Manic Street Preachers rock Havana - and Castro

The Manic Street Preachers have played the biggest rock concert in Cuba for 20 years.

The country's President Fidel Castro was one of 2,000 people to see the Welsh band rock Havana.

Castro was cheered by the crowd as he took his seat just before the band started their hour-long set.

The President stood and applauded after lead singer James Dean Bradfield performed an acoustic version of Baby Elian, an anti-American song about Elian Gonzales, who returned to Cuba from the US last year after an international custody dispute.

Baby Elian calls the US "the devil's playground" and says Elian had been "kidnapped to the promised land".

Band members also dedicated a song to three-time Cuban Olympic boxing champion Felix Savon.

The band played tracks from their latest album, Know Your Enemy, whose cover sports a Cuban flag.

Their free performance at the Karl Marx theatre was billed as the biggest concert in Cuba by a Western rock band in 20 years.

In 1979, Billy Joel and Kris Kristofferson teamed up with Cuban musicians in an event called Havana Jams.

Bradfield told a pre-concert news conference: "Cuba has shown its independence and is a good example that everything doesn't have to be 'Americanised' in this world."