Historic night!: seven years after The Rolling Stone concert in Cuba
HAVANA, March 24th Seven years have passed since March 25, 2016, the Sports City vibrated with the magic of one of the myths of international music. The Rolling Stones was in Cuba, even if it seemed like a dream.From all over the island the fans arrived that morning on the stage that awaited the “gods of rock”. His followers had even been hanging around the area days before, enjoying the spectacular setting of the stage and sounds, and knowing that what would happen there was going to be epic.
And so much so since its start, to the cry of Mick Jagger: “Hello Havana, good night my people from Cuba.” The public went crazy under the sounds of “their satanic majesties”, in what would be their first free concert after the one offered in Rio de Janeiro in 2006.
From the start, the event was quite a spectacle. The British band transported 61 containers to Cuba with some 500 tons of scenery, speakers, lights, and video screens.
But that night, everything became small before that “Jumping Jack Flash”, the song that opened the concert was recorded for the first time in 1968, and the island’s rockers remembered those times when they secretly shared their acetate records. With the performance of “It’s only rock and roll”, the crowd couldn’t stop chanting and this was just the beginning.
According to a post on the band’s Twitter, “The Stones played for 1.2 million people in Cuba,” although the number of attendees was highly variable in different media. The German news agency DPA, for example, estimated around 100,000, a much lower figure compared to the 800,000 estimated by the Cuban state-owned ACN.
Meanwhile, the US agency Associated Press and the multinational chain TeleSur agreed on numbers, assuring one. 200 thousand attendees.
The truth is that beyond the figures, Sports City experienced one of the greatest moments in its history. Fans of all ages flooded the twenty hectares where the stage was located, in addition to those who decided to follow the concert on the screens from the comfort of their homes.
According to various media reports, international personalities such as actor Richard Gere, model Naomi Campbell or country singer Shania Twain met that night in the VIP area. No one wanted to miss the climax of the “Olé” tour that the band was doing in Latin America.
The Rolling Stone brought everything to Havana: Rock, Blues, Rock and Roll, Hard Rock, Psychedelic Rock, art in general and, above all, a lot of hope for those who thought that the island would recover a long-awaited artistic and economic splendor.
Eight years ago, all of Cuba mobilized around that concert. Havana was the epicenter of a long wait for fans and music lovers. The reality, as rarely, exceeded expectations and many dreams on the island were fulfilled through the unmistakable sounds of those “monsters of music”.
