Yesterday Boris Grebenshchikov and his band Aqurium performed at Tbilisi Concert Hall. Although I'm not huge fan of him I must admit, he is so called Russian Rock Grandfather and it would be a crime to waste an opportunity to visit his concert right next door, here in Tbilisi.
About concert:
Since I was not very familiar with his creation, first part of concert I just listened, to determine, do I like him or not. His music is really eclectic, so I found something from Visotsky and Tsoi (Kino), then Russian Rock Grandfather turned to reggae, I found both Bob Marley and Bob Dylan, even some Irish folk music was found in his creation.
By now, I can tell you this - Boris Grebenshchikov is an Artist with the big letter A. His is true master.
About Tbilisi Concert Hall:
There was some problems with organization entrance into hall, nobody is left inside, 10 minutes before start of concert, and then there is huge mess and queue.
Overall feeling - It was great evening, learning more about Russian Rock music in pleasant company.
About Boris Grebenshchikov and his relationship with Tbilisi:
BG's big break (or, in retrospect, his and the band's "watershed" moment), however, came in 1980, when Artemy Troitsky, the first public Russian rock critic and theenabling figure in many a Russian rock musician's career, invited Aquarium to perform at the Tbilisi Rock Festival.
The festival was a state-sanctioned attempt to channel the then-burgeoning Russian rock music movement into a controllable ideological vessel. It featured a laundered line-up of government-approved rock bands, but also Kraftwerk, whose performance was accompanied by frisbees being launched into the public. Members of the jury (the occasion was officially an artistic contest) were not amused. A covert KGB-bound report pinned the shenanigans on Aquarium, which caused BG to lose his day job at a backwater design bureau (of a kind that employed the majority of technical specialty graduates in the Soviet Union; Russians called them P.O. Box (Pochtoviy yaschik) because their street addresses were never revealed), and membership in Komsomol, the Young Communist League, which was a career kiss of death for a Soviet citizen in 1980.
