Díaz-Canel, the dissonant note at Silvio Rodríguez’s concert

Havana/Silvio Rodríguez returned to the staircase of the University of Havana on Friday afternoon after more than twenty years without singing in that emblematic place, and did so with a concert loaded with emotions, uncomfortable silences and a Light display that contrasted crudely with the reality of blackouts that the country is experiencing. The opening of his new Latin American tour ended in a deployment of police officers that guarded, in addition to the tense tranquility of the public, Miguel Díaz-Canel and his wife, Lis Cuesta.

From an early age it showed that it would not be any night. “There was a lot of security to be a concert for young university students. At the entrance, it was necessary to undergo control before moving to the enclosure.

The president rose to the side of the stage and greeted the public two or three times. Very few returned the greeting. On the roofs of the adjacent buildings, the presence of agents within a wide security cord was noticeable.

Dresses of blue or olive green, the agents of the Interior Ministry were around the entire perimeter of the university. They were also, complying with the tradition of the regime to infiltrate their agents, between the public and civil dresses, which did not prevent some cries of disagreement with the country’s authorities.

Diaz-Canel some that another fell, and when the time came that Silvio interpreted The foolone of his most emblematic themes, the tension appeared again and some daring shouts of “hope” in response to “when the revolution falls down” was heard.

In the VIP area were the entire family of actor Jorge Perugorría and several of the musicians López Gavilán. Carlos Alberto Cremata, director of La Colmenita, among many others.

Together with the students who only enjoyed a music that is part of the sound DNA of several generations, there were also those who did not resist making the concert a political act. Among the stands they waved several Palestine flags and, already near the end, Silvio himself sang with a Palestinian handkerchief around his neck, placed by his daughter Malva. It was before singing The era is giving birth to a heart – Another of his most famous themes – a moment he took to make a hard criticism of Israel for his actions in Gaza: “I think of you and I am not successful to understand how they forgot so soon the voaho of hell,” he said citing Cuban poet Luis Rogelio Nogueras.

The presence of Latin American tourists, attracted by music and the tumult of students, and in the center of the crowd, a small group of spectators moved a flag of July 26.

The concert, which began with Hummingbird wingfollowed a tour of the musician’s classics that people chanted despite having been born most when the movement of the new trova was already history, although there were also many fifty among the public.

In one interview With EFE days before the concert, Rodríguez, 78, explained that he wanted to start the tour in Cuba, and specifically at the University of Havana, because the students had given him hope: “They made me feel hope when I saw their attitudes,” he said, in reference to the protests against the Rate from Etecsa at the end of May.

The memory of the National Blagboard just a week ago and from which a good part of the country is not yet recovered, especially when the light games dazzled the staircase thanks to two gigantic structures placed carefully hours before. Briefly interviewed by 14ymedio Before the concert began, a neighbor ironized: “This is so that the blue color can be seen in the unicorn.”

The university was last night a mirage of light and music that later returned to the darkness of Havana. When the concert ended, people started running in the streets in search of a bus to return to their homes and the blackouts.