The four-day festival, which kicks off its seventh year of existence Thursday at the Tank Academy Club on Krasnokazarmennaya Ulitsa, has a simple goal, according to its organizer, John Yevseyenko.
"The name of the festival is meant to attract as many people as possible to the idea of taking a Moscow street with an old Soviet, industrial name and renaming it Love Street," said Yevseyenko, who put the concerts together with the help of the Independent Youth League, a non-governmental organization that arranges cultural and environmental events. "This would be a street with no factories and no shops -- just a gathering place for poets, artists and musicians. A street like this would be the first step towards a cultural revival for Russia's people."
"Every year we gather people's signatures on a manifesto addressed to the city authorities in order to draw their attention to our demands," he added. "We're seriously suggesting that one of the capital's avenues should be renamed Love Street."
This year's festival is dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the Woodstock music festival. And the choice of locale, Yevseyenko said, was no accident -- the Tank Academy Club, he hopes, will evoke memories of the anti-war demonstrations held in the United States and Europe in the late 1960s and early '70s.
In keeping with the spirit of the festival, most of the performances will be acoustic and somewhat folksy. Presentations and exhibits by various peace-minded Moscow artists will also be featured.
Perhaps the most unusual performer at this year's Love Street will be Olga Arefyeva, a singer from Yekaterinburg whose best songs, "Hallelujah" and "Stop-Blues," were released as part of the recent "Anthology of Christian Rock" LP and contain emotional lyrics considering different aspects of religious belief.
"We play real Russian music," said Arefyeva, who will be performing two sets -- "Acoustic Ark" and "Reggae Ark" -- at the festival. "There's a feeling of truthfulness in all my songs. We don't have a special goal, we don't sing in English and we don't orient ourselves to the West. We just play music we like."
The festival will also feature veterans of the rock scene like the Moscow-based Olovyanniye Soldatki, who have been performing since 1967, and Razniye Lyudi from Kharkov. One of the best discoveries of the year, the talented blues band Hearts, is also scheduled to perform. The festival will wrap up with concerts by a number of reggae bands from Moscow, Voronezh and Kaliningrad.
The Love Street Music Festival runs until July 31 at the Tank Academy Club, located at 2 Krasnokazarmennaya Ulitsa. Thursday's concert will begin at 7 P.M. and will feature Kegli Mowgli (psychedelic rock), the Beatmakers (classic rock), Fools in Paradise (rhythm and blues), Pipe and Piper (mainstream), and Crossroads (blues). Concerts will be held at 4 P.M. Friday and at 2 and 7 P.M. Saturday and Sunday. Tel. 235-4011 between 11 A.M. and 3 P.M. Nearest metro: Baumanskaya.
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