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The Rolling Stones Urban Jungle Tour – Setting a blueprint for my concert passions

Concerts / by

The Stones rolled into London during the summer of 1990. After great success in the States with their Steel Wheels tour, the band geared up to conquer Europe. The same show, the same set list but with a different name. The Rolling Stones Urban Jungle tour was to be my second major stadium gig and the first time flying solo with friends.

The Steel Wheels album had been released in the autumn of 1989 and marked a return to for, of sorts, after the well publicised bust ups in the early eighties. The local record stores were promoting the Stones back catalogue which got me into the compilation albums of Hot Rocks and Rewind and when the concerts were announced we grabbed some tickets. This was to be the start of my love for the Rolling Stones.

The Rolling Stones – Urban Jungle at Wembley Stadium

I still remember hanging around outside the stadium before the doors were open. Fans were just sitting around chatting, singing together (way before mobile phones) whilst journalists sought Vox pops and opinions on the age of the various band members.

As one of the first through the doors, I headed straight for the pitch stopping to marvel at this massive day glow stage that was set out like an urban circus, spanning almost the entire width of one end.

The Urban Jungle Stage design taken from their tour program
The Stage Design, taken from the concert program

I can still remember the songs playing before the support act. Hearing Bob Marley’s Exodus and Billy Idol’s Flesh for Fantasy blast out from the stadium speakers. The support act was the Dan Reed network – they were flying high with the hit ‘Rainbow Child’ which I think remained their only major chart success. (I checked Spotify and it remains their most streamed song.)

And then it was time for the main event. Small strobes around the stage started to pulse, the tribal horns of Continental Drift started to play, then boom! Fireworks and the opening riff for Start Me Up! My spine still tingles thinking about it!

The set list was peppered with a great mix of old and new songs. ‘Start Me Up’ was followed by Steel Wheels opener ‘Sad Sad Sad’ before classics like Tumbling Dice and Miss You.

‘Rock and a Hard Place’ & Mixed Emotions’, possibly their best tracks of Steel Wheels sat nicely between Factory Girl and Honky Tonk Woman, with the ballad ‘Almost Here You Sigh’ felt right between Miss You and Ruby Tuesday.

I believe it was the Urban Jungle tour that set the template for future Stones tours including their Desert Trip performances. For it wasn’t enough to have great music, a huge stage allowed Mick and Keith to run around like kids, whilst 30 ft inflatables would rise out of the stage sides for singalong’s like Honky Tonk Woman.

After these July gigs, the Stones were originally set to play a second batch of Wembley dates in the middle of the month but had to reschedule after Keith cut his finger. Lucky for me that some friends couldn’t make these rescheduled dates so I got to enjoy it for a second time!

These two Urban Jungle experiences set me on the path to loving big concert venues and large format shows. I was lucky enough to see and share the Rolling Stones Desert Trip performance with my family which showed they’ve still got I!

The Urban Jungle tour was to be the last with Bill Wyman, whilst Desert Trip was the last time I saw Charlie Watts playing with the band. All of these memories will last with me forever.

The Urban Jungle Merch

Back in those days a programme was a fiver (maybe a tenner) and T-shirts were still affordable. I still cherish my concert programme, complete with pull out stage design and Budweiser promotional flyer. I wore my oversized T-shirt, sporting the ‘Dog’ emblem for the European tour, until it wore out. I recently found another one on eBay so I can wear it to this day!

You can read more about the design process for their European leg on this great blog post from one of the show’s designers.

Ronnie Wood also released an official print of the Urban Jungle promotion which now hangs proudly on my wall.

Ronnie Wood art for the Urban Jungle tour hangs on my red wall

The Steel Wheels album

Any new Rolling Stones album is met with the usual sniffiness. How could a band match their classic Seventies output like Exile on Main Street or Sticky Fingers. But they did deliver their best album of the eighties that saw Mick and Keith patch up the differences that could have split the Stones forever.

Rolling Stones Steel Wheels
My vinyl copy of Steel Wheels

The album contains a number of great tracks, already mentioned, that made it into the setlist. If you add in the wonderful track ‘Terrifying’ then you have almost 50% of the album with solid tracks. The others aren’t that bad, either – even Keith, fresh some success his solo record ‘Talk is Cheap’ singing ‘Can’t be Seen’ doesn’t dampen the album.

In my mind, this remained their best ‘modern’ album until the arrival of ‘Hackney Diamonds’ some 35 years later. That in itself is another massive achievement. If you think it was ‘only’ 19 years between Sticky Fingers and Steel Wheels!

Urban Jungle Set List

  • Start Me Up
  • Sad Sad Sad
  • Harlem Shuffle
  • Tumbling Dice
  • Miss You
  • Almost Hear You Sigh
  • Ruby Tuesday
  • Angie
  • Rock and a Hard Place
  • Mixed Emotions
  • Honky Tonk Women
  • Midnight Rambler
  • You Can’t Always Get What You Want
  • Can’t Be Seen
  • Happy
  • Paint It Black
  • 2000 Light Years From Home
  • Sympathy for the Devil
  • Street Fighting Man
  • Gimme Shelter
  • It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll (but I Like It)
  • Brown Sugar
  • Jumpin’ Jack Flash
  • (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction