When it was announced that The Rolling Stones are going to be playing the Principality stadium this summer, no doubt many young music fans greeted the news with an uninterested shrug and an exaggerated yawn if they could work up enough enthusiasm.
But it’ll be a sell-out and Cardiff’s hotels, bars and restaurants will benefit.
Can you imagine the length of the queues outside the Caroline Street chippies when 74,500 hungry people leave at the end of the concert? “I think we’ll need another bag of King Edwards from the cellar, luv!”
Taking into account the average age of the Stones and their fans, the concert will probably end around eight-thirty. Just kidding!
Although Keith Richard’s features are now so craggy and lived-in he actually looks like his passport photo, the fact that the Stones are still going strong and in demand after half a century is astonishing.
When the Stones began in 1962, there were no CDs, mobile phones, iphones, X-Boxes, home computers or downloads.
On Sundays, cinemas didn’t open until four-thirty and, although admission only cost seventeen new pence, as there were no videos or DVDs, you had to wait at least seven years if you wanted to see a particular film again!
In 1962 the UK had just two TV channels – BBC and ITV – which broadcast in black and white and closed down around 11.30pm.
People were expected to go to bed early and be ready for work next day.
No wonder teenagers like ‘Mick’n’Keef’ rebelled, grew their hair and formed R & B groups.
Fifty years later, the Stones are still rolling and when they come to Wales in June, ‘This could be the last time’ fans will get to see if Mick really does ‘Move like Jagger’.
Unfortunately, I won’t be at the concert as I’m having a new shed delivered that day and I’ll be painting it black.
