Roger Waters Plays St. Petersburg - The St. Petersburg Times - Arts + Features - Chernov’s choice

Roger Waters Plays St. Petersburg

Chernov’s choice

Bob Dylan’s local concert drew between 4,000 and 5,000 fans on Tuesday, Kommersant reported. The number included fans who came in from Moscow and other Russian cities to see Dylan’s only Russian concert on the tour, as the legend was stopping in the city on his way from Helsinki to Tallinn.

It may look like a ridiculously paltry turnout for a European Dylan concert — the Ice Palace, where the concert was held, can seat 12,000 and must have looked half-empty with, according to another report, only 50 fans raving in front of the stage — but it’s a huge number for Russia where Dylan, for a number of reasons including poor local knowledge of English, lack of interest in American roots music and an underdeveloped taste in popular music, only has a cult following.

Only playing keyboard (no trademark guitar-harmonica combination), Dylan performed 17 songs in two hours, including “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,” “Girl of the North Country,” “Just Like a Woman,” “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” and “Highway 61 Revisited”, with “Like a Rolling Stone” as a last encore, according to Bob Links website.

While Roger Waters is notorious for his anti-capitalist, anti-politician stance (metaphorically depicting the targets of his criticism as “pigs” and “dogs” in his former band Pink Floyd’s 1977 album “Animals”), Waters has found himself in the perhaps uncomfortable position of being a “gift” of capitalists and politicians.

Waters’ City Hall-supported open-air concert on Palace Square on Friday is held on the opening day of the International Economic Forum and is, officially, a “gift from the Forum to guests and residents of St. Petersburg,” according to the Economic Forum’s English-language website.

Waters might still use a big flying inflatable pig as a stage prop, but he appears to have changed his principles or been misinformed about the nature of his show, which is part of the official event drawing thousands of top businessmen and politicians, including President Dmitry Medvedev, to St. Petersburg.

Heavy security measures and the suppression of public protests are expected.

And, in reality, it’s not much of a gift — although the concert is free in theory, a large area of Palace Square is reserved for a V.I.P. zone, with tickets costing between 3,000 and 15,000 rubles ($127-$636).

Could there be a better illustration of capitalist greed?

This week’s other concerts of note include that by PJ Harvey, who will perform at Music Hall on Saturday, and Massive Attack, who will open the Stereoleto series of music events on Yelagin Ostrov on Wednesday.

— By Sergey Chernov

The St. Petersburg Times - Arts + Features - Chernov’s choice