Post by Taxigirl on Nov 4, 2003 9:54:56 GMT
The Rolling Stones will play two Hong Kong concerts this weekend, after cancelling a show during the recent Sars outbreak.
The concerts are part of a festival promoting the city after the epidemic that killed hundreds earlier this year.
Mick Jagger told reporters the band had intended playing the original show in March, but were forced to drop it.
"We had to cancel our shows because we couldn't get insurance to come in," Jagger said at a press conference.
The band also had to cancel shows in mainland China and in Thailand in April because of the epidemic. Their new shows are on Friday and Sunday.
The Sars outbreak, a respiratory ailment thought to have come from rural China, caused a tourism slump across Asia.
Guitarist Ron Wood said he was particularly disappointed the band had not been able to play their Beijing and Shanghai shows yet, although they said they intended to play there in the future.
"I want to go to Beijing. I want to see what the mainland is like," Wood said.
Guitarist Keith Richards said he was not nervous about playing the show.
"You've got to be able to throw a fairly curved ball at me to be surprised," he said.
China setbacks
The band have been on the road for more than a year as part of their Forty Licks world tour to mark their 40th anniversary.
The Stones have been unsuccessfully applying for permission to play in China since the 1970s.
When the Rolling Stones rose to fame in the 1960s, China was on the verge of the radical Cultural Revolution, which reviled Western pop culture as spiritual pollution.
The band's music only became available in China after economic and social reforms began in the late 1970s.
When the April dates were being planned, a tour organiser said the government ordered the band to drop four of their best-known songs from their set.
The band were told they could not play Brown Sugar, Honky Tonk Woman, Beast of Burden and Let's Spend the Night Together.