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Monday, 30.07.2007
The Stones rolled over Palace Square
St. Petersburg. Satisfaction for 40,000 – that was the result of the concert event of 2007: The Rolling Stones played Palace Square. And the pension-age rockers pumped out the decibels.
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“Dobry vecher Piter!“ – Mick Jagger had even learnt a sentence in Russian to converse with his audience. But they would have understood the language of the Stones’ music even without this linguistic feat. The fans came from far and wide. Whole trains arrived from Moscow, and top politicians flew in: Among the crowd was first deputy prime minister and Putin’s crown prince Sergei Ivanov.
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Mick Jagger proved his eternal youth
The Stones only played one song from their latest album “Rough Justice”, despite the tour formally being dedicated to it. The rest of the time they played huge hits and monster hits. The crowd started grooving and the old men on the stage followed suit. For all his 64 years – his birthday fell the following day - , Jagger whirled like a dervish across the stage and even got the technicians to shake their thing.
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The crowd, dampened by rain just before the concert, soon warmed up and Mother Nature apologised with a magnificent rainbow arching over the General Staff Headquarters.
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Even the Hermitage accepted the cultural institution called the Rolling Stones
The neighbouring Hermitage survived the show without lasting damage. Russia’s treasure trove number 1 is in principle against any loud mass events taking place on Palace Square. But the Stones’ management succeeded in overcoming all resistance for this their first performance in Russia.
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State Secretary for Culture Michail Schvidkoi watched the show open-mouthed, according to the newspaper Vedomosti: “He seemed either to be concerned about the fate of the Hermitage, or simply struggling to understand how this huge grasshopper in a black T-shirt could be his senior by five years“.
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All of Palace Square was a stage
Then things moved up another gear: Jagger showed off his prowess on the mouth organ, Keith Richards played two solos, there was a pause to remember the recently deceased king of soul James Brown – and then the Stones took off: A platform took them out over the heads of the crowd almost to the middle of the square - where they launched into “It’s only rock’n’roll” and then, with 40,000 backing vocalists, the monster hit ‘Satisfaction’.
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The fulminant concert ended with Jagger sprinting over the platform extension arm right up to the hindmost sections of the square, and then with a huge firework display exploding in the sky.
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The Stones later marked a second climax to their stay in Petersburg. Jagger had invited the band members’ families and 150 guests to celebrate his 64th birthday with him.
Jagger’s VIP birthday party in retro style
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Jagger celebrated his birthday in a palace in the retro style of the “Silver Age“ around 1910 – the last time that cultural life in St. Petersburg attained the spirited extravagance the Stones had demonstrated the previous day on Palace Sqaure.
(ld/rufo/St.Petersburg)
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