Early Saturday morning, Piknik, one of Russia's most popular traditional rock bands, posted the following message on their Vkontakte page, one of Russia's largest social media sites: “We are deeply shocked by this terrible tragedy and mourn with you.”
The night before, the band had been scheduled to play the first of two sold-out concerts with a symphony orchestra at Crocus City Hall in the Moscow suburbs. But before Picnic took the stage, four gunmen entered the spacious venue and opened fire, killing at least 133 people.
The victims appear to have included some of Piknik's own team. On Saturday evening, another note appeared on the band's Vkontakte page saying that the woman who ran the band's merchandise stand had gone missing.
“We are not ready to believe the worst,” the message said.
The attack at Crocus City Hall sparked renewed interest in Piknik, a band that has provided the soundtrack to the lives of many Russian rock fans for more than 40 years.
Ilya Kukulin, a cultural historian at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, said in an interview that Piknik was a “Soviet country” with songs inspired by classic Western rock acts, including David Bowie and various Russian styles. He said he was one of the “rock monsters”.
After the release of their debut album “Smoke” in 1982, led by the band's singer and guitarist Edmund Shklyarsky, their popularity grew despite their gloomy music with gothic lyrics. Kukulin attributed this in part to the group's creative stage show.
Kukulin said that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the band began performing with exciting light displays, special effects and other innovative touches. At one point in the 1990s, the band's concerts included a “living cello,” a woman with amplified strings stretched across her body. Shklyarsky played a solo on the strings.
This month, the band debuted a new song called “Nothing, Fear Nothing” online in a video that featured the band performing live in front of a large screen featuring constantly changing animations.
Unlike some of their peers, Piknik “has never been a political band,” Kukulin said. But that didn't stop it from becoming entangled in politics. In the 1980s, Soviet authorities banned the group, along with many other groups, from using recording studios, and Soviet newspapers complained about the group's lyrics, including the song “Opium Smoke”, which authorities deemed promoted drug use.
In recent years, some of Russia's most famous rock stars have left their country, fed up with the crackdown on freedom of expression, including regular crackdowns on President Vladimir V. Putin's concerts. Kukulin said Piknik benefited from the exodus because there was less competition on Russia's heritage rock circuit.
Unlike some musicians, Shklyarsky did not play a role in promoting Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Kukulin said. Nonetheless, Ukrainian authorities have long banned Picnic from performing in the country because they staged concerts in occupied Crimea. In a 2016 interview, Shklyarsky said he was not worried about the ban.
He said, “Politics comes and goes, but life remains.”
Kukulin said that among Piknik's songs was “To the Memory of Innocent Victims.” This track can be interpreted as a song about people who were politically oppressed under communism. Kukulin said many fans are now hearing the song in a new way, honoring those who lost their lives in Friday's attack.