Photos via Amnesty International

At the press conference that preceded Amnesty International's Bring Human Rights Home Concert at Brooklyn's Barclays Center last night, a reporter asked a question that visibly rankled the two guests of honor, Nadia Tolokonnikova and Masha Alyokhina of the Russian punk feminist collective Pussy Riot. (This was not the first time since they'd been freed from Russian penal colonies in late December that a journalist's questions have rubbed them the wrong way.)

Crowded onto a small stage, Nadia and Masha were flanked by mop-topped Live Aid organizer Bob Geldof, Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips (hair sculpted into zany disarray, sparkly heart stickers dotting his temples), and baby-faced neo-soft-rockers the Fray; a few hours later on the Barclays stage, Madonna (one of Pussy Riot’s most famous supporters) would introduce them to a crowd of thousands. In prepared statements and with the aid of a translator, Nadia and Masha spoke of their plans to tour prisons internationally and then shift their focus to advocating for penal reform back at home. They also urged Americans to “boycott” the Sochi Olympics (either actively, through protests; or passively, by refusing to watch). When the floor opened to questions, though, one reporter took the conversation in a different direction: Since Pussy Riot has said many times that it was influenced by countercultural movements and underground music—riot grrrl and oi! punk in particular—why did its members suddenly want to align themselves with a "pop cultural" performance like the Amnesty Concert? There was a tense pause. Then, with a knowing smirk that is becoming as iconic to this generation of young feminists as Kathleen Hanna's ponytail was to a previous one, Nadia said, "That question is insulting to all the musicians up here."

A few hours later, as I was wafting away the smell of overpriced nachos and struggling to stay awake through a somnolent, message-less set by human bronzer explosion Colbie Caillat, I checked my phone and saw an email titled "An Open Letter From Pussy Riot." I questioned the source at first, but it came from an address I recognized and trusted from when I had interviewed two anonymous members of the collective this past summer. "We are very pleased with Masha and Nadia's release," the letter said. "Unfortunately for us, they are being so carried away with the problems in Russian prisons that they completely forgot about the aspirations and ideals of our group—feminism, separatist resistance, fight against authoritarianism and personality cult." It went on to critique the very concert I was attending: "The poster of the event showed a man in a balaclava with electric guitar, under the name of Pussy Riot, while the organizers smartly called for people to buy expensive tickets. All this is an extreme contradiction to the very principles of [the] Pussy Riot collective: We are [an] all-female separatist collective—no man can represent us either on a poster or in reality... We charge no fees for viewing our art-work,... and we never sell tickets to our 'shows'." (Read more of the letter here.)

I looked back at the stage when I'd finished reading. Clad in an impressively spangly pantsuit, Susan Sarandon was giving a speech about Amnesty prisoners of conscience who had been incarcerated for their beliefs and, in prison, "denied their basic rights." "Water!" a vendor yelled from the next section over with perfect though unwitting comic timing, reminding us that a basic human right encased in a plastic bottle that will take 400 years to decompose could be ours for a cool $4.50.