Rolling Stones in Cuba: Band delivers historic free concert before hundreds of thousands Friday March 25,2016

Rock legends the Rolling Stones strutted and sang before hundreds of thousands of jubilant Cubans in Havana on Friday March 25,2016, delivering a historic concert in a country that once forced fans to listen to their favorite music behind closed doors.

“Hello Havana! Good evening to my Cuban people,” lead singer Mick Jagger shouted in Spanish as he launched into the band’s classic “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.”

Coming two days after US President Barack Obama finished the first trip to Cuba by a US president in nearly 90 years, Friday night’s free rock concert, called the biggest in the country’s history, sought to cement the communist-run island’s opening to the world.

“After today I can die,” said night watchman Joaquin Ortiz. The 62-year-old said he’s been a huge rock fan since he was a teenager in the 1960s, when Cuba’s communist government frowned on US and British bands and he had to hide his Beatles and Stones albums in covers borrowed from albums of appropriately revolutionary Cuban groups. “This is like my last wish, seeing the Rolling Stones.”

Groups of people had slept overnight outside the Ciudad Deportiva, or Sports City, where a massive stage had been set up for the concert, and by the time the concert began roughly a half million people had gathered.

Spectators held up signs reading “Republica Stones” and “We Love The Stones,” while t-shirts with the band’s trademark lips and tongue were common. Security was heavy, provided by private guards in yellow jackets and hundreds of Cuban police and black-clad Interior Ministry officers in black jumpsuits.

Mick Jagger, wearing a silver jacket and red wine-colored shirt, belted out standards like “Angie” and “It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll (But I Like It).”

 

 Thousands gather at the Ciudad Deportiva as the Rolling Stones perform in Havana, Cuba

Members of The Rolling Stones, from left, Charlie Watts, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ron Wood talk to journalists upon their arrival to Jose Marti international airport in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, March 24, 2016.