Satisfaction for Cubans as Stones rock
IT was 1962, and in London The Rolling Stones took to the stage for the first time.
A little later that same year, the leader of a group of young revolutionaries, Fidel Castro, also took to the stage — to pronounce rock’n’roll “the music of the enemy”.
And yet on Friday, in a night which many Cubans never dared dream was possible, the music that was once banned from the airways became the beating heart of Castro’s Cuba, echoing for miles across the capital.
“Good evening, Havana! Finally we’re here,” said Mick Jagger, in theatrical, exaggerated Spanish to 700 000 people.
Three days before the free concert, Barack Obama, making the first visit by a US president in 89 years, joked that his trip was merely a warm-up for the band.
And certainly the show had an epic, history-making feel to it. Naomi Campbell and Richard Gere filed in as the sun set, and the show opened to a colour-explosion video featuring ’50s cars, cigars and Carmen Miranda-style salsa dancers.
Keith Richards, beaming in his green silk bomber jacket and bandana, enthused: “Obama. Cuba. We’re so happy to be here.”
Opening with Jumpin’ Jack Flash, a sequin-clad Jagger was at his strutting, preening, swivelling finest.
“We arrived here and went to the British embassy for whisky and fish and chips,” the 72-year-old told the crowd, waving Cuban and British flags beside Che Guevara posters. “Then we went for arroz and frijoles [Cuban rice and beans]. And then we went to dance rumba in the Casa de la Musica.”
The crowd erupted, with a laughing Jagger adding in English: “It’s all true.”
David Yaco, 62, who was harassed by the police in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s just for listening to music, said: “I kept on telling myself it was just a dream. The idea of them playing here . . . surreal.”
Eddie Escobar, 45, was forced by police to cut his long locks and alter his drainpipe jeans. On Friday he had VIP tickets, and met the band. “I said: ‘Mick, thank you so much for coming. Cuba will never forget this.’ ”
A grinning Richards said after they signed off with “I’m going to live here.”