In the recent series of monumental arrivals in Cuba — Netflix, Airbnb, a U.S. president — none looms as large as the Rolling Stones, who played to an estimated 500,000 Cubans in Havana on Friday. On an island overlooked by time for more than a half century, the group became the focal point of life...

There was something endearing — and a bit cheeky — about Mick Jagger getting the crowd of an estimated 500,000 Cubans to sing “you can’t always get what you want” in Havana Friday night (March 25) for The Rolling Stones’ first-ever concert in the country. Under Cuba’s Communist government, the people can’t get what they...

Finally, the times are changing,” proclaimed Mick Jagger to a vast, euphoric crowd in Havana on Friday night, as the Rolling Stones completed their Latin American tour with a concert that may well prove a pivotal moment for a generation of Cubans. Hundreds of thousands thronged to the Ciudad Deportiva stadium to see the British...

On Friday, the Rolling Stones became the first major international rock band to play in Cuba, drawing hundreds of thousands of people to a free concert at a decrepit sports complex on the road to the airport. For years, following the Cuban revolution, rock music was banned on Cuban state TV and radio. Cubans who...

Gregory Elias finished his pitch, paused, and waited for the little beep-beep-beep in his ear that would signal that the party on the other end of the telephone —Jayne Smyth, the manager of the Rolling Stones —had hung up after realizing that he was a madman. At best, he thought, he might get a shouted...