From Cover Band to Hit Machine: How the Rolling Stones' Setlist Evolved Between Their 1964 and 1965 US Tours

The first thing that jumps out about the Stones’ 1964 US tour setlists is how short and cover-heavy they were. They’d play maybe ten to twelve songs in a 25-minute slot — barely enough to get the crowd warmed up. The set was built around R&B and rockabilly covers like Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away,” Willie Dixon’s “I Just Want to Make Love to You,” and the standard “Around and Around.” The band had only one original released by then (“Tell Me”) and it rarely made the set. They were still selling themselves as the raw, bluesy alternative to the Beatles, not yet as songwriters.

By the summer of 1965, everything changed. The tour that June and July saw sets that ran closer to 30–35 minutes, and for the first time original songs were the backbone. They opened with “She Said Yeah” (a cover) but quickly