Russian summer music festivals announce participants

Traditional Russian summer open-air festivals are already selling tickets in full swing and announcing new participants. Tells Igor Gavrilov.

The largest festival in the central region of Russia, “Wild Mint,” will be held from June 14 to 16 in its usual place – in the village of Bunyrevo, Aleksinsky district, Tula region. Among the headliners are Nike Borzov, Shortparis, polnalyubvi, Rita Dakota, Zoloto, as well as young artists – “Mytishchi on Fire”, “Grizzly Suitcase”, “Circumstances”, etc. The search for new names is a favorite pastime of the festival organizers, a blessing in art. camp on the festival field there is an opportunity to listen to young artists all year round. There are no headliners of the level of Leonid Agutin, “Beasts” or Dolphin on the posters yet. But the official website notes that the lineup is “in the process of being replenished.”

The list of participants in the St. Petersburg “Stereolet” published today looks more relevant. The announcements include the unsinkable Husky, as well as the once again popular “My Michelle”, “Both Two” with a new album, the indie hero Sirotkin and the leaders of the new generation of independent music “Bond with a Button”. As on “Wild Mint,” the “Stereoleta” program includes the new female supergroup “Nesladko,” whose debut album was much discussed in 2023. The real sensation of the festival at Sevkabel is the crowded vocal group Attaque De Panique, performing works by Shortparis, Hadn Dadn and other indie artists in choral arrangements.

The main Ural music festival, Ural Music Night, will be held in Yekaterinburg on June 28 and 29. Traditionally, artists will give concerts at dozens of venues with free admission – in theaters, clubs, concert halls, parks and just on the streets of the city. The list of participants has not yet been formed. However, the Ural Night of Music team is actively involved in the New/Open showcase festival, which will be held in Yekaterinburg on February 9–11. New/Open is an event of special sensitivity: such bright talents as Settlers, Hodila Izba, Naum Blik, “Gaft”, Ilya Mazo, The OMY, Parnishka, “Mytishchi on Fire” and “Volvo” passed through it in their time. It’s logical to expect New/Open winners from different years at Ural Music Night.

Despite several cancellations in a row, the dates for the festival in 2024 were announced by “Invasion”. The festival’s lineup has not yet been made public; it is only known that it is planned for July 24–26, and the venue will be the village of Mityaevo, Kaluga Region.

The last Nashe Radio festival to date was held before the COVID-19 pandemic – in 2019. Explaining the reasons for the cancellation of the previously announced festival in 2023, the governor of the Kaluga region, Vladislav Shapsha, said that, according to many residents of the region, “now is not the time for Invasion.” Judging by the fact that they are still planning to hold the festival in 2024, now is the time.

And it has always been that way, for example, for the organizers of the “Fly Away” festival, which is held on a field in the Sarapul region of Udmurtia. The organizers managed to collect all the color of the current rock in Russian. There will be “Picnic”, Prince, Lumen, Vyacheslav Butusov, Svetlana Surganova, “Aria”, Alexey Gorshenev, Vadim Samoilov, Sergey Bobunets, and the main headliner will be the group “Kino” in its today’s semi-virtual version. There will definitely be no problems with choral singing at this event. It is worth noting that “Fly Away” is more active than other festival teams in working with young artists. Qualifying concerts of the festival are held throughout the country, sometimes in regions very remote from Izhevsk. Considering the representativeness of the festival program, the musicians selected at the preliminary stages have a chance to address a truly crowded and diverse audience.

Dobrofest (July 4–7, Levtsovo airfield, Yaroslavl) and KKinchevFest (September 6–7, Sevkabel, St. Petersburg) also announced dates. Despite the departure of a number of superstars in recent years, there are still enough musicians to fill billboards with names and titles, even if they are written in small print. But the market has not turned into a caravan of the same groups wandering from city to city. The surviving festivals managed to save, if not their headliners, then at least their face. This may be even more important.