Rolling Stones to relocate Concert to spare Horses

Rolling Stones tell the organizers to move their concert to a different venue instead and don't want to disturb or sedate the 300 horses.

Reuters reported earlier about the Rolling Stones Concert in Belgrade and was planning to sedate 300 horses in the farm to keep them calm during the concert. Rolling Stones however want to protect these horses and don’t want to disturb them, so they have requested the organizers to move the concert to a different venue.

The original Stones concert was to be held at the Serbian capital’s Hippodrome racetrack, but the animal protection society ORCA complained that the noise might be harmful to the 300 horses kept in the nearby stables.

This complaint was muted at that time but then the local people were planning to sedate the horses, then it became a huge controversy there. Thanks to Rolling Stones permission, the organizers, Music Star Production told Reuters that the concert will not be held in Hippodrome. Raka Maric, the manager of Music Star Production said they and Rolling Stones don’t want to create controversy, and blamed ORCA for making it a big issue.

"The Rolling Stones' band members are great animal lovers," Maric said in the letter. "We didn't manage to convince The Stones' management that the concert would not harm the horses."

The new venue for the concert will probably be at the Usce Park near the meeting point of the Sava and Danube rivers. It will be an open space concert and has hosted many similar events and gatherings before including one big rally for the late nationalist strongman Slobodan Milosevic in 1989.

Rolling Stone have never performed in Serbia before. They had originally planned to come in 2003 to Serbia, but couldn’t because of political problems there due to the assassination of then prime minister Zoran Djindijic and also a planned trip in 2006 was canceled due to its famed guitarist Keith Richards who had an accident while on vacation.

Hopefully Rolling Stones will make the trip this time and please the Serbian fans and thanks to Rolling Stones, the horses can roam freely in their old place.