On Thursday, several artists, including Patti Smith and Gogol Bordello, participated in a fundraiser for Ukraine in New York.

Thursday night saw one of the highest-profile benefit concerts held to date in support of Ukraine. The event, which took place at the City Winery in Manhattan, featured performances by Gogol Bordello (whose leader, Eugene Hütz, was born in the Ukraine), Patti Smith, Hold Steady’s Craig Finn, Suzanne Vega, Stephin Merritt of The Magnetic Fields, reggae veteran Matisyahu, Jesse Malin, OAR’s Marc Roberge and indie singer-songwriter Lady Lamb.

Co-sponsored by Hütz and City Winery, the three-hour show raised more than $130,000, which will be donated to come back alive (a non-profit organization supporting the Armed Forces of Ukraine) and caring.org. These funds also include a $50,000 donation to Doctors Without Borders by Yoko Ono and Sean Ono Lennon, who were invited but unable to attend the concert. Announcing the news onstage, Smith recalled the time Smith and his friend Robert Mapplethorpe went to Times Square in 1969 and saw Ono and John Lennon’s famous “War Is Over” billboard.

« Raising funds is crucialhutz said Rolling Stone before the concert. People are super generous and give astronomical donations. Our job is to keep sounding the alarms and telling the story authentically. Ukraine is an independent nation. Anyone who thought that Ukraine was voluntarily part of Russia lives in the world of stupid Russian propaganda. »

The evening began with an acoustic concert by Gogol Bordello, with a fiery version of ” When Universes Collide Patti Smith and Hütz then performed the country’s solemn and unwavering national anthem, alternating verses sung in English (Smith) and Ukrainian (Hütz).

The guests that followed (Hutz-selected New York-area artists) played short sets pulling songs from their catalog that could be applied to current events. Originally written about the bombing in Lebanon some fifteen years ago, the song ” qana Smith could also have been inspired by Russia’s attacks in the Ukraine. The song ” Rock in This Pocket (Song of David) de Vega could have been written from the perspective of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Stephin Merritt and Shirley Simms performed four Magnetic Fields songs, with Merritt on ukulele. On this rather dark night, your title ” The day the politicians died » (« Billions laughed and no one cried / The day the politicians died ‘) elicited some well-deserved laughs.

Other highlights include Finn, with his acoustic version of the song ” (What’s so funny?) Peace, love and understanding “Nick Lowe and his own song” certain songs The show ended with an energetic gypsy-punk set from Gogol Bordello’s full band, which included an older but equally relevant song, “ Indestructible and a recently written song, “ focus coin about disinformation.

For Hütz, who fled Ukraine with his family when he was young, his connection to his homeland remains strong and he is still in touch with his friends and family there: I grew up in the punk rock scene there and a lot of my friends fight in civil defense. My relatives now drive cars with AK-47s and babies in the back. Some of them are in the middle of a fight and others are trying to get to safety. It is total war. Fortunately, for now, they are all alive. […] The invasion began eight years ago. Eight years ago, we started ringing the alarm bells and the world seemed content to think that it was just some kind of local problem. Guess what: it’s far from local. Everyone closed their eyes for eight years, and here is the result. Everyone will be affected. We are facing a monstrous fascist regime. »

david browne

Translated by the editor