Garik

On Tuesday night as the tension around the White House grew, and fear of an attack became more acute, musicians from various popular bands decided to put all the pent up energy there to work. They set up a makeshift sound system on the White House balcony above the crowd and put on a concert. One of them was Garik Sukachev, the singer from 'Brigada S', a band at the very forefront of the avant-garde music scene in the eighties, underground most of the time, but now in the nineties stars in their own right. The concert was important for the people. It gave them some sense of relief from the interminable waiting and took their minds off the threat of attack and perhaps more depressing, the rain.

Anya Chernyakhovskaya spoke to Garik:

I won't say that I could see it coming... But in April I did organise a big concert at 'Krylya Sovetov', the Air Force stadium, which I called 'Rock Against Terror'.

There has always been this feeling of tension in the air. All of us could sense the danger of a coup, military rule. Though none of us felt personally threatened. When we thought of putting on the concert in spring, by 'terror' we also meant dictatorship and everything that goes with it.

When I realised there had been a coup I felt completely betrayed and disappointed. "They've really fucked it up now!" was all I could think as I pushed my way through the crowd around Parliament House. We could hear deputies and journalists speaking. They sounded calm enough but tense. I was totally pissed off at myself, and everyone else, that we had thought about a coup, seen it coming, scratched our heads over it, and in the end done nothing.

People recognised me. Asking: "Well, what are you going to do now, Garik?" What could I say? I kept muttering: "Nothing! We'll hold out." Though I actually felt like throwing up.

Later, after we had finished playing, Kostya Kinchev, the singer from 'Alice', and I were sitting by a fire there strumming on guitars, just singing about our fears and hopes. People who had been watching us play up on the balcony came over and said it was the best concert we'd ever done.

No. We sang even better the next day when the sun came up and we knew we hadn't been singing our swan song!

Garik Sukachev
'Brigada S'