The legendary Leningrad rock club turned 45 years old

Exactly 45 years ago, the Leningrad Rock Club opened its doors, which became a starting point in the country's musical history. It was on this site that informal culture was actually legalized.

It was the only club where you could officially play rock and not get time for it.

"It was impossible without permission. And it was punished if you put in a song without permission, sing, and then the club council punished you," recalls Gennady Barikhnovsky, a musician and lead singer of the Myths group, noting that performers often performed without permission.

They often showed one thing and sang another, or "dusted off" before the performance: they said that the song was dedicated to the labor movement or the struggle for peace, but the audience understood everything.

The hall could accommodate 600 people. Some of the tickets were given to the musicians, who distributed them to their friends. Several chairs were occupied by people in jackets, who were watching what they were singing about from the stage. But there has never been 600. Someone was climbing up drainpipes, someone was climbing through the windows of dressing rooms – in general, it was full of rock and roll.

The rock wave from the north swept over the rest of the cities of the USSR, but there was a highlight in the Leningrad club, which even today colleagues in the rock workshop speak of with a certain amount of envy.

"The element of gouging was always present, because artists who were essentially amateur were allowed to perform on stage. Nevertheless, they had some interesting creative, poetic ideas," added Vadim Samoilov, a musician and founder of the Agatha Christie group.

However, it barely "warmed up", and the bands began to publish albums officially — and the meaning of rock clubs seemed to disappear by itself.

"For example, I can't imagine today if a group was created, where to run, where to shout, because the Internet is an enormous space," said Edmund Shklyarsky, the leader of the Picnic group.

This is a new reality, when it costs only 600 rubles to upload a song to all streaming services.

"The competition has become much more intense, but the means of promotion have also changed. Everything went online," said Nikita Platonov, a student of the school of rock, the lead singer of the band "Adeyalo".

Now every musician is his own rock club. There are several hundred bands and dozens of schools on the banks of the Neva River alone, where they teach how to play. And which of them will become legends, new "Movies", or "Auctions" — depends only on them. The main thing is that 45 years ago, thanks to Rubinstein, 13, it became possible to play rock.

"The fame of the Leningrad rock club was massive, and I was passionate about it"

One of the main venues of Soviet rock is 45 years old

Vadim Samoilov performed with the Symphony Orchestra in Moscow on March 1. For the concert with the symphony orchestra, the founder of Agatha Christie synthesized two musical energies — rock and roll and academic. The tenor of the French horn, the hoarse bass of the bassoon and the thin soprano of the flute sounded in the hall, filling the symphonic palette of instruments with unusual shades and semitones.