the Stones’ set he is very low in the mix, although audio exists in which his guitar is much higher. His slide guitar on “No Expectations”, maracas on “Sympathy for the Devil”, and rhythm guitar on “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” remain clear. Ian Anderson remarked:
Brian Jones was well past his sell-by date by then… We spoke to Brian and he didn’t really know what was going on. He was rather cut off from the others – there was a lot of embarrassed silence. But a delightful chap, and we felt rather sorry for him… I was approached for an interview by a chap from Record Mirror… I inadvertently remarked that the Stones were a bit under-rehearsed and that Brian couldn’t even tune his guitar, which was literally the truth but a bit tactless and inappropriate for me to say. This was duly reported, whereupon Mick Jagger was mightily upset. I had to send a grovelling apology to his office.