Little did the Rolling Stones know how apt their name – inspired by the title of a Muddy Waters song, “Rollin’ Stone” – would turn out to be.

On, July 12, 1962, the Stones had their first gig at the Marquee Club in London. Since then, five decades have passed. In 2012, the Rolling Stones celebrated their fiftieth anniversary, a record that artists in any field would be overjoyed to attain. There have been hiatuses in the past 50 years, especially in the 1980s, but never a breakup.

Moreover, critical acclaim and popular consensus has accorded them the title of the “World’s Greatest Rock and Roll Band.” Throughout five decades of shifting tastes in popular music, the Stones have kept rolling, adapting to the latest styles without straying from their roots as a lean, sinuous rock and roll band with roots in electric blues. In all aspects, theirs has been a remarkable career.

Of course, the Rolling Stones themselves are among the most important reasons for the dramatic breakthroughs and transformations that have taken place over the last five decades. Indeed, it’s essentially impossible to overestimate the importance of the Rolling Stones in rock & roll history. The group distilled so much of the music that had come before it and has exerted a decisive influence on so much that has come after. Only a handful of musicians in any genre achieve that stature, and the Stones stand proudly among them. They exist in a pantheon of the most rarefied kind.

Through their five decades as a band, no one has yet stripped the Rolling Stones of their title as the World’s Greatest Rock & Roll Band. In 2002, Band member Keith Richards had this to say in USA Today about the group’s improbable longevity: “People thought it couldn’t be done. We never thought of trying it. We are just here. It’s a vague mission you can’t give up until you keel over.”

Tonight, 8 years since their debut show in Shanghai, the Rolling Stones are back in Shanghai and rocking the Mercedes Benz Arena.

Among all their hot hits, here we select the tenderest one for you. And we also dedicate the song to the 239 missing passengers on MH370. The song is called “As Tears Go By”.