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When Mick Jagger was deemed “unwelcome” by Polish authorities in 1973
The Polish page on Facebook Zimna Wojna (“Cold War”, in Polish), self-described as “a Cold War profile, where we intend to popularize the history of two great political and military blocks closing between 1946 and 1991”, and “primarily focused on ‘facts about the course of armed conflicts, military technique, or organization of armed forces'” has once revealed a series of documents dated February 2 1973 which show Mick Jagger as part of a list of people considered “undesirable” in that country on that year.
From Persona Non Grata to VIP: Mick Jagger’s Odd History with Poland
By resolution of February 6, 1973, Mick was listed on the index of undesirable people in Poland, due to his British sentence for drug possession. Interestingly, in 1979 he was revoked the ban on entry with the reason ‘he acted correctly with us’ “.
As for the very text on the documents, they state that “Michael Phillip Jagger, born 26.07.1943 in Dartford, musician, member of the british band ‘ROLLING STONES’, stayed in Poland in April 1967, along with the five-member music group Rolling Stones. This band did two musical performances in the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw. They stayed in the Europejski hotel. During his stay in Poland, representatives of PAA ‘Pagart’ (the Polish Artistic Agency, the organisation and publishing house from the Communism era that was allowed to organize concerts of foreign artists) didn’t have any objections towards the above-mentioned, as well as towards other group members. However, according to the information received, some Warsaw journal in 1967 reported that Jagger was suspected of using drugs.”
This probably explains the reason why they didn’t include Poland during their 1973 European tour. Before that, the Stones had played for the first time in Poland back in 1967, doing two shows at the Sala Kongresowa, Palac Kultury i Nauki (the Palace of Culture), in Warsaw, on April 13 1967, and wouldn’t go back to the country until 1998, when they played the Slaski Stadium in Chorzow on Aug. 14, during the Bridges to Babylon tour.
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