LaScala celebrates 10th anniversary with rock and roll riots and flash mobs

Ten years is not the most impressive date for a rock band, but during this time so many things happened to the members of LaScala that the desire to mark the date is understandable. The scope of the holiday can hardly be called global, although the passions in Izvestia Hall were in full swing.

Who are they

A very hardworking band formed in 2012 by IFK guitarist Max Galstjan. After a long period of uncompromising rock courage, Galstyan decided to assemble a band whose musical doctrine would use alternative rock as a sauce for very melodic music with good commercial potential. This is how LaScala was born. The musicians themselves advise taking the name as a play on words: for some it may be the famous Italian opera house, for others the verb “to caress” in the feminine gender and the past tense.

LaScala took up writing music quite smartly and quickly became a notable touring band. In ten years, they managed to release five original albums, as well as a live release, acoustics, a collection of duets, a fair amount of singles and two very successful covers of DDT’s “Wind” and “Game” by the Kino group.

Five years later, the musicians carried out some reboot of the group and continued without the founder of the group. But, despite the fact that Max Galstyan has not performed with LaScala since 2015, his death from covid complications last year came as a real shock to his colleagues. Max is still remembered at every concert, and, according to the musicians, although time heals, it is rather slow.

In honor of the 10th anniversary of the LaScala group, they are preparing a collection of hits and went on a tour, one of the concerts of which was recently held in Moscow.

How it looked

Four people on stage, big screen, good light, pyro fountains. In general, nothing supernatural, but overall elegant. However, the audience clearly came not only for a beautiful picture. Lively melodies, packed with rock, brutal Latino, and hip-hop, helped LaScala to recruit a rather motley audience into their fans. There are alternatives who are nostalgic for the golden times of alternatives, there are serious-looking girls who, apparently, are attracted by violent lyrics with a slight touch of feminism, performed by the confident voice of soloist Anna Green, there are young people, most likely, who are sure that guitars and drums are still sexier than laptops. and DJ turntables. In general, everything is mixed up: beards and tattoos of middle-aged informals, weekend hoodies of office clerks, student stretched sweaters.

And everyone knows the words by heart. It took almost no time for the audience to build up, already on the third song, which was Sex, Rock-n-roll and Alcohol, there was something that can be described as a civilized collapse of the tower. The grown-up guys obviously wanted to remember their youth and arranged an energetic but gentle mosh pit, even those who are embarrassed of their voices sang in peaceful conditions, the VIP balconies trembled slightly from dancing.

The public has already received branded concert entertainment, and fans have prepared a flash mob for the An-2 song. On the chorus, several dozen paper planes flew over the stalls, which looked unexpected and rather funny.

In the midst of the action, the musicians take a short break, a cut is shown on the screen, which depicts Max Galstyan. They bring his guitar to the stage. “It’s all still very hard,” says Anna Green, barely holding back her emotions. The audience applauds loudly.

The further course of events is quite easy to predict. Slowers and militants continue to rock the crowd, bringing it to a state of blissful hysteria. This is probably what is needed for the concert video that was filmed that evening.

pros

Most of the audience must have been overwhelmed with powerful nostalgia for the times when guitar music symbolized all the coolest things. A rock show is not such a simple event, especially from an artistic point of view. But LaScala does a pretty good job. Anna Green comes to the very edge of the stage and spreads her arms wide. Red hair, black leather mini dress, spectacular backlighting. If anyone was yearning for rock hedonism tonight, then the LaScala concert was the perfect place to dispel that longing.

Minuses

On recordings in LaScala’s music there is quite a lot of gloss, but live it is not always enough. Perhaps luck sometimes turned away from sound engineers, but in the end, not all songs sounded as good as they deserve.

Party Phrase

“It seems to me that we have already recorded enough material today, now you can screw up,” the vocalist joked in the midst of the action. By an amazing coincidence, after a couple of songs, the technique showed a character that was not so easy to pacify.