Fans, cops wait for Stones in Rio
Fans poured into Rio de Janeiro from around the globe and a huge police operation swung into action for what will be one of the biggest rock concerts ever – a free show by the Rolling Stones on the city's famed Copacabana Beach on Saturday night (local time).

A Carnival atmosphere took over the beach area, as fans gathered in front of the stage built on the sand or milled around outside the luxury Copacabana Palace Hotel where the band is staying.

Lazaro Rosas, a 26-year-old artist, was sitting in his tent on the beach on Saturday morning. He had staked out the spot three days ago after spending a month making his way to Rio from Porto Alegre in southern Brazil.

"I wanted to see a legend, a myth," he said. Asked if he thought the Stones should still be rocking in their 60s, he said: "Time is relative. They are very strong."

Other fans had come from Japan, Britain, Norway and North America. Fleets of buses bringing people from elsewhere in Brazil and Latin America blocked city streets.

Tom Nolan, a 62-year-old businessman from upstate New York, said he has paid $US750 for two tickets to see them in Albanyin September and had decided he could not miss the Rio gig.

"They are an inspiration to our generation," he said, drinking beer in a beach bar. "They have given the world so much and they are still cranking it out."

More than 1 million fans are expected to watch the show, part of the "Bigger Bang" tour which opened in the United States last August and was the top-grossing rock tour of 2005.

Squads of paramilitary police deployed across the crime-ridden city to control crowds and prevent clashes and theft.

More than 2,000 officers were moving into the Copacabana area, which was sealed off to traffic. Another 4,000 took up positions elsewhere in the city, including in several "favela" slums, which are ruled by heavily-armed drugs gangs.

Six people were killed on Wednesday night when a gang from Copacabana invaded the Rocinha favela. On Saturday morning, the tortured corpses of five youths were found in the Niteroi suburb.

Rio's security chief Marcelo Itagiba earlier this week questioned the wisdom of having a free show on Copacabana Beach, and letters in newspapers asked why the police were unable to prevent the Rocinha clash yet mobilise for the Rolling Stones.

The veteran rockers were ensconced in suites in the Copacabana Palace. Singer Mick Jagger, 62, spent most of Friday with his 7-year-old Brazilian son Lucas, the result of his fling with model and TV presenter Luciana Gimemez, who lives in Sao Paulo.

Gimenez is staying at the hotel as his guest, one of around 4,000 VIPs of the band, promoters and sponsors who will watch the show from a special enclosure around the stage.

The masses will be 100 metres back, separated from the VIPs by a cordon of police. Two police launches will also patrol the bay to keep fans in boats from getting too close.

The show will be filmed for broadcast in the United States later this month and possibly will be released on DVD.

It is being billed as the largest rock concert ever, but the Guinness Book of Records gives that honour to a show by Rod Stewart on New Years Eve's 1994, also on Copacabana Beach, which reportedly drew 3.5 million people.