The Rolling Stones’ 1975 Tour of the Americas stage: inflatable penis, rotating lotus, and a cherry picker over the crowd

The most talked-about prop of the 1975 Tour of the Americas was the 40-foot inflatable penis that emerged from a giant lotus flower during “Star Star” (the song originally called “Starfucker”). It was crude, juvenile, and exactly what the Stones wanted — a middle finger to the “nice” pop of the mid-70s. The penis often deflated mid-show or wouldn’t fully rise, which only made the crowd roar louder.

But the stage itself was a mechanical marvel. Designed in collaboration with theatre designer John Pasche (who also did the Sticky Fingers zipper logo), the lotus flower was a hydraulic, rotating stage that opened its petals as a curtain reveal at the start of the show. The entire stage was built around a central stem that could lift and spin, giving fans on all sides of the stadium a rotating view. That was new for a rock tour — most bands still played flat end-stage setups.

Mick Jagger’s cherry picker was another innovation. Instead of just running down a catwalk, he’d climb into a metal basket that a crane operator would swing out over the first 50 rows of seats. Jagger would lean into the crowd, microphone in hand, sometimes almost touching people. It was dangerous — no harnesses, just the railing of the basket. A few shows had to pause when the crane got stuck or the basket tilted too much. The combination of absurd inflatable props, theatrical set engineering, and literal crowd-surfing on a construction crane made this tour the blueprint for the over-the-top stadium spectacles that became standard in the 80s.