Kings of Ukrainian rock-and-roll
The Serhii Kuzminsky tribute concert brought together musicians and the society
DakhaBrakha, Braty Karamazovy, Mertvy Piven, Dymna Sumish, Perkalaba, Mad Heads XL, Komu Vnyz, TiK, Plach Eremiyi, Pikkardiiska Tertsia, Mandry, TNMK, Lyapis Trubetskoy, Haidamaky, Boombox, VV, and Okean Elzy at the Serhii Kuzminsky concert.
It’s interesting that the concert of Braty Hadiukiny took place almost at the same time as the performance of Ringo Starr in Kyiv. The cult group Hadiukiny is the equivalent of The Beatles for Ukrainian music, as least in terms of social revolution. However, unlike The Beatles, our Braty Hadiukiny are still in an “artificial underground.”
“Hady is the basis of Ukrainian rock-and-roll,” says Misko Barbara from Mertvy Piven. “Lviv; the early 1990s; Braty Hadiukiny, sister Vika… Soon Plach Yeremii and Mertvy Piven appeared. It seemed to us that we were the center of the universe. And everything happening around us was not important. We are the only ones creating history. To some extent it was really so.”
“Serhii Kuzminsky was the voice of revolution in Ukrainian music,” Oleksandr “Fozzey” Sydorenko of TNMK supposes. “We had traditional popular music. It lived at the UT-1 channel. Then Braty Hadiukiny appeared and everything changed.”
“Once my school peer gave me a cassette of Braty Hadiukiny to listen to,” Slavko Vakarchuk of Okean Elzy recollects. “If I hadn’t listened to that record, who knows whether I would have believed that one can sing rock in Ukrainian.”
“I consider Hady to be the most successful incarnation of The Rolling Stones in the Ukrainian music space,” says Oleh Skrypka of VV. “Not only stylistically, but also due to the fact that they carried out some kind of mission as well. Since they managed to change the idea about the essence of things for all the post-Soviet generation. I’m sure the perestroika in Ukraine started precisely from the song ‘Vsio chotko!’”
Back in those days society was oppressed and gloomy, and crime was on the rise. One must remember that the change that took place was not just political (the collapse of the USSR) but also economic and social (inflation, unemployment, poverty, etc.). Tough guys were walking down Svoboda
Avenue in Lviv, wearing tracksuits of Chinese production and nibbling sunflower seeds. Those times were reflected in the songs of Braty Hadiukiny. Those songs really touched people the right way, and they continue to do so. Braty Hadiukiny’s songs are as true as ever. They are our history.
Some musicians point out that over the twenty years since Ukraine’s independence there were only two comfortable periods for Ukrainian music. The first one lasted for the first two thirds of the 1990s. The second was the first year of Yushchenko’s presidency. And then... back to the underground. Until now. As the concert showed, thousands of people are in this underground now. There are whole families there, multiple generations. This is also the result of the work of Ukraine’s journalists, who try to let the nation know about its culture. The director of the event “I returned home” Mykhailo Krupiievsky points out that though Ukrainian culture is vivid and expressive, we have a very vague idea about it. Therefore, according to him, it should be represented with a sense of style and taste, showing where the border between culture and kitsch is. (Thank you, Mykhailo, for the hard rock concert! And for the great background video images.)
Modern Ukrainian history has suffered many defeats. The most recent ones took place during the last two years, when the nation’s culture came under attack. Having united in this event, musicians showed an example for the entire society, remembering that Ukrainian rock always helps one to feel where one belongs. With this demonstrative act they showed that one shouldn’t wait for politicians, we should come together!
“The uniting process is peculiar for Ukrainians,” Serhii Proskurnia sums up. “We can unite based on different characteristics: professional, family, closer or further kinship, culinary (creating a party of those in love with salo or fans of varenyky). But most importantly – we can do this in the face of danger, when we may lose our identity. Then we become constructive, full of love to each other. We are precisely in this period now. ”
