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Something good.

This is the last day of our rehearsal.

We've been rehearsing for two weeks.

Working what numbers we're gonna do...

There's always a bit of rust to rub off.

Rehearsal's a big word for bonding.

When you sit and play the first song

it's the same feeling as it was when I first joined.

We haven't seen each other for a while and it's fresh

like reuniting and lots of it comes magically flooding back.

Kind of feeling when you rehearse the last couple of days

all it really needs is an audience.

Yeah.

So this tour we're gonna visit nine Latin American cities

and hopefully the tenth that we haven't yet visited

is gonna be Havana, Cuba.

To try and put on a big show, that is really hard

but we're gonna try our best to do it.

To see the world from a Rolling Stones point of view,

nobody else sees the world the way we do.

It's the explorer in us, I think.

The Christopher Columbus in all of us

that wants to see what's round the corner

and is it round or is it flat?

Stand by. Stand by, everybody.

At the start of the tour it's like being

on a tightrope that, once you've set foot on it, that rope widens

and becomes a bridge you can run across.

House lights go, please. House lights go.

Ladies and gentlemen, The Rolling Stones!

Present arms!

A lot of the Latin American countries

in the '60s and '70s were under military dictatorships.

They had censorship of songs

and basically styles of music they didn't like.

The Rolling Stones, being part of

this '60s kind of rebellious movement,

this idea of freedom of expression and sexuality

was an anathema to a lot of these regimes.

In several countries, rock 'n' roll was banned.

The minute you ban something,

you're gonna create a movement around it.

Anything that smacks of rebellion,

they sort of take to heart.

Thank you!

When Obama started to free up relations,

it seemed an obvious thing on a tour of Latin America to do Cuba

so we started to investigate it.

But the idea of doing it and the actual organising it

is somewhat two different things.

Cuba. Cuba, Cuba, Cuba.

Every single day. It's all about Cuba.

I wake up in the middle of the night and go,

"Oh. I fucking forgot. Oh, shit!"

People have done theatres, people have done small things.

But to put The Rolling Stones there and do a free show,

nothing has happened like this in Cuba before. Ever.

Ever.

Let me just... This is Adam. He's gonna lead this project.

He has considerable experience

in dealing with communist governments.

He opened China for us and now he's gonna open Cuba for us.

This is a place where

they don't function and operate the way we do

so e-mail and phone calls and that kind of stuff.

It's just not the same.

This has gone up to the very top of the food chain. Raúl Castro.

They look at this as almost a piece of government policy.

That this event will be something that can symbolise,

in a very positive way, that the country is opening up.

Adam, I know they're saying the right things

and they want it to happen. But in a way that's irrelevant.

We know. We want it to happen too.

We are going to have to, within a very short space of time,

take a view as to whether the show is feasible.

In terms of next steps, we're on a very tight timeline.

That's probably our biggest constraint which we're aware of.

So decisions are gonna have to be made imminently.

We can't talk about this, even to our own staff yet.

When it's time to announce it to everybody else we'll do that.

Otherwise the rumours and everything will crush us.

Every day that we lose on this, makes it harder.

Argentina is the first South American country

the Stones played and this is where

we really got in contact with this continent.

During the military dictatorship

and then the Falklands War, we couldn't play there.

In our absence, a kind of cult, a kind of fashion emerged,

called the 'Rolingas', dedicated to The Stones.

The Stones are a religion here.

They're so much more than just a band.

It's like an urban tribe.

Rolinga culture is uniquely Argentinian.

I can't really explain it, it flows, runs through your veins.

This is our way of life, it won't go out of fashion.

His name is Jagger.

He is called Jagger after his majesty.

The person who taught us how to be.

When I was 11, I used to look at the tongue logos on walls.

I used to ask, 'What is this? What is this?'

And when they showed what it was,

that was the best thing that ever happened to me.

I feel proud of what I am

and the fact that people look at me and say,

'Oh look, there goes the Rolinga'

I love it, I love it!

- I love it! - I love it!

The first time we came, it was unbelievable.

It was like a large version of the '60s. It was mad.

And it's been like that ever since.

We are at the Four Seasons Hotel.

We are going to see the best band in the world,

The Rolling Stones.

We're here because everyone says they always stay here.

Let's hope they come out, that's why we're all here.

I've been here almost three days.

Incredible. I slept here yesterday.

Charlie Watts is in the last window, in that balcony.

And we've been told that Keith Richards is in this one,

this window.

Gentlemen, come on in.

I was hoping it was room service.

Our humble abode.

To me, if I'm in Argentina, this is home.

The temporary home, which is not too shabby, really.

Come on.

Ah, had a restless night.

I think these are the windows to see.

Let's see what we can do.

Richards!

The wake-up call is, "Richards, Richards, Olé Olé Olé."

And you, "Oh, well. Time to get up, I guess."

For some reason, they've always been great supporters of ours.

We are at the '40 x 5 Tributo' bar.

We are with friends on this very special day.

We're going to what could be the last Rolling Stones concert

in our country.

That's why we invited our friends to share

this 'Beggars Banquet' for all of us.

Argentinians don't like being told how to behave.

I think The Rolling Stones music

is something we captured and made our own.

It's a beautiful relationship we have with them.

It is like a circus.

It's a circus we've made, by the way.

We built the ring and the tent and without it,

we'd have eight people sitting there.

After 50 years, they've kind of got used to

some mad crowds and mad fans.

But you'd expect after the fourth or fifth visit

for things to die down.

He just saw Mick in the car and it's amazing.

He can't believe it.

It's very emotional.

Come on!

Come on!

One more time!

Do it one more time.

We're very lucky because when I first joined The Stones

you had like 20 people in the club.

Here we are, whatever age we are,

and there's all these people cheering.

You can't help but get drawn into the crowd.

It is so enthralling and sometimes,

they're louder than the band and if they jump up and down,

I've found myself just jumping up and down.

I use muscles that I don't even know I had.

They bring out another part of you.

Ten years is far too long.

Finally, we meet again.

Argentinians, I don't know, somehow they've woven us

into their incredible warp and weft.

And we're part of it.

And it makes me quite humble, actually.

We are Blues Motel.

We are a band connected with the Rolinga or Stones rock scene.

Unfortunately, during the dictatorship here in Argentina,

radio wasn't allowed to broadcast English music.

When democracy returned,

it allowed the broadcasting of foreign music.

And that made it easier for us to listen to those sounds.

In 1995, for the first time

The Rolling Stones arrived in Argentina.

That moment was crucial

because it was the first contact Rolingas had

with The Rolling Stones.

After the arrival of The Rolling Stones,

more bands started coming out.

Many bands took the baton of Stones rock

and started spreading it.

We are proud to represent that style of music.

Stones music.

Come in.

- Hi, guys. - Hi.

- How you doing? - Hey, Mick.

- How are you? Hola. - How are you?

Very well, thank you.

- You came to the show in 1995. - Yeah.

Yes. And it was a great show.

- In the River Plate. - In River Plate Stadium.

And when it starts 'Not Fade Away', it's like...

Argentina. Started fire. On fire.

Yeah, it was great.

When we arrived at the airport, it was very crazy.

People following us in the cars. Beep-beep.

- Like the '60s. - A bit like that.

Kinda like the '60s. Exactly.

And when we did the first show,

with all the audience pogo-ing like this all at once.

It's fantastic. Oh, it was really great.

When we play in Argentina, it's kind of a special place for us.

It's kind of different playing here than anywhere else.

It's a very emotional thing

to be in the middle of that crowd.

But it's not really you that they're looking at.

It's an act out version of you.

You try to live a more or less life like everybody else.

And it's just a kind of thing that you do on your work day

and then you come back and you're just you.

Especially in a country like Argentina.

You're very aware that you're on.

You can't just walk out of the hotel and go shopping

or walking or go to a café.

You can't really do that in Buenos Aires, really.

So you have to make much more effort to get out.

It's ridiculous, at any age.

You know, ducking down at the backs of fans and things,

and escaping people chasing you for autographs and things.

But that's part of your gig.

So I might as well just enjoy it.

I was always a bit of a performer

in these family get-togethers that people used to have.

So you all had to do something and I used to do dances

and impersonations, that was my thing.

But I think in that way of life, you weren't allowed to be shy.

When I went on stage, I knew something was happening.

I didn't quite intellectually and rationally figure it out

but I knew that I was doing something

that was exciting the audience.

So what I learnt in the early '60s on my own

and with the band about how to get an audience going,

nearly all of that's still with me now.

Nobody's ever done this in Cuba.

There's no point of reference for what we're trying to do.

There's a lot of concern,

I think primarily about how to logistically pull it off.

Hopefully, everybody will stay patient.

Hopefully everybody will believe this is doable because it is.

But it needs to be done in a way

that's different than anybody has ever done.

And it needs to run at the pace the locals move at.

We're dealing with a country

that hasn't had diplomatic relations with other countries,

has never hosted a concert of this size.

It's not a guarantee until it's a signed contract.

We're getting into what we might term heart attack territory now.

Come 15th February, we have to ship the entire stage,

all our equipment from Belgium.

We're a bit on a knife edge until we know that

the Cuban government have signed their contract.

I wake up every morning thinking

about this and go to sleep and I'm sweating bullets.

We're just going on faith. I don't know how else to do it.

I sort of have this philosophy,

'Maintain a positive attitude, abolish all fear'.

I'm maintaining a positive attitude

but I am scared to death.

On this tour, there are places we've never been before.

One of them's Uruguay. We've never played there.

It's near Argentina but we've never played in Montevideo.

The thing is about when you're on tour,

if you're open-minded and you wanna go out of the hotel

and you force yourself a little bit to be free and easy,

you come across these really fun things.

About two in the morning we drove out of town

and we met this family of drummers.

It was a really interesting side trip for me. Very unexpected.

Travelling can make you very creative.

It's just having that down-time.

You never quite know what's gonna turn up

but things happen.

I had this one stoned night in '68.

Mick and I and probably Marianne and he said,

"Let's go to South America."

Keith and I had never been on a boat before

so we took the boat from Lisbon to Rio,

and arriving in Rio in the dawn,

seeing this beautiful, majestic harbour

and the giant Christ and the Sugarloaf Mountain and so on.

By the time we got to Brazil, it was a breath of fresh air

because nobody gave a damn who you were.

We weren't that well known at that time in South America.

So we could roam about fairly freely.

That whole trip in Brazil was super vivid.

I can remember absolutely everything about it.

And Keith had this beginning to this 'Honky Tonk Women' song.

We went off to this ranch which is a long way out of São Paulo.

- Don't think the city. - It was the middle of nowhere.

It was totally. But it was a big coffee plantation.

And they very kindly lent us this ranch

and we stayed there for... I don't know,

it seemed like quite a while.

The other thing I remember about that ranch house was...

the screams when Marianne and Anita used the toilet.

And those black blind frogs had come flushing in!

Yes!

And I also caught the cook and the handyman

in the kitchen going like...

- Cos it must happen every time. - Yeah, of course.

Every time some visitor comes, they'd go, "Oh, my God."

Half a dozen frogs would come out when you flushed.

What do you do on a ranch and it's late,

evening is coming up and...

- you've got a couple of guitars? - No TV.

And sitting around and suddenly...

Hank Williams came to mind.

I mean, maybe that's retrospect or not

but I don't think so.

I think we were just kicking around old country songs.

I remember we were by the river once.

There was a beautiful river and I remember sitting by the river.

That was the first time I remember it coming together.

And I started to get into that one pump.

And then Mick came up with 'the bitch' and 'Jackson'

- and we were off. - Off.

And let's not forget the Honky Tonk Woman herself.

- Oh, yeah. - That Cathy James.

- Yeah, that's right. - Cathy.

Who was a great friend of the whole band.

Yes. And her friend Candy.

Yeah. Well, Candy, I never got there.

That's how it grows.

- Something like that. - That's the way it went.

You always have this chemistry with certain people

and I definitely have it with Keith.

I enjoy being in the studio with him

and on stage we also have special moments together.

There is no rational thing about human chemistry,

especially two blokes coming straight out of Dartford.

Mick and I are quite famous

for having our squabbles and everything.

We can irritate each other immensely

cos we're quite different.

But at the same time we also know that we were given

this amazing gift between us.

Yeah!

São Paulo is famous for street art of every kind.

It's been sort of encouraged a bit.

I find it to be inspiring

to go to the different areas in South America, artistically.

It's always a pleasant thing for me

to meet up with the artist friends.

I'm looking forward to reuniting with Ivald Granato.

He doesn't speak any English. He just goes, "I love you",

and I go "I love you", and then we paint.

That's how we communicate.

- Ah-ha! My friend. I love you! - Hello. I love you.

The entire neighbourhood has been taken over

by this art movement.

This has become a centre for young people

who work with graffiti.

Come in to my studio. My house.

Yeah. I haven't been for years. This time I will stay sober.

All right.

It's in your blood. Oh?

Very... You are always very colourful.

- Very colourful. - Colour and boom.

Yes.

Yeah, it's very expressive art.

Very good. Very good indeed.

Ah-ah-ah!

When I was young, my brothers were artists and musicians.

They were eight and ten years older than me

so if they painted, I would paint.

And if they played,

I would pick up the nearest instrument and play that.

The way I approach my music and art

is with the same element of risk.

I love that. You watch things take shape

or you listen to things take shape.

It's a great release.

Travelling to new places, meeting new people

is a real source of inspiration.

It's the element of the unknown always coming up.

I've never been one to sit still in one place.

I come from the canals of England and these water gypsies

that haul timber and my family, for generations,

has always been on the move.

My earliest memories, three or four years old,

I was always drawing.

I was born with it.

I was born with a pencil and a pick in my hand.

I make paintings to keep sane.

My musical and artistic side work together.

They bounce off each other.

I have the wonderful group effort

where I can be part of a unit

but I have this wonderful private expression

where I'm the boss.

I never saw any other life.

I had to make it work the way it is.

No other life.

Shut up, I'm working!

This is home. Wherever I am in the world,

it's the one place that doesn't change.

The stick is a very superstitious thing.

If it's about to rain or if it's where you're playing outdoors,

and then it's, "Keith, it's raining."

And if I don't go out, outside,

and do a few mysterious movements,

it would disappoint the whole crew.

From like the lighting people,

the stage people, the sound people,

because they rely upon this stick to stop the rain.

And the weird thing is that it works.

Yeah, come on.

First time I heard 'Sympathy For The Devil'

I was in a house I lived in in Sussex.

And Mick came for dinner and he sang it on the front doorstep.

That started off as a very sort of Dylan-esque ballad.

Mick or I sort of realised that this is an interesting song

but not in this style.

And so you start to search around for other ways.

Because we had already been to Brazil

we were very samba orientated.

When we wanted to up the groove a bit,

instead of making it into a rock song, we made it into a samba.

My name is Osvaldinho da Cuica.

I am a sambista.

Samba is the soundtrack of our country.

Samba was born from the oppressed.

It was born from the needy, from the favelas, the slums.

It is the voice of the people.

Samba came from a feeling of rebellion.

It came from a society that fought for its own space

for a better way of life.

Samba shows the good and the bad.

It talks about God and the devil.

When The Rolling Stones' music speaks about the devil,

it speaks about reality.

That's part of the universe.

We're all just kind of in a state of shock.

President Obama's just announced

that he will visit Cuba on March 21st.

It's actually pretty terrible news

because it's roughly 12 hours after

when our concert would take place.

Everything that we had planned will need to be revisited.

We just finally started having a picture of what it looked like

and now I have no idea what this looks like.

They don't feel like they can do The Rolling Stones

and then bring in Obama like the next day.

It's just too big of a jolt to their system.

They are now formally requesting

could we reschedule it five days later, i.e. the 25th?

How long is it since an American president visited Cuba?

Oh, we're talking sort of 80 years or something.

80 years. So he wants to go on the day we've scheduled to go!

I mean, you've gotta laugh. You'd cry, but...

OK. Listen, listen. I'll talk to everyone else.

I'll look at the dates, the holding point in Miami,

you go and see if you can find the money

and then we'll reconvene.

Reconvene. OK.

- All right, Mick. - Thanks so much.

All right. Speak to you later. Bye.

You've gotta be ready in life

for unpredictable things to happen.

You have to be ready for anything.

Porto Alegre in Brazil was a fantastic feeling

of just being out among the elements.

Well, the rain stick is not infallible.

You're out there with them

and you're all being pissed on at the same time.

And, there's another special bond created with the audience.

Lima is enormous now compared to when,

when I was here in 1968.

It's like every other city in the world.

Up they go, up they go, like tombstones.

Fascinating to see again.

I can't wait for this show cos it's never been on our list.

This is our first time to play here professionally.

Or even amateurly, when I think about it.

The next steps on this tour are stepping

through the known, into the unknown.

Today we are doing a 'Parapa'.

It's an offering to the 'Apos Guamanes',

the Gods of the Andean world.

This place, Cerro San Cristobal, is the highest peak in Lima

and this way our offering can easily reach the Gods.

The scissor dance began as an act of resistance

against the Spanish

who came to impose their own culture.

What the dancers did is to resist their culture

in order not to surrender to Catholicism.

If I don't dance, then I can't be at peace.

The art of the dance is in my heart.

GLORY TO GOD

I think when you go to a place, if you're a musician,

it's great to see something of the local culture.

Often we'd just have

on the spur of the moment entertainment.

And to have that little family backstage was a delight.

Great drumming.

There was this vibrancy of those dancers.

I felt compelled to join in myself.

I think one of the great gifts for a long life

is that you're always learning and always discovering.

Now we can't find them.

- We can't find them? - We can't find them.

When I'm in South America,

I just feel like they wanna hear a bit of something.

I don't really speak Spanish but I can kind of get by.

Even better...

So I just try to do research on each town.

There's usually some really good food things.

Like Peru, people like to eat hamsters.

So, it's all good material.

The food here is great.

The best in South America.

My daughter brought her guinea pig.

And now we can't find it!

Thank you!

I suppose show-business, I'm a bit outside it.

I've never really sort of believed it.

It's a lot of bullshit, a lot of it.

When I was 13, I had a newspaper and a pair of brushes.

I had a banjo.

Took the neck off and played the banjo.

Then my dad bought me a drum kit from a bloke in the pub.

And that was it.

The biggest thing you can do as a drummer, really,

is to have a room dance. Cos that's what it's about.

You can't play the drums in the living room at home.

It's not like a piano or a guitar.

It's an accompanying thing.

So you have to go on the road.

I'm not playing for me, particularly.

It's not about me.

It's the thing that gives me most pleasure.

Just keeping it together, really.

I'm just doing the best I can... for them to play the song.

You never announce the show

until you are cast-iron sure that it's definitely on.

So there's an exhalation of relief when it was announced.

Well, we finally got a booked date

and a signed contract to go to Havana on the 25th.

It's been so much organisation

and to and fro that it's quite a relief, actually, yeah.

- Looking forward... - For you!

Can I just say it's very difficult for Ron

- to keep a secret about a gig. - Exactly, that's why!

So I proved really good on this, haven't I?

Yeah, yeah.

A big, tricky thing now is to get the hotels done.

We were looking at using a boat for a hotel and living on

and quarters but now it's become

too expensive and too much to deal with.

When will I know if this show's happening?

Probably not until we get off the plane in Havana.

We're just being prepared for anything and everything, really.

It's all you can do.

Mexico, obviously being right on the border with the USA,

I think that the Mexican people feel very closely

musically involved with rock 'n' roll.

It's where there isn't a border between Mexicans and Americans.

And once again, it's music that can cross the bridge.

I'm Javier Batiz.

I was the leader of the Mexican counterculture.

Carlos Santana was one of the people I taught to play.

When I arrived in Mexico City in the 60s,

people were very conservative.

Alcohol was not sold in any form, no beer or anything.

They wouldn't sell anything.

Mexico City in the 60s became a city of Rock and Roll.

It was something very new for the rulers.

Then the city government began to get scared.

They did not understand it was a new world, a new music.

This is cool.

Couple of guys I recognise.

Alex.

- Oh, maestro! - How are you?

- Nice to see you. - Armando, this is my son Ty.

- Hello. Nice to meet you. - Nice to meet you.

- Yes! - Ah! Ha-ha!

We played together in 2006, didn't we?

- When The Stones came here. - Yeah, ten years ago.

Armando put the festival on, right, in 1971?

Yeah. Because we love rock 'n' roll

and Mexican bands want to have a festival

similar to the Woodstock festival.

This is the crowd at Avándaro Festival.

The most important festival in Mexico in rock 'n' roll history.

They were expecting 10,000 people.

But 500,000 arrived.

They were very difficult years for young people.

If they saw you with long hair and certain clothes,

they would arrest you and you could spend time in jail.

We protested with music.

Our instruments were our weapons to tell the youth

that the government was bad.

Towards the end of '71,

when the Avándaro Festival happened,

the government got scared to see so many people gathered there

and wanted to eradicate Rock and Roll

from our country forever.

They banned rock music

after the Avándaro Festival until 1985.

It was a punch in the gut for all Mexicans.

How can you stop Rock and Roll? You can't.

Stopping Rock and Roll is like stopping life.

During the repression we never thought that

we could one day have the chance

to see them here in our country.

The presence of the 'Rollings' for us is magical.

It's like a dream come true.

Having The Rolling Stones here in Mexico

has created euphoria.

The Rolling Stones were part of the revolution

that took place here in Mexico,

in the freedom of expression.

The guitar is very important in Mexico.

Here when a baby is born, they send mariachis...

out of joy.

When you die, the farewell is with mariachi music too,

with guitar.

We're born with music. We die with music.

Mexico is a big guitar country.

If there's an instrument in the house, it'll be a guitar.

As a kid, it was the instrument that just caught my eye.

I don't know if it was talking to me or I was talking to it.

Anyway, we got together like that.

I felt I'd been given a very complicated puzzle to solve.

And if I could just figure a little bit more out every time,

then there was another bit of the puzzle solved.

I'm still doing it, it still mystifies me, the damn thing.

Not many people get a chance to do this

with thousands of people as a job.

Olé Olé Olé, Richards.

Olé Olé Olé...

When you're exchanging that much appreciation

to each other, it's profoundly touching.

Olé Olé Olé, Richards.

Olé Olé Olé, Richards.

It's not something you can ever get used to.

It always touches you when it happens.

I don't think anybody could remain impervious to that.

You realise that you've gone to heaven.

Thank you.

I was feeling pretty good.

The Cubans were doing everything they promised.

'Opie' has production covered, so I'm starting to think,

"Maybe we've got this. Maybe it's gonna work."

And then out of the blue,

the Pope decides to pick a fight with The Rolling Stones.

Woke up with some frantic calls

from my counterparts in the government here.

There is now concern about the concert

taking place on March 25th because it's Good Friday.

And this is of course after we had to reschedule

the original date of March 20th because of the Obama visit.

And I just, about lost it at that point.

It's just ridiculous. It truly is ridiculous.

The Pope's got his own agenda.

For him to object what day we gonna play,

it's a bit cheeky as far as I'm concerned.

He's not my manager.

And we went, "No. We're not moving."

Joyce wrote this very strong, impassioned letter

to the Cuban government saying why we're not moving

and shouldn't have to move. And they bought it.

So, we're back on.

This is a new day.

This is a new day.

Even as Cubans prepare for the arrival of The Rolling Stones,

we're moving ahead with more events and exchanges

that bring Cubans and Americans together as well.

The other day the President of the United States came to Cuba.

Countries have to exchange things with each other

in musical terms but political too.

Music has no borders.

If Cuba has no music, it has no life.

My name is Franco Pablanco.

I've been a mechanic for 23 years.

My passion is fixing old cars.

I spend all my time here,

with American cars.

The embargo affects us in all ways.

Parts don't come in, nothing comes in.

They don't exist, so we have to do things ourselves.

And it gets done. By hand.

Fixing them, passing them down to our children, cousins.

Changes are happening.

Because for 80 years the President of the United States

has not come to Cuba.

And he came.

The future is out there.

I have been doing this job for many years.

I like it because people come to me with a broken instrument

and I am able to save it for them.

If there weren't people taking care of these things,

there wouldn't be any instruments,

there would be no music.

I have lived all my life with the embargo.

There started to be a shortage of everything

and things stopped coming into our country.

The musicians themselves had nowhere

to buy their instruments.

You have to keep improvising.

There are no strings.

You can walk around the stores in Havana

and you won't find any.

There are even people who make the strings.

But for the metal parts they use wire coil

taken from burned out engines.

I think that a new Cuba is being born

and I am convinced we will move forward

and new generations will be able to enjoy something much better.

Everything you see, we brought.

The stage, the towers, the video.

We brought a lot of heavy equipment and a lot of crew,

just so the technical side could all work and we could work

with everybody locally to make it right.

There has absolutely come a moment

when now it's one group and it's not two groups.

And the Cubans are helping us with anything that they can

and our team have learnt their sensibilities,

what's important to them, what's not.

As is already well known,

on this Friday, March 25th, at 8:30pm,

the concert of the famous British band

The Rolling Stones will be held

in the vicinity of Havana Sports Complex

We're on the plane to Havana

and we're gonna land in about 15 minutes.

It's very gratifying cos lots of people

have worked very hard to make it happen.

We've trolled this world continuously for 50 odd years

and to break into somewhere new

is an exciting chapter for us all.

It's a pleasure to be in Cuba for the very first time.

Time changes everything and we're very pleased to be here.

I'm sure it's gonna be a great show.

Tomorrow, I think it is. God, is it really tomorrow?

Yeah.

We're full of anticipation and excitement.

It's gonna be a real adventure of discovery.

The Rolling Stones, when I was young,

if you listened to that music you would be arrested.

And if you had it recorded, they came,

took everything from you and you were taken to prison.

At least we will have the freedom to listen to them now.

This is something many generations including mine

had stolen by this government. They stole our youth.

So today you can imagine, after all these years,

being able to experience this myself is something really big

to every Cuban who loves rock.

When I first heard a record by The Rolling Stones in 1965,

that was truly underground music in Cuba.

I personally went to jail for listening to a song in a park.

To be able to go up to the police and say

'Look, today I've been able to listen to this music freely'.

After 50 years this is like an overdose of freedom.

Obama and The Rolling Stones all in one week!

The chains are broken, censorship has fallen,

everything went down.

Viva Cuba!

Rock and Roll, Cuba is free because of us!

Viva Los Rollings!

To have opportunities to play in new countries,

and in the Cuba case, to play in a country

where there's never been a rock concert,

it's great to push those boundaries for us.

When you play a place that you've never played before,

you never know how it's gonna work

and you don't know how the crowd's gonna behave.

People never believed that this could happen.

For the Cuban people, this represents hope.

This represents new ideas, fresh ideas.

And you can't help but feel that and be part of it

and it's amazing.

Did you see those kids running in?

It was so exciting.

Everyone is so pumped for this. It's a historic event.

I think this is a bit surreal

standing here, looking at this sight.

Because in a way, you can't believe we finally got here.

And I do feel very emotional. I do.

Oh, don't have me crying on camera. That's awful.

Olé Olé Olé...

Olé Olé Olé...

I had a good look at the crowd.

- You have? - Yeah.

- Is it good? - Pretty good.

It's very 'festively', as you'd expect.

Who knows what it's like?

Where we're going?

- Hey, 'Opie'. - Hey, 'Opie'.

Thanks for everything, mate.

Fantastic job. Thank you so much.

Here we go.

- Congratulations. - We haven't done it yet.

- See you back in England. - Yeah. See you next week.

They're gonna see something they've never seen before.

And they're gonna hear something they've never heard before.

That's the name of the game.

Ladies and gentlemen

The Rolling Stones!

Yeah!

Come on.

For some people that have lived through the bans

and everything, it's a very emotional moment.

I talked to a lot of the older people that were going

and they were quite emotional about this.

Much more than I thought they were gonna be.

I mean, I'm always like,

"Yeah, it's just The Rolling Stones playing Cuba, so what?"

But I realised to them it's something

that they never, ever thought was gonna happen.

Thank you!

We know that years ago

it was difficult to listen to our music in Cuba.

I think that things are finally changing.

Are you ready?

Come on, Keith.

Come on.

Hey!

Thank you very much, everybody!

Thank you so much, Cuba!

I think it's a very poignant thing,

that after you've been on the road for like 50 plus years

that you can still get together and have a goal and achieve it.

There is something there that sticks us together.

It's nothing you ever catch us talking about.

I feel that I'm incredibly blessed, really.

It's a sort of camaraderie, isn't it?

You don't even say anything and you know what Ronnie means.

You know what Keith's laughing at.

Or Mick, who won't even say anything.

It's as deep as that, I suppose.

When the tour's finished,

we all go our separate ways

but there's a magic that we all share.

We have these amazing detailed memories of things

that have happened in the past, that we've experienced together.

They're so precious.

That is the glue, the wobbly stuff that keeps us together.