Books Editor Constance Roisin reviews Pussy Riot’s anti-war tour as it closed the Great Western Festival.
As it is the last act of a day-long festival, the crowd are all tired, half sitting down around the room, and no one seems to notice when a member of Pussy Riot gets on stage and starts a sound check. Then again, the Russian punk band is famously hard to pin down, with their numbers constantly changing, and many of their members choosing to remain anonymous (performing in balaclavas). Maryhill Community Centre has a paint peeling, school auditorium feel to it. There is little security on the door, the bar is full of open containers, the air is thick with strawberry vape, and the lighting is bright blue.
After forty minutes of milling around, a Glaswegian man shouts “PUSSY”, the crowd answers “RIOT”,and this goes on and on until an older Russian man takes the stage and starts to read a speech. It is the story of Pussy Riot. The mic is muffled, the crowd talks over him, and it’s almost impossible to make out exactly what he’s saying. Finishing up, he jokes: “I’m going to crowd surf now”. But as he gets off stage, and makes his way through the audience, everyone claps him on the back.
Then the lights turn red and suddenly Maria Alyokhina, recognisable from her curly hair, is speaking in Russian, whilst behind her three other women provide the chorus, and behind them is a screen playing footage, with English subtitles. ANYONE CAN BE PUSSY RIOT, the screen says. PUTIN PEED HIS PANTS. The band plays drum and bass in the background (though throughout the show the music feels of secondary importance to the lyrics). Footage of the Red Revolution plays, then footage of the Orthodox church. The Patriarch and the President are both former secret agents, Pussy Riot tells us. That’s why they fell in love. On the screen Pussy Riot sets a photo of the two men kissing on fire. Then there is footage of the band rehearsing their infamous protest, which took place in a Moscow Cathedral in 2012. On screen the women in balaclavas get on their knees and pray to the Virgin Mary not to re-elect Putin. In the Maryhill hall we also get down on our knees.
Earlier this year, Pussy Riot released Matriarchy Now. Running at only twenty minutes, it is a tight album that hides its punk behind its bubblegum pop sound. The album cover is a pink square, with a knife cutting through an aubergine (degradation of dick seems to be the main theme of the album). In sugar sweet voices, they sing lines such as “I loathe and detest you/utterly abhor you/ Wish I’d been around to tell your mother to abort you”. It is a horny, all caps album, where the women are the sugar mommies, princess charming, and the sadists (“I’m gonna tie you up/ I might slit your throat”). Matriarchy Now is, however, perhaps at its best when it uses satire, such as the song Plastic, sung from the point of view of a Barbie woman: “I don’t shit, I don’t eat, I don’t even fucking breathe/If you cut me I don’t bleed.”
None of these songs were played, however. As Pussy Riot explained at the end of their set, this is an “anti-war tour”. They end on a call and response: “fuck the war” and their last lyric is “Ukraine I love you” (profits from the merch go to a children’s hospital in Ukraine). Meanwhile we watch on screen as Pussy Riot attempt to hide from the police, are eventually captured and then tried for “hooliganism”. Then there is the trial, where the judge dismisses all the witnesses for the defence, and one witness is beaten up outside of the courtroom. “Welcome to hell”, the prosecutor supposedly says. Pussy Riot yell: “I know that in hell I will be an artist of hell-wide repute”. The crowd is still and uncomfortable as we watch footage of an enforced gynaecological exam, a prison van driving away, a little boy with a sign saying “free the mums”. The energy picks up again when Pussy Riot spray the audience with water. It’s like a baptism of punk.
The show ended at around midnight. There was no dancing, no singing along, and it was not always an enjoyable experience. Pussy Riot don’t need to be liked and they don’t pander to a crowd. They’re touring because they have something to say.
