The Rolling Stones: Olé Olé Olé! – A Trip Across Latin America

This is the last day of our rehearsal.

We've been rehearsing for two weeks in this space.

Working what numbers we're gonna do...

There's always a bit of rust to rub off.

Rehearsal's a big word for bonding.

When you sit and play the first song,

it's the same feeling as it was when I first joined.

We haven't seen each other for a while and it's fresh,

like reuniting and lots of it comes magically flooding back.

Kind of feeling when you rehearse the last couple of days...

all it really needs is an audience.

-Yeah. -You know.

So this tour we're gonna visit nine Latin American cities

and hopefully the tenth, that we haven't yet visited,

is gonna be Havana, Cuba.

To try and put on a big show there is really hard,

but we're gonna try our best to do it.

To see the world from a Rolling Stone point of view.

Nobody else sees the world the way we do.

It's the explorer in us, I think.

The Christopher Columbus in all of us

that wants to see what's round the corner

and is it round or is it flat?

Stand by. Stand by, everybody.

At the start of the tour it's like being

on a tightrope that, once you've set foot on it,

that rope widens and becomes a bridge that you can run across.

House lights go, please. House lights go.

Ladies and gentlemen, The Rolling Stones!

Present arms!

A lot of the Latin American countries

in the '60s and '70s were under military dictatorships.

They had censorship of songs

and basically styles of music they didn't like.

The Rolling Stones, being part of this '60s kind of rebellious movement,

this idea of freedom of expression and sexuality

was an anathema to a lot of these regimes.

In several countries, rock 'n' roll was banned.

The minute you ban something,

you're gonna create a movement around it.

You know, anything that smacks of rebellion,

they sort of take to heart.

Thank you!

When Obama started to free up relations,

it seemed an obvious thing on a tour of Latin America to do Cuba,

so we started to investigate it.

But the idea of doing it and the actual organising it

is somewhat two different things.

Cuba. Cuba, Cuba, Cuba.

Every single day. It's all about Cuba.

I wake up in the middle of the night and go,

"Oh. I fucking forgot." You know, "Oh, shit!"

People have done theatres, people have done small things.

But to put The Rolling Stones there and do a free show,

nothing has happened like this in Cuba before. Ever.

Ever.

Let me just preface Adam. He's gonna lead this project.

He has considerable experience in dealing with communist governments.

He opened China for us and now he's gonna open Cuba for us.

This is a place where they don't function and operate the way we do,

so e-mail and phone calls and that kind of stuff.

It's just not the same.

This has gone up to the very top of the food chain. Raúl Castro.

They look at this as almost a piece of government policy.

That this event will be something that can symbolise,

in a very positive way, that the country is opening up.

Adam, I know they're saying all the right things

and they want it to happen, but in a way that's irrelevant.

We know. We want it to happen too.

We are going to have to, within a very short space of time,

take a view as to whether the show is feasible.

In terms of next steps, we're on a very tight timeline.

That's probably our biggest constraint which we're aware of.

So decisions are gonna have to be made imminently.

We can't talk about this, even to our own staff yet.

When it's time to announce it to everybody else, we'll do that.

Otherwise the rumours and everything will crush us.

Every day that we lose on this, makes it harder.

Argentina is the first South American country

The Stones played and this is where

we really sort of got in contact with this continent.

During the military dictatorship

and then the Falklands War and so on, we couldn't play there.

In our absence, a kind of cult, a kind of fashion emerged,

called the "Rolingas", dedicated to The Stones.

The Stones are a religion here.

They're so much more than just a band.

It's like an urban tribe.

Rolinga culture is uniquely Argentinian.

I can't really explain it, it flows, runs through your veins.

This is our way of life, it won't go out of fashion.

His name is Jagger.

He is called Jagger after his majesty.

The person who taught us how to be.

When I was 11, I used to look at the tongue logos on walls.

I used to ask, "What is this? What is this?"

And when they showed what it was,

that was the best thing that ever happened to me.

I feel proud of what I am

and the fact that people look at me and say,

"Oh look, there goes the Rolinga."

I love it, I love it!

- I love it! -I love it!

The first time we came, it was unbelievable.

It was like a large version of the '60s. It was mad.

And it's been like that ever since.

We are at the Four Seasons Hotel.

We are going to see the best band in the world, The Rolling Stones.

We're here because everyone says they always stay here.

Let's hope they come out, that's why we're all here.

I've been here almost three days. Incredible. I slept here yesterday.

Charlie Watts is in the last window, in that balcony.

And we've been told that Keith Richards is in this one, this window.

Gentlemen, come on in.

I was hoping it was room service.

Our humble abode.

To me, if I'm in Argentina, this is home.

The temporary home, which is not too shabby, really.

Come on.

Ah, had a restless night.

I think these are the windows to see.

Let's see what we can do.

Richards!

The wake-up call is, "Richards, Richards, Olé, Olé, Olé."

And you're like, "Oh, well. Time to get up, I guess."

For some reason, they've always just been great supporters of ours.

Time to eat!

We are at the '40 x 5 Tribute' bar.