Rolling Stones - New Orleans Road Trip
In 1978 The Rolling Stones made their way to New Orleans on their “Some Girls” tour. I was at work when I received a phone call from Tom Thompson who said his mom just received 4 free tickets to the concert and they were ours if we wanted to go. We all cleared it with our employers and away we went. This trip consisted of Tom, Mike Fulghum, Bill Nelms (my wife’s brother), and me. A 10 to 12 hour trip was always fun with a bunch of teenage guys swapping stories and singing along to the songs blasting out from an 8-track tape player.

The concert was one terrific bill. The opening band was Van Halen. Next up was The Doobie Brothers, then none other than the world’s most famous touring band, The Rolling Stones.

Bill Nelms was only 15 and very short at the time. His height came up to about my shoulder, and I’m only 5’ 8”. Though today he is a head taller than me. I put Bill on my shoulders while he and Mick Jagger clapped and pointed at each other throughout the show. Bill was ecstatic that Mick Jagger would actually give him personal recognition from the stage. We saw many friends from Nashville including James Downing (who appears on Concert Blast podcasts and blogs occasionally). What a great time!

The next morning we started back to Nashville. We were very tired from the previous night, but we had a day’s drive ahead of us. Tom was driving, I was in the front passenger seat, and Bill Nelms and Mike Fulghum were in the back seat sleeping away. I was trying to stay awake, but Tom insisted that I should sleep because I might have to drive later.

As we drove further down the road, I did fall asleep. All of a sudden I jerked in the seat as I was awakened by a dream. Tom laughed at me. Through his laughter, he asked me what was wrong. I told him I just had a dream that we ran off the road. He laughed some more and told me to go back to sleep. He said he feels great right now. I noticed he was energized, so I went back to sleep.

I don’t know how long I slept, but I was suddenly awakened from the rough ride we were experiencing. As we were being tossed around in our seats, I looked up and noticed Tom was driving through a rough field of grass as tall as the car. I had no idea what happened or where Tom was taking us! As Tom was trying to get control of his car back on the interstate, Bill and Mike were being tossed around in the back seat like a couple of rag dolls. Tom finally made it back to the road. He drove up on the interstate and kept going as if nothing happened. Tom had fallen asleep and went into the grassy median. As we drove down the interstate, we looked to the left, where we just where, and noticed if he hadn’t gotten control of the car and put it back on the interstate when he did, he would have taken us off a huge 100 foot bluff into a river. We pulled off the next exit, made sure the car was ok, got some snacks, and headed down the road again. No one else in the car fell back asleep for the entire trip! Who says the Lord doesn’t take care of the young and dumb?