Pussy Riot first came to international prominence several years ago, due to their activism work in Russia, protesting against Putin, and leading to the arrest of some of the members. The show is on a Friday night on Granville Street – the party side of town where people get drunk and have fun in the plethora of bars and clubs – in a small recently opened club called The Pearl (formerly The Venue, formerly formerly The Plaza Club). The show is sold out and has been for months, I’m not sure why they don’t play at a bigger venue.

The group arrived in Vancouver having started their Canadian tour in Kelowna almost three weeks ago, and performing at sold out shows in Edmonton, Calgary, Saskatoon and Winnipeg. Last year they had played a much larger tour across North America, including Montreal and Toronto.

Pussy Riot are not the hardcore protest punk rock band many people thought they were when they started out, but an art/activism collective who combine music with theatre and video. The show feels like performance art – a play/storytelling multimedia show, with music. When a musical/art collective is more famous for its activism than its arts, it is hard to know if people are here for the art or because of who they are. But it doesn’t matter why people are here because the audience are in awe of this amazing and powerful spectacle. Most people are totally gripped from beginning to end, and are mesmerized by what is happening on the stage.

Pussy Riot have released lots of music, but tonight the music is there to enhance the telling of the story and enhance the performance, rather than as the primary driver of the evening. The event is called Riot Days and is the retelling of the years that member Maria Alyokhina spent in prison.

The four members come on without balaclavas, but the iconic balaclavas come on half way through, to the adulation of the crowd who’s cameras come out. On stage are drums, mics, DJ equipment and a table filled with water bottles. The water bottles at one point are poured over Alyokhina head, as another member of the group pour them over the crowd. Alyokhina lights a cigarette at one point and the older members of the audience, like myself are reminded of the smell of cigarette smoke inside venues.

The audience leave the incredible event, which was disturbing, engaging and poignant, thinking about freedom, democracy and the future of the world. They spew out onto Granville Street, walking past the stag do’s and bachelorette parties who look like they didn’t have a care in the world.

Words by Martin Alldred