How it was 19.03.2000 (2000)

The first All-Union rock festival "Tbilisi-80", 1980.

The Baltimore Sun, March 5, 1980: "According to unconfirmed reports, an unofficial music festival is taking place in the capital of Soviet Georgia, Tbilisi.

It involves more than twenty rock bands performing music that is not officially allowed in the USSR. It is reported that the festival is held under the aegis of party and Komsomol bodies.

If this information is confirmed, then this event can be regarded as a serious defeat of hardliners in the Kremlin. "

In the early days of March 1980, a TASS correspondent reported from Tbilisi: "The capital of Georgia is covered with a musical fever, here is the First All-Union Rock Festival."

Already the very neighborhood of the words "All-Union" and "rock" seemed unreadable, implausible.

Nevertheless, the memories of this event are still alive in the memory of the participants and guests of the event.

About the prehistory of the festival, the selection of groups of participants, the repertoire, Georgian national hospitality and the consequences of the show for Soviet musicians tell chairman of the jury Yuri Saulsky, famous figures of Russian rock Artemy Troitsky and Alexander Lipnitsky, leader of the group "Time Machine" Andrei Makarevich, drummer of the group "Autograph" Vladimir Yakushenko.

The situation of rock music in the USSR, underground and chef concerts of "non-standard" groups, the role of the police and the KGB in organizing and suppressing such events are covered in detail.

The program includes an excerpt from an interview with the leader of the group "Successful acquisition" by Alexei Belov and the staff of the "Tbilisi-80" festival: performances of the "Integral", "Autograph", "Aquarium", "Time Machine".