CubaPLUS Magazine

Diverse generations of Cubans, lovers of the legendary band The Beatles and others who also made an era in music, turned the Yellow Submarine cultural center into a temple where perhaps you can breathe nostalgia, but above all you can listen to good music.

Live presentation of Cuban groups, recordings and audiovisuals of the most prominent performers and bands on the international scene, mainly in the sixties and seventies, can be enjoyed at this site in Havana’s El Vedado neighborhood, temporarily on hiatus due to the pandemic of Covid-19, although always memorable.

Its charm is irresistible. The bar takes on details such as hatches, tubular shapes and other pieces of a submarine, and on the walls the lyrics of the songs and the drawings of the faces of The Beatles welcome the visitor in their interesting mix of the best of pop art and avant-garde styles.

The conception of the place is due to the talent of three young graduates of the Higher Institute of Industrial Design of Cuba: Elizabeth Rojas, Maikel Sánchez and Rafael Mateu, and the artistic direction of the groups that, after nine at night, perform there, run by the journalist and television director Guille Vilar, a furious Beatlemaniac who owes much to the successful incredible place.

Vilar maintains that The Beatles are part of Cuban culture because of the influence they exerted and still do on the country#39;s musicians and on successive generations who began to listen to them and imitate their styles of dress and life since the 1960s.

The Beatles were in Cuba, as in the rest of the world, a turning point not only in sonorities, but also in customs. Although they were not well understood by cultural authorities at that time, young Cubans managed to obtain their records and there was no young celebration in which their songs were not present.

Authors such as the late Juan Formell, director of the popular Los Van Van orchestra, and the singer-songwriter Silvio Rodríguez, among many others, have recognized their influence in works that, despite their Cuban identity, bear the imprint of those geniuses from Liverpool that many include in a list of classics such as Mozart or Bach. The misunderstanding about The Beatles is a thing of the past in Cuba.

In front of the Yellow Submarine, located in a basement that also commemorates La Caverna where John, Ringo, Paul and George made themselves known, includes the sculpture of Lennon, made by José Villa Soberón, sitting on a park bench, in front of the night club. Lennon has already given this park his name, and countless visitors come to take pictures of it. Lovers of that music should arrive early to the Submarine, a place that is never empty and whose mysterious charm makes whoever visits, a regular.