Rolling Stones' fans in Spain can't get no satisfaction

By Hubert Kahl Aug 18, 2006, 4:00 GMT

Madrid - The Rolling Stones have angered their Spanish fans by cancelling four concerts in Spain this summer. Tens of thousands of fans travelled hundreds of kilometres to see the famous British rock band - but then only saw stages being dismantled.

'I love the Stones, but I get the impression they're making fun of us,' said a young fan from the Basque country.

Mick Jagger and Co. had originally planned to open their 'A Bigger Bang' European tour in May in Barcelona and Madrid. But gigs there were dropped after guitarist Keith Richards suffered head injuries in a fall from a coconut tree while on holiday in the Fiji Islands.

The band cancelled two more Spanish concerts scheduled this week after singer Mick Jagger came down with laryngitis. The first, in Valladolid, northwest of Madrid, was called off just hours before it was to start.

Organisers then said the concert in the southeastern city of El Ejido would go ahead as planned with '100 per cent certainty.' They cancelled it less than 24 hours later.

Spanish newspapers have taken the band to task. 'The Stones are sticking their tongues out at Spain,' read a headline in El Periodico.

El Mundo said the foursome, led by the 63-year-old Jagger, 'ought to retire from the stage before their long-suffering fans are sick of them.' La Voz de Galicia accused the musicians of greed, saying they had taken on more tour than they could handle.

Some Spaniards doubted that Jagger was really ailing. The El Pais newspaper called his laryngitis 'a pretext.'

A fan who travelled to El Ejido for nought remarked: 'The musicians only want to conserve energy so that they're in top form for concerts scheduled in their British homeland.'

But concert organisers defended the group.

'Even a Mick Jagger has the right to take ill,' countered Jose Maria Rialt of Music Frog, the company that organised the concerts.

But illness seems to hit the Stones' frontman particularly often in Spain. Over the past eight years, the band has cancelled eight concerts there, usually because Jagger had throat problems.

Disappointment in El Ejido - population: 80,000 - was especially high. The mayor, Juan Enciso, had invested 3.6 million euros to get the band to come to what is known as 'Europe's tomato and pepper capital.'

He aimed to improve the image of the city, which gained worldwide notoriety six years ago with racially-motivated attacks on immigrants.