Rolling Stones land in Havana for historic concert

Rock musicians the Rolling Stones touched down in Havana ahead of their historic concert in the Cuban capital.

The band waved as they disembarked from Miami Air 737 at Havana's Jose Marti Airport on Thursday in a country which had once banned groups like theirs, considering the music to be culturally subversive.

The band formed in 1962, when the US imposed a full trade embargo on Cuba and decades of animosity ensued.

Following the historic visit by Barack Obama, the first US President to visit Cuba in nearly a century, the Rolling Stones will bring live rock and roll to the country for the first time.

Video report by ITV News' correspondent Nina Nannar

Lead singer Mick Jagger said those days are long past, and the country is beginning to change, opening up and embracing the outside world.

"Time changes everything," he said at Havana airport, when asked about Cuba's former ban on his music.

Jagger, guitarist Keith Richards, drummer Charlie Watts and guitarist Ronnie Woods are expected to draw hundreds of thousands of fans to hear the first rock band ever to play in the country to a live audience.

The free concert, called the Concert for Amity, is to be held at the Ciudad Deportiva de la Habana sports complex.

The concert in Cuba wraps up the bands just completed Latin America 'Ole' tour.