peace & love

backstage (mejor dicho: side-stage) at the festival peace & love

the festival peace & love, a collaboration of sorts between cuba and sweden took place in late march of this year (2011). bands and musical acts from both nations alternated the presence on stage in genres ranging from hip hop to metal, house to funk, and of course rock. the two day festival took place in los jardines del tropical, a place that my buddy deemed "magical", with tree house like structures, a castle, and trees enveloped by vines and smaller trees adorning the landscape, adding to the surreal ambiance of seeing nationall famous cuban groups, and a few swedish groups i had heard before (looptroop - a hip hop group, and timbuktu and damn! - a group with a funk eclectic sound).

life is a movie

cine la rampa

The 31st international havana film festival was on earlier this month, 20 cuban pesos (roughly under $1 US) got you 15 entrances.  Over 100 movies and shorts were shown, a great event that goes on every December, highly recommend it if you're around during that time. I was only able to catch 5 this year, kind of sad, of those 1 was good, Mapa de sonidos de Tokyo (Sound map of Tokyo), the other 4 were ranged from horrible, to confusing to so-so. 

too cool for you

kool and the gang, of "celebrate" and "hollywood swinger" fame, came down to cuba to rock out in the Antimperialist Tribunal, which happens to be in front of the US Interest Section. It was good. Kool says whats up.

paz sin fronteras

Colombian singer Juanes came to Cuba and put forth a big old concert with number of other international stars in the Plaza de la Revolución, well over a million people were in attendance, school even hooked up free buses out there. Good times.

the stage from where i was sitting (standing for 4 hours? pass)

shout out to my chilean friends. flags of all nations were flying