Rock jubilee
“Aquarium”
Has Turned 30
This can hardly be guessed from the composition of
the spectators who attended the concert-premiere of the Sister Chaos album in
Luzhniki. The audience was made up of the young and old, as they say, and the
chief celebrant, Boris Grebenshchikov, looked brand-new. The texts were abreast
with the time, the familiar and unfamiliar music was heard, and even old hits,
nostalgic as they were, sounded in a new way.
The dancing audience looked like a paragraph from a text-book of
history, both past and modern. It included people from 30 to 50 years of age
and those who were simply standing and listening, as well as gamboling
youngsters, some of whom were almost teenagers. It is surprising but the “children”
did not only dance; they picked up the tunes and sang at the top of their
voices, revealing an astonishing knowledge of the texts of the songs, some of
which were almost twice as old as they themselves.
There was also a peculiar dialogue. “Do you know and like our
Greben (Grebenshchikov)?” asked the bearded man of about 50, addressing a young
couple who danced self-obliviously to the tune of My Lord’s Silver. “Sure, we
do,” was the answer. “What’s so strange about it? And why do you say ‘our’?”
True, there were apprehensions that Sister Chaos would prove to be not as great as its predecessor songs from “the generation of yard-keepers and watchmen” and the chaos of perestroika. But, thank God, the audience was not disappointed. Once again Aquarium presented history from the point of view of philosophy of the universe through the medium of music and words.
Thirty years is
a rather long span of time during which circumstances might change but not the
essence of being. Listening to Aquarium today, every person finds something his
or her own in its performance: some perceive the philosophy of changes, while
others – simply life as it is.
Vyacheslav BUTSENIN.
Milana MILEDINA.
Photograh by Maxim SHIBAYEV.