Cuba received Satiffact

1.3 million people visited the free concert of The Rolling Stones in Havana. But many here still remember those times when the words “cube” and “rock music” were incompatible

The show "Rolling" in Cuba has already been called "historical." In the picture: soloist of the Mick Jagger group during the concert, Havana, March 25, 2016

“We still walk like plague: at first President Obama comes, followed by Mick Jagger with a team ... There are too many emotions for such a short period of time,” Cuban friends write from Havana. They still remember those times when the words “cube” and “rock music” were incompatible.

Both events - both the first visit of the American president to Cuba Barack Obama, and The Rolling Stones, the first half of the show of this level on the island of Freedom, have already been recognized as “historical”. However, Rolling believe that their idea was more important. “The hut was in our warmth,” one of them said jokingly.

Good evening from Jagger

The inhabitants of Havana and many other Cuban cities began to arrive at the Cetain Stadium “Syudad Deportiv” the day before the start of the concert. People in T-shirts with the image of their rock idols took places in tents or directly on the asphalt, even if they did not see the scene, the main thing is that they heard the music perfectly. As, however, all the surrounding residents are in a radius of two kilometers. The group brought with it 500 tons of the most modern equipment, including eight superpower. The soloist of the group Mick Jagger began a performance with a greeting in Spanish: “Hello, Havana! Good evening, my Cuban people, ”he shouted, and immediately began Jumpin 'Jack Flash - the classic composition of“ Rolling ”, without which not a single performance is complete. And the concert ended, as expected, the most famous hat - Satiffact.

“We came up with a simple trick: we packed the vinyl mined in the black market with“ Beatles ”,“ Rolling ”,“ Simon and Garfunel ”in the covers with the music of the Cuban Orchestra”

There were 1.3 million people at the concert: more than 700 thousand fans of the British group filled the open arena of the stadium and almost 600 thousand were located beyond its borders. In the old days, the same amount in Havana came to listen to Fidel passionate speeches. Now Havana recalls one of them, which lasted about six hours - her Kubinsky leader said on March 13, 1963 at the steps of Gavan University (he was then 36 years old). She was paid to young people, and Castro paid special attention to the rock musicians: “Many of these styles, the children of the bourgeoisie, go here in their too narrow pants, some with guitars behind them, in imitation of Elvis Presley, and there are those who are trying to give their wife-like concerts in public.”

"Steel", the Cuban version

The “pijunas” imitators declared war declared war. In order to humiliate the musicians, Castro equated them to homosexuals and declared both of the law. “Candidates in hippies,” as the adherents of pop and rock music called the party seal, was referred to labor camps and agricultural sector for re-education, those who did not obey, were thrown behind bars.

“In those days (1960s-the beginning of the 1970s),“ hairs ”were often grabbed on the streets of Havana and forcibly stripped, students were kicked out of the university on charges of“ ideological sabotage ”,“ immorality ”and“ sexual deviations, ”recalls Horhe Posad, who studied French in the Havana school named after Avraama in the 1960s Lincoln. - For the system, those who wore narrow trousers, long hair and loved Western music were fans of imperialism. The persecution and destruction of rock music has become a real mania of the regime. But my mother told me: “Do not cut yourself, son, I like how you look, listen to the music that you like.”

Many spectators specially put on T -shirts with the symbols of Rolling, Havana, March 25, 2016

The well -known documentary of Orlando Leal says: “Once I saw how the well -known Cuban actresses armed with scissors, they cut too narrow trousers from one of the musicians in the face that he was“ antisocial element ”and“ bloces ”, cut too narrow trousers in the face. And another time, a guy with a plate of forbidden Western music stood on the bus next to me. So the lieutenant serving with us by force brought him out of the car and dragged him to the station. ” All these are the scenes familiar to one by the film by Valery of Todorovsky “Shtilyaga”, to the other, as the author, by scenes from our own lives, when we, like Cuban fans of rock, listened to records and tape recordings in our kitchens. “When we gathered at someone in the apartment to listen to the rock, one of us went out onto the balcony and watched that the old scammer, activist of the revolution protection committee, did not spot us, because they were in almost every house,” recalls a resident of Gava Ricardo Fiegelo. And what did you listen to? “Well, of course, the recordings of the Beatles and Rolling were the most popular. They were the most scandalous, most colorful, too free to recognize them as a dictatorship, the standards of which were discipline, complete subordination and short hairstyles. We came up with a simple trick: we packed the vinyl winn with the “Beatles”, “Rolling”, “Simon and Garfunel”, etc. In the covers with the music of the Cuban orchestra of Aragon and other local performers recognized by the authorities, they went around the city and to each other. ”

Che Guevara, which turned into an advertising symbol of "Rolling": this poster made by the Cuban fans of the group flaunted near the scene in Havana

However, fans of rock had other loopholes. “Many of us, of course, listened to“ enemy radio stations ”broadcasting from Miami on short waves - WQAM, WGBS and others,” says writer Roberto Madrigal, who left Cuba in 1980. - They listened, of course, pressing his ear to the radios so that the neighbors would not spot. These radio stations, as a rule, were transferred to music from ten in the evening until the morning. And in this way we learned Pink Floyd, The Doors, Jimmy Hendricks and Jennis Joplin. We knew “enemy music” perfectly and received true pleasure from the fact that we managed to slip away from censorship. This was the only way for us to survive in the world where everything belonged to socialism. "

Change - require their hearts

Five decades later, prohibited music returned to the island. The free concert of The Rolling Stones in Havana is a “historical reconciliation” of Cuba with rock music. And this is what is indicative: half a century has passed, and in power in the country - all the same leaders, while everything else is different.

“We are used to living on the island, and now, at this concert, I feel like a part of the universe,” says one of the elderly spectators, an old fan of Rolling.

A journalist from the Cuban newspaper 14ymedio Sunilda Mata describes her impressions from the Rolling concert: “Everywhere next to the stadium - people in uniform, police or military. Several police officers stand next to a large group of boys and girls who desperately chant “Jagger, Jagger!”, But the police do not react. “We were ordered: do not dare to detain anyone, there are a lot of foreign journalists and television cameras,” one of the young ministers of the law admits by the simplicity of the soul.

“It was a week from which the nation received a real heart attack,” the editor -in -chief of 14YMedio Joani Sanchez shares with NT. - First, “Bestnot” drove along the Gavan streets (as the Lyumuine of Barack Obama was called in Havana), and then we saw a completely fantastic show of “Rolling”. It seems that after this it will be impossible to return the river to its usual channel. ”

Photo: Polaris/East News, Ap/Fotolink