This is a festival that loves its artists. After all, the organizers here give each artist or group the opportunity to play their full program, usually for 1 hour and 20 minutes or a little more. And they always maintain an almost perfect balance in the program, where they are roughly on par with new and current names and respected celebrities.
That’s why a lot of people flocked to this Chess & Jazz to see the artists and bands that became discoveries of this season. Although they appeared several seasons earlier, they were in record demand in 2024. And the viscous and mocking singer from Sevastopol Ksenia Minaeva, who continues the traditions of another female substyle in pop rock, called “new sincerity”, and another flagship of Russian blues-rock, in which poetry is no less important than music – the group “Sirotkin” of singer and guitarist Sergei Sirotkin.
And the Zoloto group, which plays guitar rock with electronic accompaniment and figurative, sharp and metaphorical lyrics in the tradition of Vladimir Mayakovsky and the Oberiuts, became one of the headliners of this open air. Of course, their main hit of today was also heard – “Ribs”, which also contains such ironic lines: “It seems that you and I are works of art.” The couples in love continued to sing them to each other, even when the song had already ended…
Many bought tickets for the stars: Yolka, Marselle, synth-pop and new wave stars Tesla Boy Anton Sevidova and Anzhelika Varum, who gave her big concert here, which she hasn’t been doing often lately. As always, charming, playful, sometimes languid, she again recalled many of her sonorous, warm and enveloping hits from the 1990s to the delight of the audience, in honour of her recent 55th birthday. Angelika Varum sang again like an excellent student and the audience sang along with her, without missing a beat or forgetting the lyrics. I was afraid of missing one of her smiles or notes…
When the concert on one stage ended, the second soon took over. And in the Hermitage garden one could play a chess tournament, launch a flying saucer, compete in badminton, dance and simply lie on the grass to enjoy the good mood and warmth of the still sun-drenched lawn in the centre of Moscow.
A very timely refuelling of positivity and emotions before, unfortunately, the autumn that is already approaching.
