Bill Graham and Denver-based Barry Fey co-promoted the three shows (one on Sunday and two on Monday), which kicked off the band's brief tour of New Zealand and Australia. At Mick Jagger's request, the barely known Texas band ZZ Top opened all three shows - and got encores every time, a major early confidence-booster for the band.
The tour was an extension of the Stones' infamous 1972 American S.T.P. Tour. The original intent was to play Australia, New Zealand and Japan, but the Stones' 1972 American Tour had drawn worldwide press for its combustive mixture of group decadence and fan riots set amidst jet set hangers-on. This caused the Stones some serious drama for their Pacific visits in that visas and work permits might be hard to get. Accordingly, the Stones scheduled these shows in Hawaii first, as a fallback in case they could not get into certain countries. Hawaiian fans camped out on Christmas night 1972 in order to buy tickets.
The image of wild horses was created by well-known German artist Wilfried Satty and his pal David Singer did the lettering. Singer was one of Graham’s go-to artists, designing 66 posters for him between 1969-1971. Sätty was born in 1939 in Bremen, Germany. He spoke about the war-torn city where he grew up as "a big surrealistic playground." He was schooled in architecture, engineering, and design, and spent some time working in Brasilia before he settled in San Francisco in the early 60's. It was the threshold of the psychedelic era, and Sätty soon began making posters, developing an extraordinary collage technique that brought together both the technological and surreal sides of his background.