Concert History | Spartan Stadium — A New Truck Tunnel Turned a Football Bowl into a Concert Venue

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On September 9, 1994, the Rolling Stones brought the Voodoo Lounge Tour to Spartan Stadium in East Lansing, with Lenny Kravitz opening. A contemporaneous [Los Angeles Times tour schedule](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-07-31-ca-21842-story.html) lists the September 9 Michigan State University date; [Michigan State University Archives](https://msuarchives.wordpress.com/2015/12/08/where-were-you-on-september-9-1994/) independently identifies the exact date, stadium, tour and opening act, and calls it the stadium’s first rock concert.

The decisive adaptation was not on the field but through the wall. MSU Archives records that stadium renovations finished just in time and included a tunnel large enough for trucks carrying the stage and lighting. Once inside, the production became a 92-foot-tall, 220-foot-wide structure across the north end zone. The tunnel converted touring equipment from an access problem into a buildable event: a football bowl could receive the trucks, unload the moving architecture and reorganize one end of the field around it.

That local account fits the production scale described before the tour opened. Tour producer Joseph Rascoff told the Los Angeles Times that the stadium design would reach nine stories high, 100 feet deep and as much as 300 feet wide in places. The figures are not competing measurements: the newspaper described the tour’s maximum design envelope, while the archive gives the assembled Spartan Stadium footprint. Together they explain why the new service route mattered. The concert depended on a permanent circulation change made for a temporary stage.

This account makes no attendance claim. The university archive supplies a retrospective crowd figure rather than a named gate count or audited box-office total. As of September 2026, [Michigan State Athletics](https://msuspartans.com/sports/2018/7/20/facilities-spartan-stadium-html) still identifies Spartan Stadium as the home of Michigan State football and records the summer 1994 renovations, so today’s bowl should not be read as an unchanged view of the concert-night configuration.

**Coordinate method:** The pin at **42.728056, -84.484722** is the stadium-footprint coordinate recorded by [Wikidata](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2164621). Independently, the [U.S. Census TIGER geocoder](https://geocoding.geo.census.gov/geocoder/locations/onelineaddress?address=325%20W%20Shaw%20Ln%2C%20East%20Lansing%2C%20MI%2048824&benchmark=Public_AR_Current&format=json) places the stadium’s 325 West Shaw Lane address at **42.725767, -84.485308**, near the south edge of the complex; MSU Athletics’ directions likewise place the stadium on Shaw Lane. The approximately 259-meter separation is consistent with an address point versus the bowl center. Use a **300-meter precision radius**. The pin represents the stadium footprint, not a documented 1994 stage or tunnel position.

**Cover image:** Greenstrat’s 2008 photograph of an empty Spartan Stadium, released worldwide into the public domain via [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SpartanStadiumA.jpg). It shows the venue after later alterations; it does **not** depict the Rolling Stones, Lenny Kravitz or the 1994 concert.