Legendary rock group, the Rolling Stones, will rock Belgrade this summer, but their appearance is not without controversy. News reports maintain that the group’s performance at the city’s main racetrack will distress hundreds of horses stabled at the venue. But, be that as it may, concert organizers say the show will go on as planned.
Naturally, the news is not sitting well with animal rights organizations that contend the world famous rockers should have considered the impact their show would have on the hundreds of horses that call the Hippodrome home.
“This is not the first rock concert at the Hippodrome,” the executive in charge of the state-run racecourse told media reporters.
In addition, managers of the venue added that some of the most skittish four-legged residents might be given tranquilizers when the concert gets underway.
That revelation only seemed to aggravate the Organization for Respect and Care for Animals (ORCA), which has called for a change of venue. Members of the organization say they are concerned about the “inevitable stress that the animals would suffer” from the noise and from diazepam, the drug that has been used to sedate the animals during previous concerts.
As for concert-goers (more than 80,000 tickets have reportedly been sold for the performance), their main concern is to finally see the legendary rockers in person. At least two previous attempts to bring the rock group to the area failed. Once in 2003, when a concert was canceled after Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic was assassinated. And, once again last year after Keith Richards suffered a head injury in a fall from a tree.
Details of the deal between the Hippodrome and the group had not been made public so there’s no telling what kind of impact a change of venue could or would have on the racecourse. Regardless, most sources say there is very little chance that the irate animal rights activists would put a damper on the long-awaited concert.
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