Fidel Castro is not accustomed to being in the audience at the Teatro Karl Marx, the Havana auditorium where he once regaled spellbound citizens with speeches on revolutionary theory. But on Saturday night the 74-year-old maximum chieftook his seat among 5,000 rock fans to watch the Manic Street Preachers, the first major western artists to play a concert in Cuba for more than 20 years.
He rose only for an ovation to the song Baby Elian - an anti-American tribute to Elian Gonzalez, the six-year-old victim last year of a tug-of-war between Havana and his relatives in the country the song calls "the devil's playground".
In a gesture the band said was "the greatest honour" of their lives, Castro went backstage for a chat before the 90-minute performance, which took place before a massive Cuban flag. Tickets cost the equivalent of 17p.
In 1979, the last time any big-name western musicians defied the US cultural and economic embargo of the island, Cubans with a taste for anything other than salsa and jazz had to make do with a visit from Billy Joel and Kris Kristofferson. For its part, Havana long condemned American and European rock and pop as decadent indulgences.
For the Manics, from Wales, Saturday's concert was an opportunity to take a stand against the commercialisation of popular culture.
"Cuba is an example that everything doesn't have to be Americanised," said the lead singer, James Dean Bradfield. Guitarist Nicky Wire insisted the visit was "not like a student Che Guevara sort of thing - it's just that Cuba for me is the last great symbol that really fights against the Americanisation of the world."
The visit had been negotiated thanks to the intervention of Neath MP Peter Hain, a Manics fan who first met the band during the campaign for a Welsh assembly and who used his contacts to convince the Cubans of their leftwing credentials. "They contacted me when I was at the Foreign Office and asked me whether I could help with a concert in Cuba," Mr Hain said yesterday.
But the distinction between acceptably radical western musicians and the rest seemed to be lost on young Cubans at the show. "It was really good," 20-year-old Michel Hernandez said."I hope this means more groups will come - like Oasis."
