Early Saturday, Piknik, considered one of Russia’s hottest heritage rock bands, printed a message to its web page on Vkontakte, one of many nation’s largest social media websites: “We’re deeply shocked by this horrible tragedy and mourn with you.”
The night time earlier than, the band was scheduled to play the primary of two sold-out concert events, accompanied by a symphony orchestra, at Crocus Metropolis Corridor in suburban Moscow. However earlier than Piknik took the stage, 4 gunmen entered the huge venue, opened hearth and murdered a minimum of 133 folks.
The victims seem to have included a few of Piknik’s personal crew. On Saturday night, one other observe appeared on the band’s Vkontakte web page to say that the lady who ran the band’s merchandise stalls was lacking.
“We’re not able to consider the worst,” the message mentioned.
The assault at Crocus Metropolis Corridor has introduced renewed consideration to Piknik, a band that has supplied the soundtrack to the lives of many Russian rock followers for over 4 many years.
Ilya Kukulin, a cultural historian at Amherst Faculty in Massachusetts, mentioned in an interview that Piknik was one of many Soviet Union’s “monsters of rock,” with songs impressed by traditional Western rock acts together with David Bowie and a spread of Russian kinds.
Since releasing its debut album, 1982’s “Smoke,” Piknik — led by Edmund Shklyarsky, the band’s singer and guitarist — has grown in reputation regardless of its music being typically gloomy with gothic lyrics. Kukulin attributed this partly to the group’s ingenious stage exhibits.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Kukulin mentioned, the band started performing with thrilling mild shows, particular results and different revolutionary touches. At one level within the Nineties, the band’s concert events included a “dwelling cello” — a lady with an amplified string stretched throughout her. Shklyarsky would play a solo on the string.
This month, the band debuted a brand new music on-line — “Nothing, Worry Nothing” — with a video that confirmed the band performing reside earlier than big screens that includes ever-changing animations.
In contrast to a few of their friends, Piknik was “by no means a political band,” Kukulin mentioned, though that didn’t cease it from turning into entwined in politics. Within the Nineteen Eighties, Soviet authorities banned the group — together with many others — from utilizing recording studios, whereas Soviet newspapers complained of the group’s lyrics, together with a music referred to as “Opium Smoke” that authorities noticed as encouraging drug use.
In recent times, a few of Russia’s most outstanding rock stars have left their nation, fed up with President Vladimir V. Putin’s curbs on freedom of expression, together with common crackdowns on concert events. Piknik had benefited from that exodus, Kukulin mentioned, as a result of the band had fewer opponents on Russia’s heritage rock circuit.
In contrast to some musicians, Shklyarsky had not acted as a booster for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Kukulin mentioned. Nonetheless, Ukrainian authorities have lengthy banned Piknik from performing within the nation as a result of the group has performed concert events in occupied Crimea. In a 2016 interview, Shklyarsky mentioned he was not involved in regards to the ban.
“Politics comes and goes, however life stays,” he mentioned.
Kukulin mentioned that amongst Piknik’s songs was “To the Reminiscence of Harmless Victims” — a observe that may very well be interpreted as being about those that have been politically oppressed underneath communism. Now, Kukulin mentioned, many followers have been listening to the music in a brand new approach, as a tribute to those that misplaced their lives in Friday’s assault.
