Концерт группы ДДТ с симфоническим оркестром в Эрмитаже (август 2006)

RantWoman, What is the 2006 DDT performance with the Hermitage State Symphony doing here? How many layers of free association are readers going to have to plow through to figure out what if anything this has to do with Quakers?

DDT is a rock band that has been around since at least the late 1980's. Some of their songs are satirical streams of dissent. For instance, one of the songs here is called "I went drinking with a general from the FSB." Some are about other themes: love, the weather, life in Russia. They are not nearly as outrageous as either TaTu or Pussy Riot, other bands briefly mentioned somewhere in this blog, RantWoman has not gone looking on their own site to see why people are remastering and posting old shows on Youtube. RantWoman is simply going to meander around some topics that need more attention than this short intro.

This concert takes place on the grounds of the Hermitage,, formerly the Winter Palace. RantWoman has never immersed herself deeply in minute geographical details of the Russian revolutions, but RantWoman is pretty sure there were some days where the plaza where the concert takes place was a lot bloodier than this symphony performance. Please bear with RantWoman's whirlwind tour through the history of the Russian empire, the revolution, the Soviet period(s), the cold war, the times when some voices thought if we all sit around talking about what's in our purses the world will get more peaceful. Then came the Gorbachev era...Putin. One time RantWoman naively asked Ferrener Husband about a gap in his work history. He just said "the country fell apart. And in came lots of advisors from Harvard, some efforts to "help" develop civil society, and other topics RantWoman will froth at the keyboard about in other contexts.

Anyway, there's all of that but here is a nice symphony concert while RantWoman muddles around other threads on her mind.