German rock band The Scorpions demonstrated their solidarity with Ukraine, during a concert in Tel Aviv on Saturday night.
The Scorpions, formed in 1965, are a German rock band that have have sold more than 100 million records to date, making them the biggest rock group on continental Europe.
Opening the concert with their hit song, ‘Winds of Change’, lead vocalist Klaus Meine waved the Ukrainian flag while large blue-and-yellow peace signs were displayed behind him. After finishing the song, Meine threw the flag to a concertgoer.
Legendary @scorpions at a concert in Israel. #WindofChange pic.twitter.com/PTaWy0qISO
— Igor Sushko (@igorsushko) July 14, 2022
The audience of thousands responded by bursting into applause and in the following days, videos of the performance were widely distributed on social media.
‘Winds of Change’ was written by Meine in the late 1980s following his visit to the Soviet Union. The song quickly became a worldwide symbol for democratic change in the USSR, later becoming a symbol for the fall of the Berlin Wall.
When war broke out in Ukraine, The Scorpions removed all references to Russia from ‘Winds of Change’. The opening line, ‘Follow the Moskva, down to Gorky Park’ was changed to ‘Now listen to my heart, it says Ukraine’. The lyric change also provoked a burst of applause from the band’s Tel Aviv audience.
During the curtain call, a member of the audience passed Meine an Israeli flag, which he kept draped over his shoulder for the rest of the concert.
After the show, the band posted a clip from the concert on Instagram, captioning the video, ‘Thank you Tel Aviv for a great rocking night… we love you’. Fans took to the comments of the post to display their support for the group’s solidarity with Ukraine.
