Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rolling Stones American Tour 1981


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   keep. The notion of merging these into a single article has some merit but is primarily an editorial, rather than an AfD, decision. Shereth 21:00, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Rolling Stones American Tour 1981

 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

Non notable tours. I think A Bigger Bang Tour and others are notable, so I am not nominating them. Notability is not asserted (nor reliably asserted).

I am also nominating the following related pages for the same reasons:



Tenacious D Fan (talk) 10:18, 21 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Strong keep. You must be joking!  Rolling Stones tours have been among the most famous concert tours of all time.  If we have any articles about concert tours, then for example The Rolling Stones American Tour 1969 and The Rolling Stones American Tour 1972 would have to be among them: both were major cultural milestones in rock history.  Much mainstream press attention was given to both of them at the time; indeed, a well-known book was written about the latter (Robert Greenfield's S.T.P.: A Journey Through America With The Rolling Stones).  Sourcing for many of these tour articles comes from another well-known book, Roy Carr's The Rolling Stones: An Illustrated Record.  Like them or not, the Stones' image, popularity, and cultural impact has always come just as much from their concert appearances as from their albums or singles, even the most obscure of which all have their own articles.  Wasted Time R (talk) 12:54, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
 * And to take your prime example, Rolling Stones American Tour 1981, this tour is notable, and not just for being a major Rolling Stones tour. It was the highest-grossing and most-profitable tour ever at the time.  It was sponsored by Jōvan, a surprising move at the time that attracted a lot of business media attention, but soon presaged most major rock tours getting corporate sponsorship.  And the tour is also notable for Keith Richards' being clean from substance abuse and the band's playing being much better as a result.  And this notability is reliably, third-party sourced, with cites including several books on music and business and New York Times newspaper and Forbes magazine articles as well.  Wasted Time R (talk) 16:47, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
 * the 1981 tour is also notable for the first pay-per-view broadcast of a concert (the december 18th show at Hampton Virginia ... which is in itself notable for still other reasons). Sssoul (talk) 17:25, 21 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Strong keep I can only assume the nomination is a joke, possibly by Paul McCartney. Nick mallory (talk) 13:20, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep all or Merge and Redirect. The Stones are a very well know band and most of their tours are notable, especially their first few. I'm going to suggest the others be merged and redirected into a list as I doubt every single one of these is notable. &mdash; Maggot Syn 13:53, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
 * All of the articles from the 1969 American Tour on forward are long-standing articles that have a lot to say about the tours and deserve to be individual articles. The articles on the 1967 European Tour and before are recent creations that are generally just lists of tour dates and songs played.  Those might be combined into one article per year or something like that, unless the author of them has plans to further expand them.  Wasted Time R (talk) 14:05, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep all or Merge. Yes, some of the shorter articles on the early ones could possibly be merged OR developed further, but they should definitely all be kept. The 1963-1967 marathon of touring the band did is a very major aspect of their history & notability. Sssoul (talk) 17:25, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Music-related deletion discussions.   — Paul Erik  (talk) (contribs) 23:49, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Strong keep. The Rolling Stones are one of the most popular live music attractions in history. On any reasonable standard, their concert tours are notable Edelmand (talk) 13:51, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I disagree. The tour names are arbritrary and there are tours that occur in the same year in the same country which have pages. What about "The Rolling Stones 1st British Tour 1964" and "The Rolling Stones 1st British Tour 1965"? How can two tours be the first?? The Rolling Stones 2nd European Tour 1965 only has 3 dates. How is that notable? The Rolling Stones 4th European Tour 1965 only has 6 dates. If the Rolling Stones performances are so notable - which I believe they are - shouldn't there be a page like Nine Inch Nails live performances instead of this variety of disparate non-notable, badly named articles. Can I please emphasise that this deletion nomination has excluded a fair few other RS tours, as I believe that some are notable. Tenacious D Fan (talk) 10:55, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Do you really believe The Rolling Stones American Tour 1969 is not notable? From the lead of that article:  "Rock critic Robert Christgau called it "history's first mythic rock and roll tour",[2] while rock critic Dave Marsh would write that the tour was "part of rock and roll legend" and one of the "benchmarks of an era."[3]"  I could find a half-dozen more assessments like that if necessary ... even Jack Black would agree.  Wasted Time R (talk) 11:18, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
 * As for the tour and article names, from 1970 on they are taken directly from the Rolling Stones tour posters whose images you see in the articles; these are as official as you'll get for tour names. (The posters themselves have become famous over the years.)  The 1969 American tour didn't seem to have a name on its poster, but every reference source uses this obvious retronym for it.  The 1967 and before names are taken from the listing of them in Roy Carr's The Rolling Stones: An Illustrated Record.  Wasted Time R (talk) 11:24, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
 * As for the 1967 and before articles, as said above, there may be merit into coallescing them into The Rolling Stones 1964 tours, The Rolling Stones 1965 tours, The Rolling Stones 1966 tours ... Each article could then trace the evolution of early Stones tours — how long they played, other acts in the tour package with them, types of venues, nature of audiences, etc. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:59, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I would be happy to remove the 1969 tour from this nom. I think anything involving the stones and 1969 is probably notable, but I hope you can see my issue with the other articles. How about we remove the less notable articles and create a RS Live article (which RS's notable stage craft, performances etc). And I'm sure JB would agree with your previous statement. ;) Aren't we at risk of forking, and relying on, to much on Roy Carr's book? Tenacious D Fan (talk) 12:10, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Every one from 1969 on is notable. These were all major tours, with their own names, posters, promotions, attendance records, cultural impact, scandals, personnel dramas, etc.  Let's discuss Rolling Stones American Tour 1981, the one you named this whole AfD after.  Have you read it again?  Do you really still think that tour isn't notable?  As people have pointed out above, in addition to being a major Rolling Stones tour, it set ticket-selling records at the time, it innovated the use of corporate sponsorship and pay-per-view events, and it marked a turn-around in Richards' playing abilities.  What makes that tour less notable than Licks Tour, which you decided was notable?  What makes that tour less notable than Tenacious D 2006-2007 Tour, which you've made many edits to?  Wasted Time R (talk) 12:35, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
 * As for sourcing, that's not a problem. Tons of stuff has been written about the Stones.  Rolling Stones American Tour 1981 uses a wide variety of sources, for example, none of which is Carr.  Wasted Time R (talk) 12:40, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Okay, I would be willing to remove 1981. But what about all the articles which have poor context, and just seem to be a gig date listing. Am I able to remove the AfD nominees by just removing the templates from the respective pages? Tenacious D Fan (talk) 13:01, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
 * if the articles on the pre-1967 tours need to be developed more, then please put an appropriate "help needed" banner on them - don't delete them! maybe Wasted Time R's idea of merging them into "RS Tours 1963", "RS Tours 1964", etc, would work until the articles get more fleshed out (and i absolutely agree that overdoing Carr as a source is a mistake in more ways than one!) but: bear in mind that the Rolling Stones played their 1000th gig sometime in 1967.  1000 gigs in under 5 years - they played more often than some people bathe - no wonder they're still going strong! ahem, i mean: you bet those early tours are notable! Sssoul (talk) 13:31, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not going to rail against an obvious consensus. I still think perhaps a few of the articles I nom'd only list a few dates and aren't really notable. Tenacious D Fan (talk) 13:45, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
 * cool - could you perhaps provide a list of the few that you're talking about, and/or put appropriate banners on them asking for them to be either expanded or merged? that might get more support than en masse nominations for deletions of articles about tours that even you grant are in fact thoroughly notable ... hope you see what i mean. Sssoul (talk) 14:28, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

May I suggest a compromise? For the band Led Zeppelin, there is an article entitled Led Zeppelin concerts. This article has a heading "Concert Tour Chronology", under which all of the band's concert tours are listed. The Rolling Stones could have a similar article, with all of their concert tours listed. Those concert tours which are considered notable enough could have a separate article of their own, whilst their less notable tours would not have a separate article, but would at least still be recorded in the list. Having an article called "Rolling Stones concerts" would also provide some scope to provide information about their concerts in general terms, rather than just specific tours (eg. typical concert characteristics, number of concerts played, concert recordings etc) Edelmand (talk) 13:57, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Would absolutely support. In that page, you could discuss the influence in live performances RS have made etc. Tenacious D Fan (talk) 14:03, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep all As with large scale bundled nominations it's impossible to fairly judge notability of every article listed. RMHED (talk) 20:46, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep Self evident notability as supported by the references in the articles, let alone other arguments. Requiring development is hardly a need to delete.  M♠ssing  Ace   20:49, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.