Hit play, Castro Rum deal: Bands who’ve played Cuba before The Rolling Stones
Last weekend’s landmark moment isn’t the only musical milestone in the country’s history.
All credit to The Rolling Stones - last weekend’s gig at Havana’s Ciudad Deportiva was a breakthrough moment, one of the biggest in their career. Over 450,000 Cubans flocked to see Mick Jagger defy all of science by continuing to strut like a panther on heat. It was a spectacle few in the country had ever witnessed before.
But as soon as the show finished, naysayers were quick to dethrone the ‘Stones of their historical pedigree. Plenty claimed this was the first gig of its kind in Cuba, a landmark moment symbolic of easing tensions between Cuba and Western countries. Rhetoric on Cuba’s relationship with music is easy to overstate. Bands rarely make the trip overseas, but that’s not to say their records are completely banned from circulation or chastised in all corners.
Big names have been making the trip for decades, as it happens. Not to strip The Rolling Stones of their royalty or anything, but below is a quick guide to the bands who stocked up on cigars before Jagger and co.
Manic Street Preachers
Within hours of The Rolling Stones’ Havana concert concluding, the Manics were quick to remind everyone of their similar feat, back in 2001. And if we’re talking about oneupmanship, sitting front row at their Karl Marx Theatre show was Fidel Castro. When asked if he could deal with the noise, Castro famously replied: “It cannot be louder than war, can it?” Little did Castro know at the time, but this phrase would eventually give birth to Manics’ ’Louder Than War: Live in Cuba’ album, sold as a DVD in every retail store going. Oh, the irony.
Major Lazer
Photo: Shane McCauley
Just weeks before The Rolling Stones’ antics, Diplo and Major Lazer took the Cuba trip for a show in front of the US Embassy on 6th March. An estimated 400,000 fans turned up for the occasion, each knowing most-streamed-song-of-all-time ‘Lean On’ like the back of their hands. Diplo dubbed it “the most important show we have ever done,” and while in Havana he met with Cuban students and local DJs, who helped open the concert.
Audioslave
Rage Against The Machine’s offspring outdid Tom Morello’s original project, playing to 70,000 Cubans back in 2005. Again, much to Castro’s probable distress, they made a fancy live album out of the occasion. They were the second American band to ever play the country, following Fabulous Titans in 1981.
Brutal Fest
In the middle of this I-was-there-first Cuba debate, DIY’s resident metalhead Sarah Jamieson has kindly pointed out that every year, rum-masters Havana Club invite a bunch of metal bands to play a series of shows across Cuba. Two fests take place, one in February (Brutal Winter Fest) and one in August (Brutal Summer Fest). Rarely do acts step outside of the country’s capital, but Brutal Fest makes stopovers in Santa Clara, Camagüey and Bayamo. Brilliantly-named acts who’ve made the trip include Splattered Mermaids, Dead Cowboy Sluts, She’s Still Dead and the sadly defunct Pariso.
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