Rolling Stones celebrate 50th anniversary with photo exhibit

PanARMENIAN.Net - It was half a century ago that The Rolling Stones played their very first gig at 165 Oxford Street in London and changed the landscape of pop music forever, The Telegraph said.

Today, July 12 marks half a century since the band's first ever live performance at London's Marquee Club which is being marked by a free photography exhibition at Somerset House in London showing the Rolling Stones at different stages over the last 50 years.

The exhibition grew from a new book called Rolling Stones 50, which draws on a wealth of rare and unseen material. It includes photos from every stage of the band's career, from their earliest gigs in the 1960s through to their current worldwide superstardom as pensioners aged in their sixties and seventies.

Promotional shots feature next to unposed photos, concerts sit alongside court appearances.

Bernard Doherty, who has been the band's publicist for 25 years and helped put together the exhibition says his personal favourite image is an aerial shot of the band on stage at the Superbowl in February 2006, with a stage formed from their iconic lips logo.

"I was at the Super Bowl when they did the half-time show and there's a photograph which is absolutely dynamic. I think it conjures up exactly what the Stones were about in just the scale of what they can do," he said.

The exhibition opens to the public on Friday and will run until 27 August.