.jpg)
Sport 32: Summer 2004
Havana Nirvana
Havana Nirvana
Poti runs the Havana Bar. It was wrought, semi-legally, from a tiny cottage, the last on Wigan Street: it was scooped out from the inside like a papaya, by Tim and Geoff—the partners in Havana Coffee. After hours, with indefatigable energy: till two, three, four in the morning. Tara tells you—she happened to be living on Wigan Street at the time, long before she met Jonathan and Riki, and often unable to sleep because of the noise—that she would knock on the door, two, three, four in the morning, and they'd sit her in the corner and feed her creamy cocktails until she fell asleep.
Jonathan and Riki play here Thursday nights, and anyone else who turns up. It's hard to know. Patrick might. Rio often does. Lucien won't, because they can't afford to pay him and Lucien has a clear idea of his own worth, but he could wander in for a drink just the same. Mabeth has. The very idea of the IAP was born from the Cuban-born Kiko, brought in by a friend, sitting down and playing, unannounced, in this tiny space.
You've seen this place packed to the rafters, almost literally. The night both Fima and Miguel played, looking in from the balcony from where the crew was shooting, people were banked like in an amphitheatre; they must have been standing on tables.
Other Thursdays almost no one is there. No one else comes to play; Riki and Jonathan lock into each other, deep in a private conversation, played in public, which could go anywhere, watching each other the way they do, like lovers. They might swap instruments. (Emma, coming in from the bathroom, laughs and says, ‘I thought something funny was going on. Even in there I couldn't believe how loud the drums were.’)
It's warm and intimate, with only the candles burning, and the stills photographer gone. Being here on one of the quiet Thursdays gives page 117 you all the comfortable, pleased-with-yourself feeling of being in a club so exclusive no one else knows it exists.