Jaunted

Celeb Travel

Rolling Stones Hit the Great Wall

April 6, 2006 at 9:15 AM | 0 Comments

The Stones' next stop on their "A Bigger Bang" world tour is proving to be their most difficult. Unlike the freewheeling Brazilians (several of whom were sired by Mick) packing Copacabana Beach to hear them, the Chinese could care less about the band's upcoming concert in Shanghai.

First, Mick and Co. had to downgrade their venue from a 100,000 seat stadium to a 8,000 seat theatre, and they're still struggling to sell the remaining tickets all down the line. A simple economics lesson might help: tix are going for 300-3,000 yuan (37 to 370 dollars), and the average monthly salary in Shanghai is about, well, 1,700 yuan total.

The country's Ministry of Culture has already banned the Stones from playing many of their big hits with "raunchy lyrics". How oppressive! That would never happen in the U.S. Except, of course at this year's Super Bowl performance, when some of the lyrics to "Start Me Up" were bleeped.

Still, in a culture where rock n' roll is known as "spiritual pollution", the show must go on; the Stones take the stage on Saturday. As for the Chinese, don't they know that the Rolling Stones and capitalism go together like cereal and milk?

Related Stories:
·   No satisfaction for Stones in China [AFP]
·   The Rolling Stones talk about Shanghai (briefly) [Shanghaiist]