Rolling Stones To Play Free Concert In Cuba
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- The Rolling Stones say they will play a free concert in Havana on March 25, becoming the biggest act to play Cuba since its 1959 revolution.
The Stones will play in Havana's Ciudad Deportiva three days after President Barack Obama visits Havana.
The Rolling Stones announce free concert in Cuba! #StonesCuba https://t.co/Xdl4DW9lnH pic.twitter.com/olRCAc2XbX
— The Rolling Stones (@RollingStones) March 1, 2016
The concert is expected to draw a massive audience in a country where the government once persecuted young people for listening to rock music, then seen as a tool of Western capitalism. Along with dropping that policy, the Cuban government has increasingly allowed large non-official gatherings.
The band says in a statement that "we have performed in many special places during our long career but this show in Havana is going to be a landmark event for us, and, we hope, for all our friends in Cuba too.''
Obama will be joined by First Lady Michelle Obama on the trip on March 21 and 22.
Obama will become the first sitting U.S. president to set foot on the island in more than seven decades. In a series of tweets last month, Obama cast the trip as part of steady progression of normalizing relations between the U.S. and Cuba, a communist nation estranged from the U.S. for over half a century until Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro moved toward rapprochement more than a year ago. Since then, the nations have reopened embassies in Washington and Havana, eased travel restrictions and barriers for business and have moved to restore commercial air travel.
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