Stones ready to rock India

Enthusiastic Indian rock fans bought the last few tickets available today for the Rolling Stones concert tonight in Bombay.

The city’s Brabourne Stadium holds 25,000 people and it was sold out for the British rockers’ second Indian concert.

The band’s first concert in the country was held on Friday in Bangalore.

“I am picking up tickets for friends from Delhi who have finally said they can make it,” said Piyush Prasanna, 38, a senior advertising manager, at a Bombay music shop today.

“I bought my tickets much in advance,” Prasanna said, adding that the concert was a “trip down memory lane” for his former college friends.

The Rolling Stones, with their 150-strong entourage, cancelled what would have been their first Chinese concerts because of a deadly flu-like disease that has infected at least 2,400 people worldwide and killed more than 90 people, mostly in Asia.

Travel warnings from the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and the UN’s World Health Organisation about severe acute respiratory syndrome or Sars prompted the band to cancel performances in Shanghai and Beijing scheduled before the India tour.

No cases of the disease have been reported in India.

The band’s next performance is on April 10 in Bangkok, Thailand.