The First Rock Show Behind The Iron Curtain Ended In a Riot
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- čas přidán 29. 08. 2024
- On April 13, 1967 The Rolling Stones played a concert in Warsaw, even though their records could not be purchased legally in Poland. A massive crowd of some 20-30 thousand fans show up, although the theater could only sit 3,000. What could go wrong?
Polish bands featured in this video:
5:40 Czerwono Czarni - Sobota To Mój Dzień
5:53 Chochoły - Naście Lat
5:59 Polanie - Nie zawrócę
Compilation of 60s Polish garage rock "Wretchin' The Wires" • Various - Wrenchin' T...
My parents grew up in Poland during this era. He would've been a baby when this concert happened but my dad was in high school he talked about how him and his friends would regularly trade western rock tapes recorded on cassette. If you had a band or album you wanted to listen to you would find someone with that tape and they would trade for one of yours. Go home, record the tapes next to the radio and trade the tapes back tomorrow morning. He probably knew more western artists than actual Polish artists during this time.
Yes, it was exactly like that.
Wait WHAT? You literally said your dad was a baby while he was in high school! Your credibility is called to question at this point!
First a video about Soviet New Wave, then Ukrainian music, now a little bit about the Polish Beat scene, looks like the Eastern block bands are finally getting some recognition.
Polish Post-Punk and Metal was also really good in the 80s. My favorite band from that era is 1984.
Lastly, I think a video about Yugoslavian underground music would be sick (they have a lot more stuff than just Laibach).
Let's not forget about the enormous punk rock scene preceding and co-existing with the post punk one, with the Jarocin Festival being the Mecca of polish punk back then. All these band like Moskwa, Siekiera, Dezerter, Kryzys, Madame, Tilt and many, many more, some even seriously underrated and rarely heard of nowadays that had created music across the whole spectre of punk and post punk.
Let's not forget the Czechoslovakian rock scene in the early 1970s with The Plastic People of The Universe
@@kelechi_77 They are great, also Bez Ladu A Skladu were an awesome Art Punk band. Apperantly Jim Jarmusch is a fan also.
Yugoslavia? Oh, plenty. It was more democratic than the rest of Communist countries, since Yugoslavia was led by moderate Tito. Yugoslavia even entered the Eurovision. Many of their music stuffs were interesting.. not just folk songs/turbofolk and heavy metal.
As I was reading your post I was thinking about Yugoslav underground then saw that was where you errr leading too. I didn’t know about the other eastern block movements but am very familiar with yugoslavias punk and post punk music thanks to a couple of acquaintances, and I guess it really got interesting and dangerous after the government cracked down on the artist. Yes that would make a great doc.
Rock and roll has always been hard-edged. Like Neil Young says, "Keep on rocking in the free world." If you are someplace that does not allow rock then you are not free. Rock has always been revolutionary. It's all about breaking down barriers to freedom. IMO, Jagger/Richards are two geniuses of the 20th Century and right up there with Lennon/McCartney. You don't last 60 years in this business if you're not good. This duo came up with more than 350 songs together. So many greats, "Street Fightin' Man," "Sweet Black Angel," "Let's Spend the Night Together" when sleeping with someone was not discussed in polite society. I was 12 when "Satisfaction" came out and us kids listened to that over and over. What kind of satisfaction was Mick talking about? We discussed this for hours on end trying to decipher the meaning of the song. Since we weren't even teenagers at that time and were naive we never understood "Satisfaction" until years later.
Poland was very anti-government and never afraid of brutal regimes. One of the reason why when Russians says "it's impossible to fight with our regime and stop the war" isn't really any argument for us. Anyway, my father in the 80's also had a punk band. He even had a green mohawk in relatively small town of 30 thousand so he was very recognizable. He of course was very anti communist but most protest he attended were environmental and ecological, one of the first people who cared about these things.
They can't that is their mentality.
I'm so glad you made this video! Especially since you mentioned the Polish Rock scene. Maybe one day we could get a video diving deeper into that topic?
At the time of these concerts I was 2 years old. But when the music came back open in the 80s we were right there in the middle of it. Every festival we could attend from Music Camping in Luban, Jarocin, Brodnica, Rockowisko, Rock na Wyspie, Pop Session in Sopot and so on. This freedom of expression was intoxicating. It’s a miracle I have almost no scars, but two of my friends are gone. You cannot enjoy freedom and be stupid.
Honestly this is quickly becoming my new fave channel. Such a wealth of music and histroy here!
You might want to cover one case when Iron Maiden played in Poland and got somehow invited to someones wedding. Their performance there is a stuff of legends and envy of all rockers and metalheads that missed that.😂
According to the urban legend Władysław Gomułka( polish leader at that time) was convinced to the idea of this concert by his granddaughters.
Really nice seeing you make videos about Eastern European rock. Hopefully you will cover more of the non Russian Soviet rock bands as there are quite alot
Poland had advantage of Radio Free Europe, imo the biggest influence for most bands. Also you should try polsih punk rock from late 70s and 80s, some absoulte gems can be find(even on spotify playlists). Also imo best band from Eastern Bloc is Hungarian Omega, for sure worth a listen.
Radio Luxembourg had much bigger influence on polish music than Radio Free Europe.
You can’t talk about polish classic rock music without mentioning Breakout, who recorded one of the greatests riffs in history in „Kiedy byłem małym chłopcem” („When I was a young boy”), and who also had a number of psychodelic songs
WOW I grew up in the 6O's always listened to the Stones and never heard of this first part, just wild many concerts went bad
Poland Rocks!
polish beat music was so ahead of its time in the eastern bloc, considering their next door neighbour the GDR tried stamping it out entirely, hope you can make a video about east germany’s blunder with the genre in the future
💫🌎🌍🌏⭐️I agree and you’re a star 🌟.
Was def shocked to hear these bands. I assumed they would pretty sappy; as most of the state-approved bands in the Eastern bloc tended to be. But dang; that compilation is amazing. Super raw and aggressive.
Do you recommend any sources/books/videos on GDR rock music (or lack thereof)?
in Czechoslovakia too, pretty similar story to Poland I feel, although many of the rock bands were officially banned
@@Bandsplaining I wish I still had some on me since it’s been years since I’ve been into this stuff but try looking at bands such as Die Sputniks (who famously managed to get another singer, Vanna Olivieri, booed off the stage by the audience during an amiga concert) and the Theo Schumann Combo (who later was forced to play jazz music)
(you will find most of the bands have to call themselves combos or sextets because that’s what the ministry of culture wanted. Thomas Natschinski und Seine Gruppe who later performed with oktoberklub in their early days was initially called Team4 but this was deemed as too much of a western name).
Die Notenbank was also a tv show aired by DFF during that era showcasing many bands including Joco-Dev Sextet, apparently the audience being paid dancers because initially they had real people in the audience who kept tripping over everything. Oktoberklub, initially a folk group from the FDJ (free german youth) began as a beat music band and was heavily recommended by the state as an alternative to the more accepted groups at that time for their pro-communist stance. Walter Ulbricht at that time famously gave a speech about “why must we copy literally everything from the west??” about it. The state record label most of the songs found on would be Amiga, but some rarely come up on Eterna as well.
Hopefully this should be enough pointers in the right direction, as I said before I haven’t been researching this stuff since I was 16 lmao.
(Ill add more onto this comment in good time once I remember more info 😂)
The government attempted to famously entice the youth away from the world of rock and roll with the introduction of a dance called the Lipsi, essentially just civil glorified ballroom dancing, which kicked the youth into rage and completely backfired, forced by the gov, a lot of bands had to either break up or members were drafted into the army or the paramilitary as some last ditch effort to stop east germany somehow falling into the pit of west germany’s rock scene (star club etc).
My Dad was in "protection services" (MP) in 1964, when Marlena Dietrich came to Warsaw.
The " Blue Angel" !!!
Shit happened in fascist 1967 Greece at the Rolling Stones concert. It has a lot of interest also. Great video
My dad went to this concert. Awesome.
I appreciate the important note you make that it wasn't just in Communist states that authorities cracked down - sometimes with savagery - on rock concert goers. Both sides of the Iron Curtain experienced the excitement and destabilising effects of the baby-boomers growing up.
Babe wake up, new bandsplaining video
My friend was a sailor and he said docking in Gdansk during this era he was immediately viewed with suspicion. Poland was very different in those days...
Mick and Keith and Charlie were driving fans crazy back then even with Brian with them not even really playing. How could he compete with Mick especially! Mick was the number rock n roll rebel at this time seen as dangerous
Names in English:
5:40 Red-Blacks: "Saturday is my day" 5:53 Straw men: "Teen years" 5:59 Polans: "I will not turn back"
It appears that you're committing that classic error of forgetting the distaff side of things regarding groups in the Poland of that era. Are you familiar with the group known variously as Alibabki and Ali Babki, who pioneered the exotic sound of Ska in Poland with their EP, ‘W rytmach Jamaijca Ska’ (‘In The Rhythm Of Jamaica Ska’) as early as 1965? They're mentioned in a post from 12th November 2016 in my Blog, 'Girls Of The Golden East', linked via the Gravatar link in my CZcams profile.
This hero from Kielce City I loved
Would be fun if you could do a video about Augustus Pablo
Another excellent video, as usual.
Sonny Vincent research that guy. He was doing East Germany shows before wall fell. He was huge. His picture on WW2 era Bomb shelter/radio tower complex like he was Elvis. He was from Minnesota and CBGB's. Mo Tuckers guitar player for 10 years too. When the walls fell he told me the kids went right to the good stuff. Zepplin, Black Sabbath.
i would not translate Milicja with Militia. technically there is a difference between Police and a Militia, but in Poland Milicja its just a synonym for Police
*was
Communist Poland was super corrupt though in Kieth's defense.
Awesome music documentaries
I'm sorry, but that comment from Jagger was really stupid. 'They wouldn't have a riot if they would let the kids in'. Yeah sure, let's just allow thousands and thousands of extra people into a venue that was already way over it's capacity. That would definitely not result in people getting trampled, suffocated and whatnot.
I *think* the idea is that they should have played a larger outdoor venue, like they were typically doing on this tour. But again, even those resulted in some rioting so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Cool! Now do Czechoslovakia and the influence of the Velvet Underground.
ICANTGETNO! ICANTGETNO!
new video!!! Woo Hoo!!!!!!
Love ❤️ it! With @rollingstone
#ThePolishAmbassador 🌜💗🌛 So beautiful.
I heard about this concert many times nowadays, it was mentioned by radio ppl and politicians. You probably wolud not get it, but it wasnt some other gig on the tour of the band, it was more like a aliens coming from outer space.
Thank u
would love to see a video about noise rock/no wave/or noise music
If you want I have some polish sound postcards and records I can send you, some traditional pop, some rock songs by both more famous bands like czerwono-czarni or trubadurzy, and some less so like wawele which were a band formed and named after chocolate factory lol, I also have one with patriotic songs by band which recorded first polish rock song lol.
That sounds incredible! Sound postcards? Is that what it sounds like? Like one of the old cardboard records you’d get on a cereal box?
@@Bandsplaining I guess so, we never had records on cereal boxes since cereal wasn't really a thing and commonly you had things in replacement packaging since there was actually a problem with making labels and printed boxes lol
Aw yeah here we go 😎😎😎🤘
Polish Communist Party Member: “have the Ramones killed”
Citizens Militia Officer: “but sir that’s…”
Party Member: “do as I say!!!”
You should make a video for Yugoslavian Bands how a communist country was having all western bands publishers etc and check out EKV , Leb I Sol , Obojeni Program was the first Yugo band aired on MTV
Can you do music film about Bob Marley?
Great subject!!
Pfff, no casualties.
Just a normal day in Argentina (?)
The narrative makes sense but is overhyped and contains inaccuracies. The Stones played Poland because their Moscow gig got canceled. A number of major Western bands and artists performed in Poland throughout the 1970s. The Stones loved their notoriety and rebel image, but to paint them as freedom fighters of any sort is absurd especially today. The only freedom they stood for was to get laid every night with no care for the women 'under their thumb'. Some freedom-lovers, indeed.
This was in the 60s and the rolling stones opened up millions of people to be the way they wanted, they basically also killed "showbiz" down to being first to wear own clothes
👻🤗🤫😁
And we have deluded people saying how wonderful the system was there. Corbyn, McDonnell, Abbott...And equally silly young people here claiming they have no freedoms. A shame they can't be subjected to a time under s system like that to have tyemna dose of reality.
To have it half way would be brilliant though, imagine how many more people would be happy. At the moment only two per cent people are happy with capitalism imagine how many more would be in communism.
@@dondamon4669 Would that be the communism where people were so happy they had to build walls, barbed wire fences and machine gun towers to stop them leaving.,
Disrupting the System for Our Children. 🥼👑🎩