The Rolling Stones have no ’60s Vegas tales to tell

Elvis, the Beatles, The Doors, even Led Zeppelin all have a Las Vegas legend tied to their early days.

But the Rolling Stones? The best we can do is wax nostalgic about the “Voodoo Lounge” album, the historic old MGM Grand Garden versus the flashy new T-Mobile Arena, and ticket prices that maxed out at $300 instead of $750.

Among iconic classic-rockers, the Stones are conspicuous in their absence for not showing up in Las Vegas for a very long time. Not until 1994, 30 years after “Time Is On My Side.”

No story similar to Elvis opening for Shecky Greene at the New Frontier in 1957. Or the Beatles playing the old convention center’s rotunda in 1964, when high rollers begged for tickets not for themselves, but for their kids.

Jim Morrison had a famous mugshot after his 1968 arrest at the Pussycat a Go Go. Zeppelin made news for a show that didn’t happen in 1970 after Robert Plant collapsed the night before, though fans still debate a “mystery” date that probably happened at a Commercial Center skating rink in August 1969.

But the Stones are celebrating — almost to the week — the launch of a mere 22-year Las Vegas career when they play T-Mobile Arena for the first time Wednesday, with a second show Oct. 22.

It’s easier to explain why something happened than why it didn’t. So there’s no simple reason for why the Stones played Omaha in 1964 and Tulsa in 1965, but not Las Vegas.

Back then, they “were not nearly as well known as the Beatles,” notes Jimmy McIntosh, who teaches rock history at UNLV and has Ronnie Wood as a guest star on his “Orleans to London” guitar album.

“They played New York, California and some Midwest places but did not do that well on the first tour. Vegas was probably not a great choice since they were not well known yet,” McIntosh notes.

Keith Richards offers another possible explanation in his autobiography “Life.”

Las Vegas was still Ralph Lamb territory in the mid-’60s; the sheriff famously forced haircuts on some visiting Hells Angels.

“In Nebraska and places like that we got used to them saying ‘Hello, girls,’ ” Richards writes. “(T)hey felt threatened by us because their wives were looking at us and going, ‘That’s interesting.’ Not what they were used to every bloody day, not some beer-swilling redneck.”

And who was synonymous with Las Vegas if not Dean Martin?

On their first visit to the United States, Martin introduced the band on the “Hollywood Palace” TV show. Richards recalled the intro as something like, “They’re backstage picking the fleas off each other.”

“A lot of sarcasm and eye-rolling. Then he said, ‘Don’t leave me alone with this,’ gesturing with horror in our direction. This was Dino, the rebel Rat Packer who cocked his finger at the entertainment world by pretending to be drunk all the time. We were, in fact, quite stunned.”

From 1976 on, local boomers can recall seeing the likes of the Eagles and Grateful Dead in the Aladdin’s concert theater, now the Axis at Planet Hollywood. But no Stones there either.

“Starting with the ’75 tour, the Stones were playing mostly big baseball and football stadiums, with few indoor shows, so Vegas was too small a market,” McIntosh notes.

By the time the “Voodoo Lounge” tour did play the MGM, it was indeed considered a cozy little “underplay,” sandwiched in between dates at the Louisiana Superdome and Jack Murphy Stadium.

Read more from Mike Weatherford at reviewjournal.com. Contact him at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com and follow @Mikeweatherford on Twitter.