The powerful political art of Chilean painter and mural artist Rene Castro has been shown all over the world. His work became known to U2 fans initially after featuring on The Joshua Tree Tour and later when the band commissioned him to come up with a series of striking, colourful images for the LoveTown Tour including a guitar, candle, snakes, dollar signs and stars and stripes. Rene also painted some of the cars on the ZOOTV Tour.
After the 1973 military coup in Chile, Rene spent two years in a concentration camp - including ten weeks in what is now Estadio Nacional, where the show took place on Friday. Later he escaped and sought exile in the US and, though now back in Chile, seeing U2 on Friday was only the second time he'd been back to the stadium since.
During the show the band played a haunting instrumental version of Mothers of the Disappeared and One Tree Hill, which references Chilean cultural hero Victor Jara and Bono gave a special welcome to Rene, ' an old friend'.
No comments:
Post a Comment