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FROM
CUBA
Carlos
Varela: Between his fans and power
HAVANA, July (www.cubanet.org) - One of the things
that most drew my attention about the concert
by Carlos Varela this past May 17th in Havana
was the enormous security apparatus deployed around
the Karl Marx Theater. Uniformed officers from
the police's special brigade surrounded the theater
in trucks and patrol cars for three blocks around.
Security bars impeded access to the concert without
prior indentification and entrance ticket.
According to the concertgoers, never was such
a deployment of police seen at the concerts of
Varela, who hasn't played in Cuba for two years.
I myself, who attended some of his concerts when
he was only accompanied by his guitar and some
musicians, was left astounded. Perhaps the reason
for this state of siege owes to the fact that
Varela, who is renowned for composing subversive
lyrics criticizing the Cuban reality, could stir
up the spirits and provoke an uncomfortable protest
for the leadership circles.
It's possible that upon Varela's arrival in Havana,
the Minister of Culture, Abel Prieto, read him
the riot act and told him nothing in the way of
subversive songs or indulgence of the public,
and the least little spark could light a powder
keg that would burn hotter than the Iraqi oil
wells.
Carlos Varela, who lives in Spain, came in a
tour promoting his latest record number seven,
a record that has nothing in common with his previous
offerings, and which is closer to the style of
Joaquín Sabina than to Carlos Varela.
Although the concert displayed an excellent set
of lights, sound and musicians like Equis Alfonso,
Ahmed Medina and others, many felt cheated. With
an auditorium nearly full with 6,000 people, the
singer refused (with an "I don't remember")
to sing songs from his repertoire like "La
palanca" and "Jalisco Park". In
the two hours the show lasted, his fans shouted
out requests for him to play, but the singer showed
himself to be cold and distant.
According to Ronald, who came with a group of
friends from Sanat Clara, the concert wasn't worth
the trouble. Other young people who came from
distant places like Holguín and Santiago
de Cuba voiced the same opinion. Many of them
had been in the city for days waiting morning,
noon and night to buy tickets n long lines. "We
barely ate anything," recounts a blond woman
with earrings in her nose and mouth who says she's
from Pinar del Río. It was she who gave
me a concert ticket.
That night there were also those who were left
without getting tickets at the box office, and
they had to buy them outside at 5 and 6 dollars
each. Those who couldn't afford themselves such
a luxury - 5 dollars is a respectable amount of
money for a Cuban, and practically a month's salary
- left among protests and frustrations. For many
of them, staying home on a Saturday night in a
city where the few places of recreation only accept
dollars, is a curse.
Manolito, 26, whose parents had given him only
what was necessary to buy his ticket at the box
office, was among those there. After not catching
anything, he waited a while in case they crashed
the gate - as had occurred other times - to enter
with the crowd. As it didn't happen, he marched
away head down with his pint of rum toward María's
Patio, a place where they play rock music.
Labeled as a cultural happening in the Cuban
press, the presentation didn't lack for those
who wanted to manipulate it to take advantage
of the tension between Havana and Washington.
An example of this is the musicologist Guille
Vilar who, in an article in the government newspaper
Granma, dragged in the U.S. invasion, illegal
immigration and Varela. Was Guille trying to insinuate
something? The fact is everyone is asking why
such a reaction coming from someone who's never
commented about politics.
Those who remember a rebel Varela must have been
the first to become disenchanted. The freshness
and spontaneity that distinguish him seems to
have been drowned by the necessities of the market,
the requirements of power and a well-earned fame
that doesn't need any hook to attract a public
now. Many of us will continue listening to his
old records, others will stubbornly continue going
to his live concerts.
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