Moscow Marathon : Crude ‘n’ Rude Heavy Metal Debuts to Thousands of Soviets at Music Peace Festival

Vince Neil, the colorfully tattooed lead singer of Los Angeles’ garish heavy-metal band Motley Crue, wasted little time in introducing more than 180,000 Soviet rock fans over the weekend to the often raunchy world of hard-core rock ‘n’ roll.

Where Jon Bon Jovi, leader of the far tamer New Jersey band that bears his last name, memorized a few polite Russian words so that he could address the Moscow Music Peace Festival crowd a la President Kennedy’s famous Berlin speech, Neil simply employed the same universal f-word that he uses in concerts back home.

“How the f . . . you doin’, Moscow?” Neil asked early in his sets Saturday and Sunday at Lenin Stadium during the first large-scale hard-rock concerts by Western artists ever in the Soviet Union.

Later in his enthusiastically received 50-minute performance, Neil employed another time-worn device to get the crowd to be even more responsive: “I don’t think you are f . . . in’ loud enough for me, Moscow.”

When the audience roared back, Neil teased them even further: “I want you to say, ‘F . . . .’ ” He shouted the word again and again in a steady rhythm, with the fans shouting along.

This was precisely the type of rebellious, crude ‘n’ rude display that Soviet officials had long declared would never happen here--and some of the older stadium and security personnel who monitored the concerts from various command posts around the huge facility seemed to collectively shrug their shoulders.

The fans were more conservatively dressed than their heavy-metal counterparts in the West (hardly a leather jacket, studded bracelet or splotch of green or orange hair in sight), but TV videos and concert movies had made them well aware of the rituals of hard-rock concerts--and eager to join in.

The energetic fans on the field near the front of the stage, especially, spent much of the marathon 10 hours each day thrusting their arms in the air in time with the beat and, where there was room, strumming “air guitars.” During breaks in the stage action, fans delighted in knocking huge beach balls around the stadium on this moderately warm weekend, and even attempted the wave. A surprise downpour late Sunday did little to dampen the fans’ spirits.

Security--both uniformed soldiers and police--was twice as heavy as at a stadium show in the United States: perhaps 1,000 or more inside the stadium with hundreds of additional soldiers and police on standby outside. But the atmosphere was not threatening. A few fans--some apparently intoxicated--were escorted out of the stadium, but there appeared to be fewer ejections and less rowdiness than at a typical U.S. stadium concert.

The music by Crue, Bon Jovi and seven other bands--including veteran British heavy-metal star Ozzy Osbourne (the crowd’s favorite) and three Russian bands--began around 1:30 p.m. both days and lasted until nearly midnight when fireworks marked the end.

Scattered through the crowd were colorful reminders of the uniqueness of this landmark of Soviet and Western rock: Against the backdrop of the stadium’s torch from the 1980 Moscow Olympics, a sprinkling of fans waved U.S. and British flags as they danced to the music. One teen-ager moved about the crowd on skates, waving a huge Soviet flag and advertising on the back of his cut-off jeans a classic piece of American free enterprise: Coca-Cola.

By the end of the day, many in the crowd seemed exhausted. But it was more than fatigue that caused hundreds of fans to linger in their seats or on the field. This was a weekend that many young people had waited all their lives for--and they didn’t know how long it would be before another hard-rock show would come to Moscow.

The fans said they felt the decision to finally allow rock musicians to perform here was yet another sign of improvement in the age of Gorbachev and glasnost . More than simply the roar of loud guitars, the music from the stage last weekend was, for many of these young rock enthusiasts, the chimes of freedom flashing. “Yes, we are happy,” said Olga Sizoua, 16, Moscow. “This is a happy day. It’s not just the music, but the things that are happening in our country. We see change. . . .”

The weekend concert was the result of more than a year of delicate planning by Doc McGhee, the manager of such acts as Bon Jovi and Motley Crue, and Stas Namin, a Moscow record producer and manager and the grandson of Anastas Mikoyan, former chairman of the Supreme Soviet Presidium (1964-65).

The festival, produced in cooperation with the Soviet Peace Committee, was designed in the United States by McGhee to raise funds and publicity for the anti-drug message of his Make a Difference Foundation. The event, including the pay-per-view telecast and a record album due around Oct. 1, could raise between $6 million and $10 million for the foundation activities, McGhee said. Any profits from the concert and T-shirt sales would go to Soviet youth organizations.

Despite the smooth nature of the concert itself, there were still tensions backstage, including a dispute between concert promoters and the stadium officials over T-shirt revenue--and over a shirt logo that could be interpreted as an American eagle dominating the Soviet hammer and sickle. The matter was resolved only after a brief fistfight between Namin and an official, according to two eyewitnesses.

McGhee said that the whole experience, while rewarding because of the results, was frustrating because of constant changes of position on the part of some Soviet ministry officials.

“There have been times this week when I wanted to stay on the first floor so that I didn’t rush and pop out the window,” he said, smiling wearily. Still, he’s intrigued by the possibility of a similar concert in Beijing in 1991.

International negotiations, however, didn’t provide the only intrigue in the final hours before the concert. Osbourne, who had almost dropped off the bill before flying here from Los Angeles because he felt he wasn’t being treated with enough respect, almost walked out just six hours before he was to go on stage--again over a matter of billing. This, too, was resolved--without resorting to fists, apparently--in time for Osbourne to perform.

Few in the crowd, estimated at 90,000 a day, knew--or would have cared--about the backstage anxiety. They were simply thrilled to be part of an event that both organizers and Soviet musicians had spoken of as such a revolutionary moment that it could well be the Russian Woodstock.

The concert was featured Sunday with two photos on the front page of the newspaper Izvestiya, which called the affair a “very unique festivity.” The Moscow Pravda also ran a story and two photos on the front page, declaring that “the decision to organize this significant musical activity was possible only because of perestroika and glasnost .”

Did the weekend live up to those aspirations?

On a purely musical level, the answer is simple: no way.

The musical lineup reflected little of the experimental edges or arresting artistic vision of such classic Woodstock attractions as the Who and Jimi Hendrix, even if one band--Moscow’s own Gorky Park--included a Who song (“My Generation”) in its set, and Motley Crue smashed its guitars on stage a la the Who.

But music was never the sole reason Woodstock became a socio-cultural touchstone in American rock. The equal, if not paramount, story was the audience.

Similarly, the heartbeat of the Moscow Music Peace Festival was felt not through the stadium’s massive bank of speakers but in the enthusiasm and emotion of the fans, some of whom traveled as long as four days by train from Siberia to be part of the weekend.

“This concert is more important to me than visiting the Lenin Mausoleum,” said a 17-year-old who had ridden a train 10 hours to get here.

To begin understanding the depth of feeling on this day when Western hard rock finally arrived in Moscow, imagine someone who grew to love major league baseball on radio or television, but was forbidden by the government to attend a game in person.

For some in the audience, the opportunity to finally attend a concert came late.

There were thousands of people in attendance who were well beyond their teens. A 37-year-old Moscow cab driver said he had wished this day had come 10 or 20 years earlier so that he could have seen the Beatles or the Rolling Stones or, perhaps, Cream.

“This music does not mean the same to me that the old music did,” the man said. “This music is for the kids, but I wanted to be here to see them enjoy it . . . maybe like I would have if it would have been possible when I was their age. It is a wonderful day.”