CUBA: THE MANIC STREET PREACHERS PLAY A HISTORIC CONCERT IN HAVANA ATTENDED BY PRESIDENT FIDEL CASTRO

Record ID: 390900

  • Title: CUBA: THE MANIC STREET PREACHERS PLAY A HISTORIC CONCERT IN HAVANA ATTENDED BY PRESIDENT FIDEL CASTRO
  • Date: 18th February 2001
  • Summary: HAVANA, CUBA (FEBRUARY 17, 2001) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) MV BAND IN RECEPTION OF HAVANA'S "HOTEL NACIONAL" TRACK LEAD SINGER JAMES DEAN BRADFIELD WALKING
  • Embargoed: 5th March 2001 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: HAVANA, CUBA
  • Country: Cuba
  • Topics: Entertainment
  • Reuters ID: LVA1XJ0ZUMLJ21UKR87JW99YZGJ3
  • Story Text: With President Fidel Castro sitting in front of them and a vast Cuban flag on-stage behind, British rockers the Manic Street Preachers played a historic gig in Havana over the weekend, becoming the biggest such Western group to play on the communist-ruled island.
    Members of the avowedly anti-American hard rock band "Manic Street Preachers," launched their latest album on Saturday (February 17), "Know Your Enemy," in Cuba, in what they called a gesture of solidarity.
    Cuban President, Fidel Castro fulfilled a personal ambition of the band's three Welsh musicians by meeting them backstage before taking his place with 5,000 mainly young fans for the free but invitation-only show at Havana's Karl Marx theater, frequently a venue for political rallies.
    The group performed a song titled "Baby Elian" in reference to Havana's seven-month-long fight last year to have shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez returned from the United States, Castro stood and applauded, presumably in recognition of the Manic Street Preachers' sympathy with the Cuban cause.
    Castro's government frowned on Western music as a "decadent" influence in the decades after his 1959 Cuban Revolution, and many Cubans recall being harassed for wearing long hair or listening to rock and pop music from Europe or the United States.
    But Castro has lately been at pains to show that times have changed, first by appearing at a homage to slain Beatles star John Lennon late last year and then by attending Saturday's concert by the anti-Establishment Manic Street Preachers.
    Castro was accompanied by Cuba's long-haired Culture Minister Abel Prieto, a poet, throughout the concert.
    After a politicized news conference before their concert -- in which they slammed global cultural "Americanization" and praised Cuba's resistance to U.S. pressures, including a 4-decade-old economic embargo -- the Manic Street Preachers avoided any speeches at the gig.
    But the lyrics of various songs underlined their sympathy with Cuba, notably "Baby Elian," which refers to the United States as "the devil's playground" and, in a nod to radicals like Castro, says at one point, "You don't just sit in your rocking chair if you want to build a revolution."
    The 12-year-old, formerly punk-inspired band played an energetic 90-minute set, including well-known songs and new numbers like "Ocean Spray" and "Let Robeson Sing" from their new album.
    By playing Havana, the Manic Street Preachers became the first major Western pop musicians to play in Cuba since U.S.
    singer-songwriter Billy Joel in 1979.
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