Ukraine’s VV rock band first shows how to perform in Ukrainian

November 19, Kyiv’s Palace of Sports was packed hosting the legendary rock band Vopli Vidopliasova (VV)’s gala concert commemorating the band’s 25th anniversary, guest starring Boombox, Liapis Trubetskoy, Noggano, Auction, and Leningrad.

After the concert in memory of Braty Hadiukiny’s Serhii Kuzminsky this June no one had expected another Ukrainian rock band to have such a full house, not so soon anyway. Small wonder, considering that the Ukrainian audiences are being imposed a foreign lifestyle, including in the music domain, placing Ukrainian music on an artificial underground basis. Obviously there are thousands underground.

“I can see all who love their music here in this audience. Now everybody who realizes the importance of supporting Ukrainian music, particularly today, please raise a hand!” shouted TNMK’s Fozzey from the podium (he specially came to the gala concert to greet the VV).

Ukrainian music — particularly VV renditions — has always served the cause of national identity. Under the Soviets, Vopli Vidopliasova was actually the first Ukrainian-language rock band that made its name during the Chervona Ruta festival in 1989. Oleh Skrypka at first acted as a buffoon and was thus entitled to his jokes, each with a heavy grain of truth.

Says music critic Yurko ZELENY: “VV was the first rock band to demonstrate alternative rock music in Ukrainian, even though in a hooligan style. Acting as a redneck, Skrypka criticized a lot of things. In an early clip he ridiculed formal

Soviet parades and demonstrations. The important thing was the intellectual level of his burlesque. He wouldn’t slide on the surface but reach deep into each problem. The rock band was quickly becoming a phenomenon, with quite a few songs turning into cultural symbols, including the rebellious Vesna pryide (Spring will Come) and Kraina mrii (Dreamland), the former about changes for the better to come and the latter about a nation-state, then still a dream that would come true if one fought for it.

Oleksandra KOLTSOVA, Krykhitka Tsakhes’s vocalist and poet, says that both under the Soviets and afterward Ukrainian rock music was associated not with leather costumes but with red billowing trousers and a button accordion (Oleh’s home collection boasts seven functional and five torn ones to remember that those were The Days). Its key lyrics aren’t the usual make-love or I-hate-myself kind, but purely Ukrainian “spring, spring’ spring has come…” followed by “boo-boo-booi, boo-boo-boo-boo-boo-booi.”

Andrii KHLYVNIUK, Boombox [Ukrainian funky groove band]: “I first heard VV at school discos where I played. Even then I realized that Ukrainian rock-’n’-roll was popular and that rock songs could and should be performed in Ukrainian. Of course, VV’s impact was far stronger. We school students in Cherkasy grew very fond of the rock band and stopped calling Ukrainian-speaking mates rednecks. I’d never dream of singing Dreamland on stage (I used to sing it playing my guitar in the yard). In fact, it became my number-one hit parade.”

The audience represented practically all regions of Ukraine. A lot of fans came with their families, among them former hippies who had attended the earliest Chervona Ruta concerts, currently successful business managers, spin doctors, market experts with transnational companies, respectable family men and women, their children fresh from universities or university/college students, or high schoolseniors. Natalia SHYSHATSKA, a housewife (Dnipropetrovsk), brought her 4-year-old son Orest and 1.5-year-old daughter Vlasta because she wanted to instill in her children a taste for good music. She believes those who don’t know mo-dern Ukrainian culture should start by listening to such rock bands as VV. Serhii DOROFEIEV, Channel 5’s host (he moved to Ukraine from Belarus), says: “My mother was born in Lutsk and my father in Rivne. My grandparents are also buried in Ukraine. My parents were the first to tell me what was happening in Ukraine because they treasure freedom. I first heard VV in the early 1990s. At the time I worked for various radio stations in Belarus and took an interest in music. By the way, I often heard VV on various Russian channels, each performance being colorful and original. I think that VV reflects the history of Ukraine, not just that of music or culture. After all, the road it has traveled reminds one of the road travelled by Ukraine toward its independence and the experience of the past 20 years. Bravo, VV!”

The Day has closely followed VV’s career and Oleh Skrypka’s solo pro-jects. Naturally, the editors and experts have tried to build a formula of its success, finally agreeing that the rock band has succeeded in forming their own music culture, a mix of folk heritage, humor as an ideology, and European-format punk rock. Another very important thing is that this rock band has never succumbed to conjuncture.