Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorIndie-rock pioneers Sonic Youth have released a live album recorded in 1989 in Kyiv to support relief efforts in Ukraine, in the wake of Russia’s brutal invasion of the country.To set the context of the concert — which was recorded exactly 33 years ago — at the time, Sonic Youth were one of the first bands of their ilk to play behind what was then still known as the Iron Curtain; the Berlin Wall would come down a few months later.
But at the time, U.S. president Ronald Reagan was still calling the then-U.S.S.R. the “Evil Empire,” and although acts like Billy Joel and Metallica had made cautious forays into playing concerts in the Eastern Bloc, few if any American bands on the level of Sonic Youth had.
As noted by Stereogum, all of that changed when the group undertook a tour of Eastern Europe behind their galvanizing 1988 album “Daydream Nation” — including a date in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.
Remember, Western rock music had been effectively banned in the Soviet bloc for decades, with albums smuggled into the country and sold on the black market.
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