The first Russian open-air events — music festivals with many thousands of annual attendees — will take off early this summer. Some of them have already been held, while others will take place during these festive days or are only being prepared. We offer you a brief review of most exciting festivals.
“This year we are ready to receive up to 400,000 people and have even set up twice as many toilets as we did last year,” says Eva Bespalova, organizer of the Rock over the Volga festival. Last year the festival near Samara was visited by 250,000 people and this number keeps growing with each passing year. The same dynamics is typical of the other important rock festivals: 170,000 visited the Invasion last year and 250,000 attended the Creation of the World event.
“The budget of such a big festival as Rock over the Volga amounts to dozens of millions of rubles,” says Ms Bespalova. “I cannot name the exact figure but the lion's share is spent on the fees and royalties for performers.”
The organizer also shared a special concept of her event: “When we were planning our festival in 2009, we decided that there would be no major or minor actors – each participant should be a headliner.” Take the revived group Garbage, for example. According to Bespalova, the American musicians offered their participation themselves: “We were approached by our partners from the biggest agency LiveNation, representing the celebrities from Madonna to U2, and Garbage are already coming to us. We are delighted!”
Bespalova says the example of Garbage is not the only one in their practice as rock stars willingly agree to come to Russia: “Foreign artistes are less fretful than ours, especially regarding the common rider. They are not scared away by foul weather and mud, for if you compare the famous British festival Glastonbury with ours, their mud is not inferior to our black soil and sometimes is even more challenging.”
By all appearances, rock is still alive and popular in this country, whereas in the West electronic music has long come into fashion.
“Our audience indeed has deep affection for rock, even though interest in this genre is on the wane,” says musical journalist and general director of InterMedia Evgeny Safronov. “But interest in rock festivals is not only conditioned upon the musical predilections; economics is also important. Rock festivals are not so hard on people's pockets: visitors get plenty of music and cheap beer in exchange for inexpensive tickets.”
In addition, Russia has not yet developed the culture of big dance festivals and there are no electronic music stars. “Our DJs are not up to the mark: if we organize a festival where only representatives of Russian electronic music will perform, we'd have a very poor footfall. If we bring in Western celebrities, the organizer may go into the red, having stumped up a heap of money,” says Safronov.
In his opinion, the Russian audience no longer views rock as the music of “storm and stress”. “Rock has almost lost its protest message, for it no longer stands up against the Communist oligarchy as was the case in the 1970s,” comments Safronov who believes that the rebellious spirit has migrated to hip-hop while solid rockers no longer protest, save maybe for Yuri Shevchuk.”
“Nobody goes to festivals in order to protest,” adds Safronov. “People want just to relax, have a glass of beer and listen to music. And probably this is good.”
Four top open-air events
ROCK OVER THE VOLGA
Samara Region, Petra-Dubrava community, June 11
Free entrance
This is already the third festival under this brand — this time it will be conducted on a new venue. The organizers expect up to 400 thousand visitors.
Who performs: Garbage, Limp Bizkit, ZAZ, U-Peter, Igor Rasteryaev, Bi-2, Leningrad, Aquarium.
MAXIDROME
Tushino, June 10 and 11
This year not only rock masters, but young Russian musicians as well will perform.
Entry: from 2,000 to 7,000 rubles per day
Who performs: Linkin Park and The Cure, Noel Gallacher
INVASION
Tver Region, Konakovo community, July 6-8
Entry: from 1,500 to 6,000 rubles
The main festival of Russian rock will step into a new decade of its history.
Who performs: Zemfira, Aquarium, Brainstorm, Igor Rasteryaev, DDT
KUBANA
Taman, Krasnodar Territory, August 1-5
The main pro of Kubana is close proximity of music venues to sandy Black Sea beaches.
Entry: 1,500 rubles per day
Who performs: Korn, Gogol Bordello, Leningrad, Noize MC, Lyapis Trubetskoy, Billy’s Band, Dolphin
Source: Trud
