BBC News Online.
Sunday, 18 February, 2001, 16:37 GMT
Energy Minister Peter Hain was instrumental in helping the Manic Street
Preachers play their historic concert in Cuba.
The Neath MP was working as a minister in the Foreign Office when the Welsh
band first proposed the Havana gig.
The boys from Blackwood played to an audience of 5,000 Cubans - including
President Fidel Castro - in the Karl Marx stadium in Havana on Saturday.
They had paid just 25 cents, or 17 pence, to hear the band whose last gig
was their Millennium Eve performance at Cardiff's new Millennium rugby stadium.
Among the songs they showcased was one about the Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez
who was at the centre of a custody struggle with the US last year.
The Manics were faced with a Communust regime which has spent years trying
to clamp down on the influence of Western rock music.
Western rock music had been frowned upon as a "decadent influence"
in the early days after President Castro's regime.
But that attitude has relaxed of late, with American singer Billy Joel
performing there two decades ago.
More recently Castro even honoured murdered Beatle John Lennon.
So one-time anti-apartheid campaigner Mr Hain stepped in to help by
convincing the Cubans that the Manics could end the long-standing ban against
rock groups.
The 51-year-old MP struck up a friendship with the Manics during the
campaign for the Welsh Assembly- which he led for Labour and the band supported.
Now moved to the industry ministry in the last minor government reshuffle,
Mr Hain said he looked forward to hearing their new album Know Your Enemy and
admired their "radicalism". | 