In a year, concerts of the Kino group will take place in St. Petersburg and Moscow. This is not news from 1989 and not a fragment of an alternative story, in the reality of which Choi is alive, Lenin is alive, Michael Jackson is alive - in general, everyone is alive. This is a real announcement. A week later, the box office will begin to sell tickets for concerts of the Kino group, which will be held on October 31 and November 21, 2020 at the largest stadiums in the two cities. Thirty years after the death of a man who, for the vast majority of those who have heard at least something about Kino, is the whole essence of this group.
Yuri Kasparyan and the producer of the project “Symphonic Cinema” decided to make two concerts in which the band’s musicians will play, and Viktor Tsoi’s voice passed through computer processing will sing.
It’s scary to imagine it, but it’s impossible not to pay attention to it.
Each generation has its own hero, and Tsoi became the hero of several generations at once, and it seems that schoolchildren are still growing, who learn his songs on the guitar. Because the rapper in front of the school to read is one thing, but in order to impress the girl, of course, you need to know how to play “Sunny Days” and “Cuckoo”.
I remember, about ten years ago I heard on TV in a program where Tsoi was recalled, such a strange question: “But what do you think, if Tsoi was alive, would he play at corporate parties?” And then I thought: he’s an artist, it’s his job. Probably would play. What is so? Invited to play a concert.
But this question itself reveals Tsoi’s secret: people continue to grow on it and make it their hero, precisely because they have this question. Choi remained for them the embodiment of immediate simple honesty. Not rebellious uncompromising, not noisy front-door, not satirical denial of the established order, but natural honesty, in which a person exists as if there are no these temptations.
Actually, Tsoi lived like that, because he remained such an icon - the very hero who could afford to live outside of corporate parties and money temptations, simply because there were no corporate parties. And the white “Seagull”, on which he came to the Luzhniki Stadium, is by now just childishness.
For thirty years, people look at Tsoi and understand that no one can replace him. Of course, because no one will write such songs and sing them like that, but also because no one will have to be in those conditions at that time. No one will ever be lucky to live at the crossroads of all the lines of force that Tsoi created - era, country, friends, environmental resistance, an irresistible craving for Western culture and the opening of each plate as a new mainland.
Viktor Tsoi became the last hero, not only because he himself possessed all the qualities necessary for the hero, but also because with him the time of the heroes was gone.
And the fact that “Kino” became a record-breaking group for stadium gatherings thanks to Yuri Aizenshpis, who invested a lot of money in it and made, in fact, the first successful producer rock project, somehow does not hurt, does not detract from the scale of the phenomenon.
In the 1990s, they wrote about a completely schizophrenic project - to send Lenin's mummy on tour around the world. To carry around the cities, set for money. The usual absurdity. And when Michael Jackson died, his concerts were held, where a hologram appeared instead. It seems to be absurd, too, but people walked and paid for tickets, because people need an image, they need a moment of involvement and, if you like, communion.
Of course, any event in the field of popular culture is done for the sake of money. But thinking about it makes no sense. Because it is much more important than those who arrange the event, those who come to it. And these are those who inside have a completely naive question: “Would Choi sing on corporate parties?” And this naivety is the most important thing. This indicates that Choi is really alive, because people believe in him, and everyone carries part of this calm honesty in themselves, and at some point wants to feel that there are other people around with the same honest question, which is not and there can be no answer. This is exactly the case when the question is much more important.
And it seems that more than one generation will learn his songs, sing them to the girls and be a little ashamed of this. Viktor Tsoi has become that spiritual pocket in which you can suddenly be yourself - sentimental, heroic, naive, simple and honest. Do not build yourself from anyone but yourself. Because it's so rare to pretend to be yourself.
Millions of people will continue to love Viktor Tsoi, because Tsoi is no longer possible.
But just at that second, when we hear “The house is standing, the light is on” with a simple transition from f-sharp minor to re, it seems to us that we are not so hopeless, cynical and pachyderms.
We are used to perceiving the most terrible news and irreparable changes without bright emotions. But try to restrain the emotional excitement by putting the song "Summer will end."
And so the summer is over, and thirty years have passed, and how many new music and outstanding new musicians have appeared since then, and how many schoolchildren have grown, and we all listen and listen.
And that someone will make money on this - after all, not Choi. He is free from this and therefore forever loved.
How many years on the fences they wrote: "Choi is alive." Now we understand that all this was true.
The author’s point of view may not coincide with the position of the publisher.