Canadian gig promoter Michael Cohl has slammed critics in the Toronto media for questioning whether the Stones fronted benefit gig designed to reinvigorate the city post SARS crisis should take place. The media there have been getting critical since local police chiefs said a number of tight restrictions would have to be put in place to ensure the safety of the 500,000 punters expected to attend.
Speaking backstage at a Stones gig in Stockholm he told reporters: "I'm reading too much of this bullshit in the Toronto press about the concert. What a bunch of assholes - pardon my French. The Toronto Star, are pumping up the whole brouhaha, and now everybody's getting ready to go, 'Oh my God, what a bad idea this was.'"
He continued by making loose threats to pull the Stones out of the gig if the whinging didn't stop: "But what do you think would happen tomorrow if I cancelled? If I called in and said the Stones cancel, I mean they'd have a fit, wouldn't they? But what would you do if you were Jagger? 'I think I might not come after all. It's not what I signed on for.'"
But he finished by throwing his support behind the concert's organisers: "I can't imagine that between Clear Channel Entertainment and House of Blues and Molson's and Dennis Mills and Jerry Grafstein and the Toronto Police and the Toronto Emergency Services and all of the same people who looked after the Pope at Downsview last year, that these people aren't going to get it together. And if I didn't think they were able to get it together, I wouldn't have given them the band in the first place."