The Stones rock China

SHANGHAI, April 8 — After nearly 30 years of trying, the world's most famous rock band finally made it to the world's largest country, as the Rolling Stones brought their show to a small stage in China's biggest city.

The concert on Saturday, a late addition to the band's Biggest Bang world tour, was the product of lengthy negotiations and numerous compromises: from the venue, a diminutive 8,000-seat indoor arena, to the songs allowed by Chinese censors.

The five songs that were reportedly banned were "Brown Sugar," "Beast of Burden," "Let's Spend the Night Together," "Honky Tonk Women" and "Rough Justice," a song from the Stones' new album. The first four were also left off the Chinese version of the band's greatest hits album when it was released here in 2003.

The sold-out performance on Saturday brought together cosmopolitan Shanghai at its richest, in more senses than one. With the cheapest seats going for about $40 — and most priced at 5 to 10 times more, well above monthly salaries for most people here —the cost ensured that well-heeled foreigners dominated the crowd.

Many people were displeased with the ticket prices, and the effect on the audience mix, nonetheless.

"It's actually tragic if you think about it: a foreign performance borrowing Chinese land, but Chinese people cannot come because of price or other issues," said Chu Meng, 23, who attended the concert. "It is ironic, I should say. I saw some foreigners cover themselves with the Chinese flag, and I don't feel comfortable about it."

Even if the Stones can't always sing what they want, they still bring high energy to the stage. This show was no exception, and they launched into it with brio, with the choice of songs like "Bitch," played early in the act, seemingly to make the point that censorship was pointless.

Truth be told, the group may have arrived here both far too soon and far too late. The Chinese government protects few things so zealously as culture, with one result being that few here knew anything about the group. And for many of those who are more familiar, an increasingly hard-to-impress niche of the population that is savvy in an up-to-the-minute way about Western culture in all its variety, the Rolling Stones are old hat.

"I've never listened to their songs," said Shen Yichen, a 16-year-old girl who was accompanied by her parents. "Maybe listening like this for the first time is more authentic."

Before the show, her father, equally unfamiliar with the music, downloaded a song. "I don't know what song it was," said the father, Shen Shiji, 46. "Maybe it was a song paying tribute to Dylan.

"I don't know if it's their lyrics that make people like them," he added, "but listening to the melody, it wasn't so beautiful."

A popular blogger here, Wang Xiaofeng, is typical of the group for whom the Stones are a relic of another era. "For most Chinese rock 'n' roll fans, the Rolling Stones are not even as attractive as a domestic pop singer, or the Super Girl contestants," he said, referring to a television show that resembled American Idol. "In the eyes of fans, the Rolling Stones have more meaning as a rock 'n' roll symbol than as a kind of music. They are as unfamiliar as they are familiar."

Source: NY Times