- Title: RUSSIA: ROLLING STONES PERFORM LIVE IN MOSCOW
- Date: 11th August 1998
- Summary: LUZHNIKI STADIUM ROLLING STONES CONCERT
- Embargoed: 26th August 1998 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: MOSCOW, RUSSIA
- Country: Russia
- Topics: Entertainment
- Reuters ID: LVABATU8X8XJ6ZNHIDTCCK5MEH59
- Story Text: After waiting for more than 30 years, Russian rock fans have been able to see the Rolling Stones perform live in Moscow.
Mick Jagger may not have known it, but Moscow rock fans Natasha and Alexei have been waiting a long time for their own "Satisfaction." Tonight they are going to get it.
Natasha and Alexei are two of the many 30 year-old Russian rock fans who grew up behind the Iron Curtain listening to forbidden Rolling Stones records, not realizing that they would have the chance to see Mick Jagger and his group, the longest playing super-star rock band, perform live in their own background.
"I couldn't believe it would happen in Russia finally.We all were waiting for this for many years, ever since the time when it was all prohibited and when it was difficult to get recordings, when you had to go to the black market and hide it," said Natasha.
Natasha remembers how she waited for friends to make the rare trips abroad, when they would bring back a Stones album and then gather, away from their parents, to listen to them.
Communist authorities in the Soviet Union first refused the Rolling Stones request to play in Moscow back in 1967, saying that the group was too decadent and culturally worthless.
The state officials may have also been affected in their decision by reports of rioting that spread through Warsaw after the Rolling Stones performed in Warsaw Pact member Poland in 1967.
Whatever the reason, the Stones were definitely taboo.
And that, according to Alexei, who now works as a stuntman, was the very reason he loved them and knew that he absolutely had to see them perform live.
"It [Rolling Stones music] was forbidden, and forbidden fruit is always interesting.It was underground gatherings, listening in apartments.We traded and sold the discs and that became a culture in its own.Many people came to love not so much the music as the culture behind it all and from this grew a love for the music and love for the Stones that has remained many decades later," said Alexei.
Despite unseasonable cool summer weather with rain clouds covering Moscow, thousands of fans joined Natasha and Alexei in lining up outside Luzhniki stadium and having their tickets, which cost from $20 to $200--a pretty penny by Russian standards, verified.
As the Russian warm-up band "Spleen" brought its act to an end, Rolling Stone fans seemed to fill the 68,000 people capacity stadium.
It had been a long wait for what may be rock's most patient and enduring set of fans. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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