Should the RIAA equalisation be before any active stage?

An MM or MI (Moving iron cantilever such as Stanton 680)record player cartidge gives such high output that if it is connected to mic input of Realistic disco mixer, VU needle hits 0VU whereas a dynamic mic barely moves the needle. But it sounds like shaving a light bulb as there is no RIAA equalisation. Why feeding an electron tube or transistor something that would never want to listen to in our right mind? So why not putting the passive RIAA equalisation network right after the cartridge and then feed with a series capacitor an open grid tube extremely low noise amp such as the Pleiades V6 1H4? Would it work, for example using the Le Pacific MM RIAA passive filter or the pre itself with 1st stage removed? Would this avoid possible 1st stage overload by the razor blade signal usualy fed to the front end?