LOS ANGELES — The Rolling Stones played a surprise show late Saturday at a small club in Los Angeles, days before their north America tour kicks off here next week.

The legendary British rock band announced the gig, at the 650-capacity Echoplex in LA's trendy Echo Park neighborhood, via Twitter only hours before the evening show.

Tickets were just $20, paid by cash only, and were snapped up within an hour of going on sale. Lucky fans at the front of the line were given a wrist band and required to show an ID at the door. There was a limit of one ticket per purchaser, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The band opened with "You Got me Rockin'" before a 14-song set including "Street Fighting Man" and "Start Me Up," climaxing with "Brown Sugar" and "Jumpin Jack Flash," according to a set list posted on its Twitter feed.

The rockers posted video of the gig a couple of hours after it ended, including 69-year-old frontman Mick Jagger whipping up the tiny crowd with his trademark gyrations as the band cranked out "Respectable."

The Stones — which last year marked its 50th anniversary together — is due to open its "50 and Counting" tour at the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles next week.

The group is also set to play in cities including San Jose, Las Vegas, Chicago, and Boston, as well as Toronto in Canada.

Tickets for those shows cost a lot more than $20 — as of Sunday the cheapest available seats for next Friday's Los Angeles show were going for $250. Official prices go up to $600 for standard tickets, or much higher in the resale market.

The Stones played a surprise gig in Paris last October, their first in concert in five years, charging just 15 euros each ($20) for 350 lucky fans at the Trabendo club in the northeast of the French capital. — AFP