Concrete Playground

Manu Chao visits Australia for the first time to play exclusively at Sydney Festival. Having made music since the late '80s as leader of rock outfit Mano Negra and then as a solo artist, Chao is one of the world's most well-known and respected musicians, with a huge cult following in all corners of the globe - from South, Central and North America to Europe, Japan, Africa and back - selling more than 10 million albums.

Chao's music is multilingual and broadly multicultural, blending rock, reggae, punk, ska, and found sounds in compositions sung in English, Portuguese, French, Spanish and Italian. The Paris-born, Barcelona-based artist of Spanish descent finds inspiration in street culture and local bar scenes, and has long collaborated with musicians and artists who share his ethos.

Chao's first solo album, 1998's Clandestino, was a huge success, shifting in excess of four million copies worldwide to become the second biggest-selling world music album in history after Ry Cooder's Buena Vista Social Club. His next album, 2001's Proxima Estacion: Esperanza ('Next Stop: Hope' - a reference to an announcement on a Madrid train station) consolidated his place as one of the world's most successful recording artists.