----- Original Message -----
From: "Red Rebel" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2001 7:04 PM
Subject: [slp-youth] Cuba: Preachers' concert helps convert Castro to rock
>Tickets
> for the sold-out show in the 6,000-seater theatre cost 25 pesos (about
£20)
Actually about 17 pence (25 US Cents)
J.
>
>
>
> Irish Times
> Preachers' concert helps convert Castro to rock
> From Brian Boyd, in Havana
>
> Fidel Castro led the standing ovation at the end of a rare rock music gig
> in Cuba last Saturday night when Welsh band The Manic Street Preachers
> played in Havana's Karl Marx Theatre. Castro was so impressed by the
band's
> performance that he invited them to a private dinner the following day.
> The Cuban leader's enthusiastic response to the show is being interpreted
> as a softening of his attitude to rock music, which he has denounced in
the
> past. Well known for their Marxist sentiments, the band received an
> ecstatic response for their song Baby Elian, written about the Elian
> Gonzalez controversy.
>
> "It was the most wonderful night of our career," lead singer James Dean
> Bradfield told The Irish Times after the show. "We met Fidel Castro
> backstage before the gig but we had no idea if he would like the concert
or
> not, so to be invited to dinner in his place is a real surprise." Tickets
> for the sold-out show in the 6,000-seater theatre cost 25 pesos (about
£20)
> and the audience included two of Cuba's sporting heroes, the boxer Felix
> Savon and the athlete Alberto Juantarino.
>
> At a press conference the day before the show, the band's lyric writer and
> bass player, Nicky Wire, was asked by a Cuban journalist if their decision
> to play in Havana would damage their US sales. He replied "I hope so."
> The Manic Street Preachers decided to premiere the songs from their new
> album, Know Your Enemy, in Cuba as "a gesture of solidarity with the Cuban
> people", according to James Dean Bradfield.
>
> Other politically charged songs they played on the night included Paul
> Robeson, a tribute to the black US singer, who was a communist, and
Freedom
> of Speech Won't Feed My Children, a song about poverty in post-communist
> countries.
>
> The Manic Street Preachers have enjoyed considerable chart success over
the
> last five years with their brand of Indie rock music and strident
political
> sloganeering. Although their records are not available in Cuba, radio
> stations here had been playing their songs incessantly in the build-up to
> Saturday's concert.
>
>
>
>
>
>
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