December 25th Paulo FG and Los Van Van —Revolution Square

Paulito’s new reguetón single, with singer Roldán González from Orishas, is at least more tasteful than the other big salseros' attempts. I’m convinced it shouldn’t be that hard to come up with a cool pop hybrid of timba and reguetón, but this isn’t quite it. Paulito was on TV talking about finally getting his new album out, which he says, is all dance oriented, salsa, reguetón, bachata, etc. No comment…

Nonetheless at the December 25th giant bash in celebration of the 47th triumph of the Revolution, Paulito put on a good solid timba show, that featured a bit of Con la conciencia tranquila and La especulación de la Habana, unfortunately more of a tease than anything. The highlight was a long version of his latest timba single Libertad. His set ended with a new song, not included on the recent album release, a timbaesque song about the santos.

Following Paulo, Los Van Van took the stage under the watchful gaze of the giant José Martí statue, opening with Chapeando, followed by Timbop, and all the singles from Chapeando. There were at least 60,000 on hand to seal a great day of events, that included a carnival parade with all the great conga comparsas, a giant exercise workout with more than 5,000 participating, sports events —including boxing lessons from Feliz Savón— and a circus.