Rolling Stones gear up for China gig

The Rolling Stones are gearing up for their first-ever gig in mainland China on Saturday night (April 8th). The band wraps up their series of Japanese shows tonight in Nagoya and "The Glimmer Twins" -- Mick Jagger and Keith Richards -- spoke to the shanghaiist.com and explained that they're pretty pumped to finally play China, some 30 years after they first expressed an interest in doing so.

The singer said that, "I'm really excited. We all know that Shanghai is a big important city so we wanted to make sure it's on our itinerary. We don't want to leave it out. Although China as an economic force has been around -- well forever really -- (but) as a place for us to play, it's not really been on the map for that long."

Richards added that, "China will be a bit of an adventure for us, we've never been there before, it's a first and by now we don't get many firsts (anymore). We're very grateful for being allowed in."

He went on to joke that, "I want to buy some of my own bootlegs. I just want to get a whiff of it and look around and see what's happening, it's all brand new to me."

Jagger told us that on any tour, about a third of their set has to be devoted to their legendary hits: "I figure there's about 10 songs that if you don't play them, people are gonna say, 'I wish they'd a played...'. So, you know, they're paying, you know, good money to come and see you, and I don't see why you should disappoint them, just being difficult, 'I don't wanna play "Brown Sugar."' I mean, because they probably wanna hear it. I quite enjoy playing 'Brown Sugar,' but sometimes you don't want to. But anyway, there's about 10 of those."

After this weekend's stop in Asia, the classic rock legends will head down under for a brief four-date tour. After that, they'll embark on a 34-date European tour that wraps up next August.
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