Bristol electronic band Massive Attack are currently on a European tour. They did not record new material for a long time, and for a long time they mainly played compositions familiar to fans. However, this time the band’s concerts attracted a lot of attention online, largely due to the video sequence. The author of the Telegram channel about culture “Raft” Sofia Vorobyova briefly tells how the concert took place in Berlin – and in what context she showed a video message from the head of Wagner PMC Evgeny Prigozhin to Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov.
Massive Attack played in Berlin on June 7 at the Zitadelle Spandau venue. This is the same program that people started talking about last year to flirt with the topic of personal data. During one number, the camera grabs the faces of people in the audience, as if recognition technology has been applied to them. In fact, the data displayed on the screen above the images (location, age, vague statuses like “work fatigue”) is fictitious. In the fall of 2025, the group was forced to comment separately on this optical solution. Massive attack ConfirmThey do not collect personal data from viewers of their shows.
In recent weeks, the Bristol band’s concerts have been actively discussed, but for a different reason. The main theme of Massive Attack remains Israel’s politics and the war in Gaza – with many of the video clips on the screens and the group’s founder Robert Dale Nye’s words from the stage dedicated to this news story. Finally, the ceremony itself began with Sayings of Al-Arabi Al-Barghouti – The son of Marwan Barghouti, one of the leaders of the Second Intifada, who was sentenced by an Israeli court in 2004 to five life sentences on charges of organizing murders and terrorist attacks. From the stage, the activist thanked the group for “always being on the right side of history,” and said that thousands of Palestinians, including him and his father, represent what “Israel cannot imprison” — “hope.”
Many spectators responded to these words with applause, and some chanted, “Free Palestine!” But there were those who left the site.
some German media accused The huge attack is that instead of the announced concert, the musicians organized a rally (which is rather strange, because the group has been supporting Palestine since the mid-90s – and in general it has always turned to politics in its work). RBB Radio quoted one viewer as saying: “If I had known in advance that this would be a completely pro-Palestinian demonstration, I would not have paid 80 euros for it.” At the same time, the group is under criticism for the superficiality of its political statements.
The war between Russia and Ukraine for an all-out offensive is just one of the news stories mentioned on stage. The most striking moment associated with it are the on-screen fragments of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s famous address “Shoigu! Gerasimov! Where is the ammunition?” (The video, judging by the tag in the upper left corner, was taken by the group from Meduza’s social networks). Prigozhin was featured twice during the song Black Milk. It was performed by Elizabeth Fraser, former lead singer of the Cocteau Twins, whose vocals were used on the famous album Mezzanine (1998) from Safe to say her appearance on stage was the best thing about the show musically.
While performing Black Milk, Fraser’s video sequence looked like this.
- Caption: “Your body is weak and fragile. The machines are strong and seemingly invincible.”
- Photos from the Matières Fécales fashion show, in which model Alex Stone participated newly A certain singer’s makeup featured her face literally torn apart from fillers and Botox.
- Clips from the movie “The House of Haunted Nights” in 1959.
- The caption: “One hit or two?”, appears on the background of Ozempic.
- Footage taken in a cold storage room.
- Blurred bodies from Prigozhin’s video and his words: “Listen to me! These are someone’s children!”
- Next – animation with stamping of little people at the factory.
- “Tik Tok”, whose author poses the question: “Does your face look like the face of a rich person or a poor person?” At this time, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Taylor Swift appear on the screen.
- Prigogine again: “Do you think you are the masters of this life?”
- A still from the movie “Evil Dead 2”.
- A video of a young Schwarzenegger shows the actor flexing his muscles.
- A photo of Prigozhin – in the cemetery – with the caption: “Someone planted a bomb on his plane. The strong die too.”
- Video “Beware, News”, where Prigozhin’s plane crashed in the Tver region.
You can watch the entire case here – A viewer filmed him near the stage from start to finish at a concert in Helsinki.
Prigozhin did not appear on the screen again. One of the songs also started with a short bit of Putin and Trump (and then the US President was shown a few more times).
It’s not easy to say exactly what the video’s authors wanted to say. But if we consider the visual accompaniment of Black Milk as a single phrase, it can be interpreted as follows: “Human life is worthless, social networks and technology make us consumers.” Moreover, if you don’t know the context, it might seem like Massive Attack sympathizes with Prigozhin.
But the Ukrainian state project United24 doesn’t think so. He posted the same video from the ceremony Yourself on Instagram With comment:
This is the second version of this post. The first version used ambiguous language that did not clearly convey the message of an all-out attack. The group is widely known for its support for Ukraine. In March 2023, Mega Attack member Robert Del Naia Make a remix On the song of Ukrainian singer and vocalist of the group “Okean Elzy” Svyatoslav Vakarchuk in support of the charitable fundraising campaign for the UNITED24 Foundation.
British band Massive Attack used footage of the late Russian war criminal and Wagner PMC boss Yevgeny Prigozhin during a recent concert in Helsinki as part of their 2026 tour. The concert videos show the famous video in which Prigozhin stands against a backdrop of dead Wagner mercenaries, and is accompanied by the subtitle: “The strong die too.”
Sofia Vorobyova