Love has charged: how the "Beasts" celebrated their 25th anniversary at the Luzhniki Stadium

Fans of the "Beasts" sent the Rum of the Beast to surf around the Luzhniki Arena, drowned in valentines, and sent greetings from different cities and countries. On August 16, the stadium hosted the anniversary concert of the iconic rock band. The band celebrated its 25th anniversary and presented the audience with their favorite songs: "Neighborhoods", "For You", "Everything that Concerns You" and others. How the show went is in the Izvestia report.

"Beasts" gathered 60 thousand people in Luzhniki Stadium

An hour before the start of the concert, the "Beasts" were relaxing in one of the stadium boxes behind the stage — one of the guys was playing ping-pong, Roma was steaming his jacket.

"Nothing is planned, it's just a concert, no surprises," he told reporters when asked if the band was preparing something special in honor of its 25th anniversary.

Meanwhile, the front rows in the arena were already tightly occupied by the audience, and it soon became clear that they would be responsible for the surprises and shows here. Fans of the "Beasts" could easily pass for football. They greeted the artists with endless posters, banners and huge flags with greetings from different cities — Vologda, Vladivostok, St. Petersburg, Chelyabinsk, Krasnodar, Vladimir, Omsk, Kazan, Belgorod, Yekaterinburg.

— We've been listening to "The Beasts" for over 20 years. We make flash mobs and prepare gifts for them. This time — a statuette in the form of "Luzhniki" with a key that they picked up to millions of hearts, — Anna Bolshagina and Inga Semenova from Yekaterinburg told Izvestia.

They even came from other countries. For example, eight members of one of the oldest fan clubs of the group from Belarus.

— Our fan club celebrated its 20th anniversary this year. He appeared when we just met the girls before the concert, we didn't even know each other, but decided to team up. I was 17 at the time, I was graduating from high school. We met the band on the same day — we were lucky! And then we toured all the cities of Russia with them, and also Belarus, when there were tours there. We even rode the bus with them," said Yulia Nikiforova from Minsk.

"That was crazy!"

The arena held 60,000 people, who lit their lightsticks with the first chords and sang "If you say yes" in unison. Once it seemed like a dream.

— When we assembled the Olympic two years after the formation of the group, Sasha Voitinsky and I decided to celebrate, took champagne and drove to Vorobyovy Gory. We look at the Luzhniki Stadium, and Sasha says: "It would be nice to have a concert here." I replied, "Definitely sometime," the band's leader, Roman Bilyk, recalled in an interview with reporters.

Alexander Voitinsky, known today mostly as a director (among his works are "At the Behest of the Pike" with Nikita Kologrivy and "Flint" with Roman Evdokimov), stood at the origins of "The Beasts". The project was born in 2000 after they met the leader of the future rock band. He also shot the band's first music videos.

— I remember shooting the first clip of "For You" the most, because it was crazy. We were shooting machine guns in the city center (laughs)! And it was next to Znamenka, the street leading to the Kremlin. There are motorcades driving, but our shells are flying. The special services came to us: "What are you doing here? Are you crazy? Who gave you permission?" But we had everything. It was great, fun! — said the musician.

The actress for this video was found just on the street. But the performer of the main role for the video for the song "See you soon" — through a complex casting.

— I remember that day because there were many actresses, but we couldn't find the right one and ended the day with a heavy heart. The lights have already been turned off, and the last person runs up the stairs. It was Julia Snigir. She says, "Sorry, I'm late. May I?" They made another sample and selected it. She shocked and charmed! — Alexander Voitinsky told Izvestia. — I took the clips very seriously. One of the first — "Everything that concerns you" — became an absolute bomb. It has a wonderful plot, but it's very simple. It fits into four words — getting ready, getting dressed, meeting, undressing. No one believes me that I've been coming up with this scenario for a year. It worked because everyone understands this story," the director said.

Roma The Beast surfed at Luzhniki

The stories that the "Beasts" tell, both new and old, are understandable to the public today. Perhaps that's why the band has such a dedicated fan community, which caused absolute madness at the anniversary concert. During the song "Surfer", the audience started spraying soap bubbles and held up a large figure of a musician on a board, as if cutting through the waves.

Fans had another ace up their sleeve for every new track. To "Southern Night" ("Girls, boys dance"), a crowd of thousands jumped up and down with colored pom—poms in their hands, to "Marusya" they put glowing wreaths on their heads, in which stern bearded men looked especially touching, lanterns illuminated the stadium on "Stronger Drinks", and the front rows raised flags in the form of cocktails, "Dance for Me" and "Rain Pistols" - thousands of valentines.

And when the song "Dreaming" started playing, people from different parts of the arena began to pass two halves of a big heart towards each other, which joined right in front of the stage and lit up with the number 25. The final chord of this whole extravaganza was the immortal hit "Districts-quarters".

To recover from the concert, Roma the Beast went fishing in Astrakhan. There's a documentary about the band ahead. He has been preparing for several years. The premiere is scheduled for 2026.