This was a forced issue. They had to sing it. Faced with such small talk, such treachery, pseudo-faiths and entrenchment in pain, strife and division among Cubans, this song had to be there. As well as they could not miss the tribute to Cuban Cinema. It was a promise. It was also the aim of the concert. Tough luck for those, supported by historical memory, are stuck in immobility in the subtracting, the dividing.
Everybody counts. Everyone
Young, old, everyone, in an almost sold-out theater, hummed each of the songs that the band, brimming with good intentions-of adding- came to offer a unique, different, or the same for all concert. That, and no other, was the will of its musicians. Outside, three hundred people were opposed. Inside, many, many more, after each arpeggio, after each verse, increased their desire for good music, for clever lyrics, for the grace of thinking, of building-worth the exchange or bridge, a better world for all.
To support. Whoever it is
If something no one can accuse Buena Fe of is of being afraid. Even in the images projected on the giant screen that generated no little controversy in the thinking of the present. Even in the transmission of ideas, the willingness to say, to shape, to remain a paradigm of Cuban music; the uncompromising desire for the best, for the future … Buena Fe was something different, and tonight was different and magical; cries for Cuba were not enough. Although everyone thinks Cuba as it pleases
There was a precedent. A fed and nursed by a sentence said in the heat of the circumstances, which set guidelines in a divided community, or never homogeneous, or, as they would have us see and never clearly understood that, more than anything, Buena Fe is one of today’s music icons on the island And the best thing: it shall not perish. Nor birthdays will be eternal.
There was, thanks God, a desire to prevent, to boycott, to prohibit. Large corporations, big countries, big people, nor should-not hide behind skeletons; nor should wallow in the past. Any future time is, and should be even better. Buena and those of us who understand their lyrics, has always (we have) bet on it.
“I am following the Cuban baseball players in Japan. I am one who follows Pito Abreu. I’m CUBA “.
We are. After all, music, art, transcends all geographical boundaries and time. No music is inconsequential. Whatever it is.
Twenty three songs. An Arsenal
There are concerts that mark. That mark a before and after. This was one of them, mostly because images within: flag, sound, Martí, Sergio Corrieri, Juan Padrón, Miravalles, everyone, absolutely everyone, sang, laughed, remembered, shouted, hummed. They supported on all things, a duo that continues to be the Mana for millions of Cubans. Although Joel or Israel, are not Christ, nor God, much less Judas, who came to us, just try to give us a kingdom. Buena Fe is a bread. And it may be bitter and homemade label wine, but it is hundred percent Cuban. Or maybe it’s the host, yes, the host, or whatever; because good people now, above all things, care about throwing the bad things. It’s that simple. What is bad, has to go.
So firm, which no longer serves.
Because in spite of everything, that is how began the concert-CUBA VA. They go.
They go, blank paper, from your country to your root. Wherever they both are. Wherever we are. In this side or the other, CUBA is CUBA, in spite of what they think, if there is a law about, or even if the Constitution contemplates it, the artist is free, or wants to be; and always want his art travles on the winding roads of memory or present, and takes hold, knowing that to do so may not be a marabou in the wilds of ignominy. It has an ocean, sea, or strait in between.
Buena Fe has something. A smile. A will. A decorum. A badly said phrase, that is why they arehuman. A desire to say. A sincerity. Never hypocrisy. Shortly trembling legs. Caution. Measure … an idea, a new time. And all new time is better. It has to be. If not, we are living for the sake of it.