In January PLAYOFF played “On stage with Vysotskiy”

The year 2008 started for me with…Vysotskiy. With his songs, his life story, his friends’ memories. While preparing materials for the concert commemorated to the 70th anniversary of Vladimir Vysotskiy, I caught myself at the thought, that “how interesting the life must have been at those times when he lived!”. Despite all the bans, denunciations and arrests, poets had what to write about, what to strive for and what to aim at. New big names in Russian poetry appeared then: Bella Akhmadulina, Andrei Voznesenskiy, Eugene Evtushenko, Bulat Okudjava, Vladimir Vysotskiy. In their works they praised all the best in man. Their concerts and plays were sold out at any point of the country…

Today, living in the new times and in the new country we feel the lack of spirituality that can be found in every line of their poems and songs. Therefore once a year, on the 25th of January we make this commemoration concert of Vysotskiy’s songs to celebrate birthday of the person who was named “the voice and the conscience of the era” by his contemporaries and whose poems still have and will surely always have great weight. His songs, to put it short, is the Good itself. Apart from their literary and musical value, these songs are the textbooks to study by our children and grandchildren.

This year, besides Odessa, we decided to give this concert in Kiev, Dnepropetrovsk, Donetsk and Lugansk. And not in vain as it turned out, for in every nook of our country there are people who remember and love his songs. We were really pleased to see your faces at the concerts – serious and concentrated, strained and lightened – to put it short considerate.

All along the month of preparations – script writing, rehearsals and performances themselves – we spoke to each other in the language of his songs. Every now and again the phrases or even entire lines from his poems came into our minds and helped us take the right decision in complex situations. Again we submerged into the world of Vysotskiy and felt a sort of purification, after which little seems too difficult to you and you want to save the world from lies and evil and fill the life of your people with new sense. Hope that this submergence also charged you with new energy, and your further steps in life will be light and always right!

Sincerely,
Dmitriy Smirnov and PLAYOFF Rock Team