Live music in Moscow – Generation P: Edward Crabtree's blog.

TOTAL ABANDON.

My first live encounter with Altpop/rockers TOTAL/CHERKUNOVA in Moscow’s relocated Mumy Troll Music Bar.

TOTAL/CHERKUNOVA, a pop rock sensation who sent up a flare at the beginning of this millennium, have been sprinkling Russia with soulful songs for two decades now, but are not yet ready for the anniversary gig routine.

At first known only as TOTAL (the addition to their moniker began last year), the band represent another brainchild of the ever-fertile composer and music manager Maxim Fedeev (who can also claim Linda and Yulia Sachayevo as amongst his discoveries).

Marina Cherkunova is his cousin and they both emerged from Kurgan, the `capital of the Trans – Urals` in Southern Russia where they each received a musical education. At the age of thirty Mariana became the lead singer of the new band.

TOTAL’s idiosyncratic trip-hop influenced alt pop-rock sound – and corresponding urban shaven haired image – found a ready audience and with it came a popular studio album and a string of high-profile festival appearances. Proud Russian magazine columnists likened them to the overseas Guano Apes and Skunk Anansie.

They came my way in around 2007 in the form of their second album TOTAL2: Moye Mir (`My World`). Injected with real feeling and with not a dud track on it, the band climbed high in my hierarchy of affections. (It helped too that that Cherkunova both has a role in and provides some of the music for, one of my favorite recent Russian films – Lost Island ( 2019) ). )

I had not, however, managed to catch them live before.

Altered abode.

There was not much notice about TOTAL CHERNUKOVA’s show on January 14^th: I only got wind of it at the last moment.

It was to be at the Mumy Troll music bar. But wait…didn’t that place close during the lockdown?

It turned out that the venue had teleported to the less salubrious but more populous environs of Novy Arbat.

The new Mumy Toll – as much as it strains to keep up the appearance of continuity (with all the nautical bric a brac) – is more commodious and feels somehow seedier and more `street`. The security is till as stiff as ever. No, I couldn’t take my rucksack in. The bar too remains as sluggish in its service. I only managed to get in two German beers all evening, being forever walled behind higher priority parties of cocktail sippers.

The establishment finds itself torn between the different demands of its demographics. There are those who come to in groups partake of the seafood at tables, caring not a whit what band may be playing. Then there are those to whom the place is a nightclub and are there to dance after the band has packed up. Then – oh, excuse us -there are the actual music fans who have, sort of, come to see a live band in a live music venue.

Band update.

The latter congregates bit by bit near the stage. Twenty to thirty somethings for the most part, they seem about two thirds female and a collision between glam girls and specky hipsters.

The first ripple of excitement comes when Anastasia Cherkunova – Mariana’s daughter and now director of the operation – comes on stage to deliver the water bottles and tape down the playlists.

The enter TOTOAL/CHERKUNOVA in their 2022 incarnation. This is a four piece with some new blood. The youthful Ilya Andrus supplies the guitar, Konstantin Mikyukov the DJ on the turntables, with the percussion being meted out by the chunky shade-wearing Stanislav Aksyonov .( They seem to manage to do without a bassist). In baggy jeans and floppy headgear, they exude a Nineties aesthetic.

Marina herself spots cropped peroxide-blonde hair in place of her more familiar bald pate (and looks better for it, if you ask me). Otherwise she combines knee length black dress with sturdy Gothic type boots.

Firebird.

Throughout their regulation two-hour set, this quartet guide us all their most loved tunes -`Hits the Eyes, Sparks, Karamasutra...with much upbeat banter between the songs from Marina. The fans, made somnolent by the January slush begin to thaw out and to jump and sway and to cheer and sing.

Even the attentions of security as they make sure we all keep are masks on at all times (compensating, no doubt, for a lack of QR code entry requirement) cannot dampen the conviviality.

What functions as the dynamo behind the whole experience is Maria Chernukova herself. I have not seen someone work so much at a performance since seeing Julia Volkova at the previous Mumy Troll some years ago. Embodying the joys and angst of life she puts in a writhing, impassioned full bodied, erotic performance like some sort of female Mick Jagger.

That she functions as an unacknowledged icon is evidenced by the excess of raised cameras all around me the whole time.

Urban folk.

The musicians augment the operatic delivery with some tongue-in-cheek `rockist` stadium gestures such as dragged out finales to songs with sections of drum and guitar solos.

TOTAL/CHERKUNOVA can boast one rather effective trick and it consists of clothing power pop ballads in a more urban, modern trip-hop stylistic.

They have a lot to live up to this night. I am seeing one of my most cherished acts for the first time and it is my first gig of the new year too.

They do not disappoint.

GHOST SHIP: premier hard rock exponents CHORNY OBELISK at Izvestia Hall last year were SO last year.

I thought it would be good to check out a new venue for a change. Izvestia Hall is located in the former building of the publishing and print plant of the first Soviet newspaper – Izvestia – no less.

The publishers of this, after six years since starting in 1918, needed a new headquarters for their flourishing concern. In 1924 architects were invited to compete for the honour of being the designer of such a new building. Urban planner Grigory Barkhin’s Constructivist number won the day and it began to be built a short time thereafter. Izvestia itself closed shop in 2011. The current building, now an all-purpose venue for all manner of social events, has been restored to something like its former Modernist glory by Ginsburg Architects headed by Alexey Ginsburg.

Such a renovated relic seems like fitting host for a band like CHORNY OBELISK. This act too has lost its original driving purpose: their charismatic lead singer and bassist, Anatoly Krupnov, died 25 years back at just 31, after forming the band in Moscow in 1986. The current assembly – a string and drum four piece combo lead by 54-year-old rock veteran Dmitry Borisenkov – represents a reboot undertaken in 1999 which continues to sail despite the loss of its captain, like some sort of ghost ship.

They are at least gifted with an evocative name – Black Obelisk (and extra points to them if this is a tribute to the German novelist Maria Remarque’s first novel) and overall have some thirteen studio albums in their name. Their main rivals on the same turf – Aria – are often called `the Russian Iron Maiden` and in the same way CHORNY OBELISK could be seen as (although it fails to do justice to the variety of their output) `the Russian Motorhead`.

Grand old men of Russian metal.[drive2.com]

This event was packaged as being a special 35-year anniversary. Just as, from this year Elizium’s and Lumen’s shows were anniversaries. (What does this tell us about the state of the contemporary Russian music scene?)

Mature set.

A crowd of about a thousand forty and fifty somethings filed in from a snow-bound Sunday on December 19^th last year to have their QR codes and vaccine status scrutinized. They seemed to be in groups of friends composed of husbands and wives and had not brought their children. I saw few people below their age except for one or two blue haired and dreadlocked students here to show their respects.

The entrance of the main attraction was drumrolled by a lit backstage legend announcing their 35^th year. Then a telescopic rifle sight seeking a target circled on the screen against a brick walled background. Bee Gees disco music played (I gather that this was some kind of established in-joke). The masses meanwhile chanted `Chor – ny Ob-El -isk!`

The band played onstage for around three hours and thrashed out quite a beef goulash of a sound for four people (albeit sometimes aided by pre-recorded keyboard additions). The fans, in high spirits, joined in with plenty of rhythmic clapping and `Hey-hey-hey`s.

Borisenkov, with a caul covering his bald pate, was a genial host but seemed more the musician than any kind of ring leading front man.

The bassist and backing vocalist, Daniil Zakharenkov – resembling a piratical Robbie Coltrane -tried to compensate by working hard to whip up a `rock and roll party` ambience by gurning at the audience and so on.

The axe wielder – and original band member – Mikhail Svetlov – by contrast seemed a little bored. After pointing to some individuals in the crowd with mock-familiarity, he lapsed into dead-eyed mode, looking like an economics lecturer worrying about the state of his car.

This being a birthday bash, some `unexpected` guests clambered onto the stage to help out. I recognised none of these stars but can tell you that one of them was a white-haired plump guy in all denim with a growly voice and another was a tall dark young man in some sort of uniform-like get up who resembled a sinister leader of some kind of neo-Nazi cult.

The band did showcase quite a spectrum of song styles. Of course, there was state-of-the-art Eighties style Metal but we also got some speed core punk as well as the inevitable sing-a-long ballads. They even dusted down some iconic golden oldies such as `Ya Ostanous` (`I will Stay`) from 1994. When the audience started getting showered by glitter bombs I decided to take my leave.

Tribute act.

It is hard not to feel that CHORNY OBELISK would have cut a more significant profile back in the mid-Eighties when Gorbachev had not been long in the Kremlin and they were offering something fresh and with a more characterful kingpin. They now appear to be going through the motions a bit even if they do still deliver some satisfying adrenaline friendly riffs.

I feel that Borisenkov’s standardized vocal contribution provides no substitute for Kuprinov’s Kilminster-like roar. Indeed, at times I felt myself wishing that I could switch off the singing the better to bask in the rock instrumentals.

All that said, in comparison with Aria, the Obelisks are the edgier and more authentic of the two bands.

SHAKERS AND MOVERS: -MURAKAMI LIVE AT 16 TONS, MOSCOW MAY 9TH.

All the way from Kazan, the altpop-rockers put on a show that packs punch.

Ninth of May – Victory Day in Russia – turned out a monochrome soaked Sunday with the television showing rows of stony-faced veterans with plastic warerproofs over their medalled uniforms as they listened to Putin pontificating about Chechnya.

Victory Day has long since devolved from being a commermoration of those Allies who died fighting the Nazix and turned into a sabre rattling spectacle. I was quite happy to take in a sideshow away from the fireworks.

I had first got to know of MURAKAMI only about a week earlier when I bought a Russian rock compilation CD which had a song of theirs – `Nash Strakh`. This track put many of the others in the shade with its ebullience and confidence of execution. Doing a subsequent internet search on the outfit, however, lead me to wonder if they might be a corporate pop-band in the making along the lines of A-STUDIO.

All the same when I discovered a coincidental arrival of them to Moscow the following weekend, there was soon a ticket with my name on.

Meeting of talents.

Their frontwoman, Dilyara Vagapova, the 35 year old mother of two from Kazan who as well as being a songstress also plays the guitar and composes film music, first got her name up in lights by appearing on a TV show called `People’s Artist` on RTR. This prompted the string and drum quartet `Soltse Ekran` (`Sun Screen`),also Kazan based, to invite her to become a part of their already up-and-running rock troupe.

MUEAKAMI: Teetring on the brink of corporate pop? [VKontakte]

MURAKAMI – yes, they are named after the cult Japanese author Haruki Murakami -came together in the winter of 2004 in the capital of the semi-autonomous Republic of Tartastan – Kazan. They have been offering a workable synergy of alt rock and pop ever since then.The café-bar 16 Tons – `Tonny` -has hosted MURAKAMI a few times before and the venue represents a more natural home for them than it did BRIGADNI PODRYAD.

The smart set.

The place has a reputation for being a decent microbrewery and I make the acquaintance of their light ale Zolotaya Leiba as undistinguished pop-funk plays through the speakers and the fans assemble.

They are not the leather jacket and combat trousers brigade. Bright t-shirts and pressed light blue jeans seem the order of the day.Lipstick lesbian couples, modelesque lone girls entranced by their phones, gaggles of plump women accompanied by chunky bald men, a lovey-dovey young couple and a puzzled American expat in the tow of a fashionista lady – they all 200 or so of them- bring with them a sense of expectation as well as the newly warm evening air.

Then at around 7:30, half an hour after the advertised starting time the `16 Tons` themes song is played (some godawful American blues ditty from the fifities) and this signals the arrival of the main attraction.

The band tease us with an instrumental interlude before Vagapora bursts onto the stage and opens with an unexpected sombre number which feels quite intense. Then she rips off the hat she has been wearing and launches into the crowd-pleasing `Kilometer` while swinging her hair around.

Rail Laptov, the rhythm guitarist and backing singer and Anton Kudryashov, the chunky keyboardist in shades both fight the impression that they are but session musicians. Artur Karimov, however, plucks at his base whilst skulking in the background somewhat and the percussion king Andrey Pugachev taps his drums with all the engagement of a doctor performing a minor operation.

Strong presence.

The commanding and sometimes coquettish presence of Vagapova forms the focus of it all. Her clear and penetrating vocal reach is only one of her assets. She empowers the music with great use of her hands and body movements. In her ability to take the audience with her I am reminded quite a lot of JULIA VOLKOVA.

The act is as well-rehearsed as it is sound engineered, yet there are quite a few raucous moments. In fact one of their numbers (as seems to be a requirement in law for Russian rock bands) a tribute to `Rock and roll`.

They enliven the show with some cabaret-like surprises too. Dilyara, all of a sudden, materialises behind the bar and delivers a slow number about soldiers (the one concession to the Day, perhaps).There is also a spoken monologue with a musical accompaniment and, just as the band had seemed to exit and we were getting ready to leave too, a melancholy unplugged piece (and one which seemed to put real tears into the eyes of Vagapora).

Not plastic.

I am left more stirred by this two hour event than I had expected.This is something a bit more than a manufactured and anodyne radio friendly colgate-smile sound. Both pain as well as pleasure get an airing here. It is all pumped out with a gutsy performance. The band’s poised ability to straddle the world of pop and at the same time delIver something serious puts me in mind of GOROD 312. There is even something of a potential Edith Piaf about Vagapora.

MURAKAMI have claimed in interviews that, despite the glare of the spotlight on them, they will not pack their bags and head out to the gated communities of Moscow like so many celebrities are expected to do. That is for the better. Russian cultural life is already way too Moscowcentric and the youthful and distinctive city of Kazan could do with an ambassador.

Murakami: remaining true to their roots in Kazan. [Murakamiband.ru]

OURS SINCERELY: LUMEN LIVE AT THE GLAV CLUB IN MOSCOW, 26TH MARCH.

Live rock is back – and with it LUMEN, an unpretentious quartet revisiting the songs that made them Russia’s favourite alt-rock exponents.

Lumen: (i) A unit for measuring the amount of light an object radiates.

Lumen: (ii) A prominent Russian alt-rock band who have been on the scene for 23 years..

About this time last year, with the Big Stop looming,I decided to forego the few live gigs still on offer then. Little did I realise at that time that it would be a whole year later before I would be gracing darkened halls full of people younger than myself and observing amplified performances.

Can I even remember how to do it?

Back in harness.

Getting back to the fray bought back all the tatty rawness of gig going that
I so love to hate.

The huddled gangs getting tanked up in the queue as you wait to enter…the general getting jostled about…the overpriced headache inducing Budweiser in plastic glasses…the pre-gig excited whoops as a roadie comes on stage to fiddle with a detail of the set…the trying not to spill your beer as you attempt to get some passable shots of the band with your unfit for purpose camera…all of that.

Alt-rock success story.

LUMEN – a four piece string and drum outfit -constitute a product of Ufa in Bakshortostan (in fact, they have written at least one song in the Bashkiri language). It tells you a lot that the band can boast an exact birthday: 12th February 1998, the fateful day when they became LUMEN and embarked on writng their own material.

LUMEN eschew genre labels and their music does elude them to some extent. They do not represent any kind of Metal, Nu or otherwise and seem too well-mannered and reflective to qualify as` punks`.` Alt-rock` seems the safest fit for what they do. Their nearest peers might be STIGMATA, except minus the grandiloquent Gothic trappings of that act, or PILOT yet lacking the evergetic inventiveness of those St Petersburgians.

They have gifted Russia and Eastern Europe with some nine recordings. Their name is fated, however, to be bound up with a piece entitled Sid and Nancy – a ballad extolling bonding through shared alienation which name-checks the punk celebrities in doing so. This summoned up a cult status amongst the nadstats of 2003 on receiving radio exposure.

LUMEN followed this hit with a reputation-cementing 18 track album called (in Russian) No Preservatives. Here was a band in the KINO tradition, taking a no-frills approach and telling it like it is.(Indeed, anti-government and ant-war anthems form a part of their repertoire. So far though, they seemed to have escaped the kind of attention from the higher-ups that have dogged the carees of LOUNA and IC3PEAK).

It is this very album that the concerts at Glav Club on 24th and 25th of March were staged in honour of. For two nights running – Friday and Saturday LUMEN were to revisit those compositions again as an 18 year anniversary.

Real people.

The two thousand or so punters who show up on this early spring evening – plus three degrees already! -appear an unspectacular lot, all grey and black khaki and t-shirts and anything between twenty and thirty years of age.

Among them are some true fans: I espy people at the front holding up some illuminated signs of the band’s birthday at the front of the pit.

Otherwise, I sense that we are all here to check out each other. This is always the case with such rock events but, this year, the hunger is even greater.(Indeed, at the end of the show many show a marked reluctance to leave and even crash out on the floor in small groups).

It’s about the music.

LUMEN saunter onto the stage without any theatrical preamble, soI am at the bar when it happens, trying to get the barman’s attention. Donned in tight jeans and their own promotional t-shirts, they could be members of their own audience.

The lynx-lean lead vocalist Rustem Bulatov.for all his lack of preservatives, does not look his forty-years of age although his chunkier colleagues do just a tad more.

I am more familiar with the band’s more recent anthemic material but what they play tonight seems to be a kind of power-pop which most in the audience know well enough to to sing along to. Sid and Nancy, however, is taken out for a walk.

With his earnest image,I do not expect Bulatov to be so garrulous. In between pieces he addresses us all as though he knows us, but with a casual and respectful air. What has most impact on me though, is Igor Mamaev’s lead guitar. He delivers quasi-classical sequences of soaring melody which have me closing my eyes in zoned out relish.

It is all about the music. The band have no recourse to video projections, or such special effects, but just use alternating red and blue lights for the most part. There are only a few balloons, The rhythm king – Denis Shakhanov – does not lob his sticks into the crowd and nor are there multiple encores or a selfie taken with the crowd.

A proper picure of the band – taken by a proper photographer. [metalking.org]

Isolation begone.

When the two hour set comes to a close and the masses chant `mol-od-yets` (`well done`) Bulatov, in a gesture of honest humility bows with his palms pressed together.

It all feels like a note in the margins of the post-pandemic situation. Yes, we are ordered to mask up on the way in to the venue. Yes, the bartenders insist on us wearing masks when we order (as is right and fair). Otherwise the masks are off and the band do not even reference the pandemic. It is like 2019 again – and a worthy beginning to a new season of live music in Moscow.

Soul versus market.

LUMEN offer a kind of heartfelt desire to share. They offer `sincerity`. This commodity may have been a bit out of vogue in the West for some time but many roubles could be put on `sincerity` making a rapid come back.

The Welsh rock combo THE MANIC STREET PREACHERS are what LUMEN remind me of a little. Here we have decent young men cocking a snook at the acknowledged grim realities of contemporary life for all too many of us.

But the burning question this raises is as old as the hills. Can LUMEN’s `sincerity` hold up when they are, for example, flogging LUMEN themed money belts, or producing arty-crafty videos to showcase their latest slow moving ballads – and staging nostalgic retrospectives like this one? They are, after all a well-established act who have reached, as they say, `the pinnacle of their career`.

FROM THE ARCHIVES: Missives from the Mosh-pit, 2015.

For obvious reasons, there is not a whole lot going on in live music in Russia right now. So, from the more carefree time of five years ago, here are two reviews of prominent Russian alt rock exponents – STIGMATA and TRAKTOR BOWLING – who played live at the Red Club in central Moscow in the winter of 2015. (I only wrote these for a very low circulation school newsletter – so I am not regurgitating anything too much by posting them here)

STIGMATA, AT RED, 21^ST NOVEMBER.

Burly, and bored, the security men manning the gates of Red nightclub seemed reluctant the let the crowd in. We had been hanging about in the dank November evening for too long, pacing around the arty boutiques and fancy restaurants, and it was past seven already. Most of the fans were buying their tickets –for the Stigmata Legion Tour – on the night. I had claimed mine a month or so earlier, and had needed to write the band’s name in both English and Russian before the sellers in the kiosk understood what I was asking for. (This is clearly a cult band therefore). Then, when the gatekeepers gave us the all-clear, they squinted at my ticket for some time as though they were worried that it might be for Elton John or something.

Young following.

Maybe they had a point: the three hundred or so Stigmata devotees must have still been in their cots when the band was launched at the turn of the century. Fresh-faced and flushed with expectation as they were, I caught myself hoping that the show would be good for them, as for some it may have been their first rock gig.

In the still chilly darkness of the club, the fans, anonymous in their indifferent denims and checked shirts, just kept on coming. We all stood about for a good hour gazing at the stylised `S` logo on the stage. Next to me a lanky guy in a Papa Roach t-shirt sucked on some kind of scented E-cigarette while a circle of baseball capped boys, their leader in a `666` sweatshirt, passed the time in the manner of ice-hockey team supporters by calling out the band’s name.

When the backstage screen lit up with Stigmata in black and white and they materialised, the walls and floor vibrated and the crowd began to jab the air with their fingers to the beat of the grinding noise.

Doomsayers from St Petersburg.

A five piece string and drum combo, Stigmata emerged from the rival town of St Petersburg. This fact, along with their occult laden moniker, would suggest a dark-wave Gothic type of music. Their actual sound though is a fast-paced and impassioned one: the sort that encourages a section of the audience to coalesce into a rugby-type scrum as the night progresses. You have to take a look at their translated lyrics to see the darker picture behind it all. What follows is lifted at random from some verses in – brace yourself- Psalms of Conscious Martyrdom (2010):

`Shield your skin for it shall peel/see the hungry jackals come and tear you limb by limb/ burn the day, darkened light`

(Er, no thanks! I’ve got a dentists appointment at five!)

Efficient.

Artyom Lotskih, the goatee bearded and paunchy lead singer, has one leg in a caste but gets on with the job without tiring. He belts out a bass growl and a rasp – signature clichés of the metal core genre which critics bracket the band in. Sometimes he sings melodies, and when he does he has a rather pleasant quavering voice. The person however, who introduces the songs and addresses the crowd is the rhythm guitarist, Taras Umansky.

Vladimir Zinovyev’s energetic drumming holds the whole performance together and the band, knowing this, have set him up on a raised platform. Then the guitarists provide some needed spectacle by goofing about: the bassist Denis Kichenko boasts a fret board with lights along it and the lead guitarist, who calls himself Duke, headbangs over a triangular guitar with his well-kept shoulder-length locks splayed about him. You get the impression that he rather wishes he were a member of the band Europe or something. Both twirl about like dervishes in the red and blue spotlights with their cordless instruments.

The songs came and went without much to distinguish them. Some were given a pensive aspect, such as the well-known Sentyabr by being introduced by a recorded piano motif. Then half way through their two hour set they incorporated some techno style interludes to their pieces which worked quite well.

This was a workman-like set from Stigmata. They left, without observing the convention of having introduced the band members, but after having their picture taken in front of the crowd – the same crowd who earlier had caught the bottles of half drunk water they tossed to them as though it were holy.

As we took our leave, I was pleased to see a lady, perhaps in her sixties, threading her way through the clusters of teens. `Whoa! ` I thought. `That’s cool! Someone here older than me! `

That was before I realised that she was most likely someone’s grandmother, here to pick one of the fans up and drive them home.

Tracktor Bowling – at Red, October 3^rd.

The bells of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour chimed just as I darted out of Kropotkinskaya metro exit into a crisp early October evening.

I was headed to altogether different type of sonic distraction: no sooner had I clapped eyes on the poster in the metro – advertising a visit by Tracktor Bowling to showcase their new Byezkonechnost album -than I had snapped up a ticket.

Having appeared on a compilation CD of numetal legends from Russia, which also boasted the likes of Stigmata and Amatory, they were already known to me. Besides, I tell myself, seeing Russian rock acts keeps me in touch with the world some of my students inhabit – and, since the genre has remained in stasis since the nineties, does so without making me feel too much like an ancient interloper.

Enduring.

Tracktor Bowling themselves are hardly a baby band: by this time next year they will have been rocking for two decades – a fact alluded to in the title of their new album (which means, something like, `never ending`). Wikipedia has even dubbed the group `the leaders of Moscow alternative rock`. Indeed, for a comparison you would need to look at the British Skunk Anansie or the German band Guano Apes, although they lack the balls of the first band and the originality of the latter.

What pushed them ahead, however, was the addition of Louise Gevorkyan as the lead singer in the nearly noughties. This thirty two year old Kaplan born Armenian, whose photogenic aquiline looks are one of the band’s unique selling points, studied music and teaches singing herself. A busy woman, she divides her time between Traktoring and fronting another outfit called Louna who, with their punkish socially conscious stance, have been making waves in America.

The gathering.

A mixed sex stream of black t-shirt and hooded topped twenty-somethings began to fill up the Red club at Yakmanskaya Nab on the riverside. Anonymous thrash rock played in the background and people’s trainers glowed in the ultraviolet light and I was relieved to see that, among them, there were also some older, nondescript types who had turned up to see what all the fuss was about.

There was a stampede to the front as the lights dimmed and the band’s logo flashed up on the screen behind it. Then, as the fans chanted `Track-tor track-tor` a siren sounded and we were then treated to a slick series of slides showing the band through the ages: a sort of early anniversary celebration. Then: there they were.

Rock chick.

Lousine now sports-bottle blonde hair and cuts a chunky figure in her cut off black jeans and Rage Against The Machine T-shirt. The men –Mult, Vil and Prof, all tattoos and short hair, looked like the seasoned musicians they are, but did not muster the same kind of attention as the singer.

For all their `alternative` trappings what Tracktor Bowling trade in is Power Metal: hearty ballads which sometimes sit alongside more shouted numbers. They only sing in Russian and among the few songs I recognised was `Cherta` (`The Edge`) and another one which translates as `Walking on Glass`. The crowd, though, not only knew the songs but where belting out their own duets to them. Loiusine, with the engaging manner of a tomboy skater, knows her audience well. Her pogoing and the later slam dunking enlivened a self-punishing two and a half hour set. After the encore they did not wait to commune with their followers but disappeared as – and this custom is unique to Russian rock gigs – some of them called out `Spa-si-ba! Spa-s-ba! `. Soon the besuited security men set about shepherding us from the building. I walked out of the club infected with the energy of it all, and with the sense that I had witnessed something of a phenomenon.

WHAT’S ALL THIS THEN!? AUKTYON LIVE AT THE GLAV CLUB, MOSCOW ON OCTOBER 6TH.

Perhaps I should have split the scene when I spied the tuba on-stage….

If I had to name the most lugubrious song that I can think of then it would have to be The House of the Rising Son by The Animals which they released in Britain in the sixties.

This soul-sapping song was the one being played by a warm up DJ as I made my way into the Glav Club in south Moscow to find out about AUKTYON.

As I shuffled through the security checkpoint, having had to divest myself of all my valuables and then graduated to the garderobe area were the process was repeated, I was, for some reason, reminded of a time I had gone to visit an inmate at Strangeways prison many years ago. Perhaps it was just that baleful ballad, with its sense of entrapment, that had put me in this frame of mind. Yet it was fitting.

Tuba.

The DJ responsible for this soundtrack, however, was something of a discrepancy. As the 800 or so audience of hipsters of all, ages piled into the auditorium he span a string of sixties Western classics – all of which were in contrast to what was to ensue.

After treating us to The Doors he exited to polite applause and then we had a chance to look at the stage. The backdrop was an old-fashioned curtain rather than the now mandatory projection. Nor was there any evidence of dry ice to get us ready. Then I spied a tuba on the stage among other brass instruments. A tuba! Hmmm…

The Munsters.

I counted about nine members of AUKTYON including three brass horn worriers, a willowy keyboardist, the bassist, the lead guitarist and the man leading the parade…who, well we’ll come to that.

None of these personnel were screen idol material – unless you include the likes of Lon Chaney in that definition.

Leonid Fyodorov, a shapeless and bespectacled man, could have been a software developer as he crouched over his guitar facing sideways to the audience.

Oleg Garkusha, a thick-set hunchback in a spangled jacket and white gloves,put me in mind of Barry Humphries’s alter ego Les Patterson. He functioned as the frontman and I kept expecting him to burst into song. Instead he tottered about the stage shaking some kind of tubular rattle like a man in the grip of delirium tremens. Once in a while bark something into the microphone or declaim something between sets.

It seems that Garkusha constitutes one of those band members who, like Andrew Ridgeley from Wham, just `provide a presence`. But at least Ridgeley was beach-body ready….

Their own creation.

AUKTYON began in 1978 after being initiated by two college kids in St Petersburg – Fyodorov and Garkusha. They soon became a fixture of the influential Leningrad Rock club with their brand of art rock.

After all these years they can still draw an audience even though their sound has mutated from theatrical post-punk to central Asian tinged big band quasi-Jazz compositions, albeit retaining the thread of theatricality.

Mindless boogie.

Tonight they churned out a series of horn-heavy rhythmical numbers, most of which were quite long and many of which displayed false endings. At best they resembled some of the early excursions of Talking Heads and at other times I was reminded of the ska-punk of Distemper who I had seen live in Kazan a few years back. Their song `Doroga`, which I recognised, is an obvious classic but many others seemed indistinguishable from each other.

The Fyodorov’s crooning, whilst it may have been the blues voice of the perestroika era, only succeeded in reminding me that I would soon be on the screeching metro going home alone to an empty flat and with nothing but duties facing me the next wet day….

Mixed reception.

After each piece Garkusha did one of those circus performer bows where you cross and uncross your hands in front of your chest while bowing three times. The applause came, but the audience seemed to have divided into three camps. The true believers were the ones engaging in some energetic jiving. Then some looked just bored and the third camp was more tolerant and expectant yet a bit lost.

I do appreciate that AUKTYON have their very own late Soviet/post-Soviet jazz-ska-folk-dance-soundtrack which is by no means a copycat of anything Western that I can think of.

However, I was in the latter two camps. Call me superficial but I could have liked them more had they not been so unprepossessing in appearance; nor, as much as I embrace a lot of `dark` music, could I relate to their doleful tone.

Perhaps I just needed to knock back more of the 350 roubles a throw Tuborg’s, or become more of a jazzer….

They continued to honk and jitter about as I took my leave at quarter to eleven. On the way out I noticed that pamphlets by Colonel Gaddafi were being sold alongside tha band’s merchandise and then I became enveloped in the sleet of the October night….

Auktyon: `Moya Lyubov` (Live in St Petersburg, 2011

RABBLE ROUSERS: BRIGADNI PODRYAD AT 16 TONS.

They came all the way from St Pete’s to prove that Punk’s Not Dead (in Russia at least).

Nearing the end of a murky summer, I found myself, for the first time, in the much vaunted 16 Tons music bar. The season had offered slim pickings in terms of live music, so I had come to witness the re-appearance of an old act. This was an act that had been forged in the stagnation of the U.S.S.R. Would they still have something to say now?

Polished bar – Gritty band.
16 Tons functions as a mock-up of a British pub of the kind anathema to me. The exterior features a facade of olde-worlde curtained windows making the place resemble some kind of fun fair attraction. Upstairs, on the inside, the place is all gleaming dark mahogany, fake shelves of books and art nouveau style lamps. In fact, it is just the sort of place that was erupting all over Britain in the nineties. Indeed, 16 Tons has been in business since 1996 and has gained a reputation for both decent live music and beer.
Brigadni Podryad – their name gets translated as `Team Contract` but carries the sense of `mercenaries` -have been torchbearers of `77 style garage punk since their Soviet baiting school days and might seem to be out-of-place in such a venue. Then again the band can claim responsibility for some 15 studio albums which contain some cherished classics the appeal of which extends beyond the punk rock cognoscenti.

All the old dudes.
People say that 16 Tons provides great beers, which are brewed on site. However, after around two hundred punters had rolled up I had to forget about following up my passable glass of white ale. Those who spent the gig propping up the bar were not going to budge an inch!

The online blurb for the band made something of the fact that they can still speak to Youth. In fact few of the audience members looked below thirty. I did see a hipster type donned in a `No Gods – Nor Masters` t-shirt but there were more portly old gents with silver hair. Some people – and this is a real sign that a band has become established – had brought their kids.

A more unusual posse of exhibitionists pushed their way to the front of the throng. They represented Tula – a fan club from 190 odd kilometers south of Moscow. They waved a big flag to announce this fact.

No nonsense rockers.
We stood around as electronic disco music played expectant tunes. When the group arrived they launched straight into an aggressive number beneath red and orange lights and with the lead singer sporting a foot long Mohican. They seemed meaner than their jolly japish videos suggest – but they would soon loosen up.
Maxim Koldaev wielded the sticks in an AC/DC t-shirt, the bearded Evgeni Hulpin was on bass guitar, Anatoly Sktyarenko was the lead guitarist and Alexander Lukyanov fronted as the lead verbalist but also guitar.

Adapted Punk.
Brigadni Podryad specialise in Sex Pistol’s style fast and heavy rock: they are to `77 what Primal Scream are to `66. The assorted rabble got what they had come for – a chance to let rip with some `in yer face` but melodic choruses. The ethos was that of fans at an ice hockey match chanting and singing in unison.
Realising, however, that you cannot base an entire set around `1-2-3-crash-bang-crash` the band do allow other musical genres into the punk party. Much of what they play might be called Power Pop. Otherwise there can be found traces of rap and folk and even, in one song, a bit of funk.

Talented performers.
Lukyanov has a versatile voice which he sometimes wastes on doing good impressions of Pistol’s era John Lydon, but sounds far better as himself. He also supplements this with clear and confident melodies picked out on his guitar which serve to enrich the grinding clatter.
The band worked the audience with merry banter between songs and the guitarist gurned at them as he crouched over his instrument in a baseball cap and small shades.
Then, to the side of the stage, in a cordoned of V.I.P area the bottle blondes cavorted in a practised way to the beat. I took these to be the band members loyal wives.

Only rock and roll.
They strummed and hollered their way through an hour and a half worth of anthems and ballads without so much as stopping for a sip of water.
Their songs included the well-known `Gitari`, the goofy `Punk Rock Uroki` (`Punk rock Lesson`) and `St Pete’s Rock and Roll`. Then there was the edifying ditty entitled `Ivan Fuck off` which the crowd relished singing along to. We also got treated to a piece in praise of Krasnodar.
Unless there is something I am missing, Brigadni Podryad, these days at least, are not so much concerned with affairs of state. They tell of everyday impatience, family life, towns and…rock and roll. Rock and Roll in particular.

I am not unused to rock gig scrums. Nevertheless, as I stumbled in a daze back to the Metro, I felt like some sort of Woody Allen character who had been corralled into a jolly knees up with a bunch of Hell’s Angels.
If only I had been able to get to the bar more often, it could have been so much different!

`Gitari` by Brigadni Podryad.

RITE OF SPRING: IC3PEAK LIVE AT THE GLAV CLUB, MOSCOW, 12TH MAY.

Hot and edgy, these young Halloween trick-or-treaters are on the cusp of a Dark Wave.

After six years the two twenty somethings called IC3PEAK have been drawing in a devoted young following, touring countries as diverse as China and Brazil and making conservative authorities break out in a cold sweat with their fresh recordings.

Discovering that they were to manifest and the prestigious Glav Club I made my way to Leninsky Prospekt on a Sunday evening populated with relaxed people on bicycles and scooters.

Demonic upstarts.

IC3PEAK comprise Nikolai Kostylev on synths, samples, sequencers and percussion and the 24-year-old Nastya Kreslina who provides the verbals and vocals. They have produced some four albums and `Witch House` is what commentators have dubbed their brand of vaporous and baleful lounge music and dance grooves, thus linking them with other bands from hip-hop traditions who toy with crepuscular iconography.

This duo, however, like some sort of cross between the bands Otto Dix and Pussy Riot seem willing to take a stand on important issues in spite of having had some brushes with the law. Some of their gigs were cancelled following interventions from the Politsia last year but, later on. they still played at an event protesting the new government laws allowing for the restriction of the internet.

Buzz.

More than any other concert I have been to, this one exuded a feeling of being an occasion.

Most of the thousand or so punters seemed to consist of grungy teens (the ticket stipulated 16+ age limit but I think some were stretching this a tad). Some Emo/Goth tribe members were here for the `Witch` and other townie tribalists were here for the `House`, others for Witchever. Myself, in a Gary Numan T-shirt from 1993, took my place among the chin stroking elders who were here to see `what all this Witch House malarkey was about`.

A one man faux-avant garde noise merchant provided the warm up act. The audience, chanting the name of their heroes with impatience, were churlish enough to cheer when he left the stage – but he had provided a context for what was to follow.

What followed was more noise – as an aural curtain raiser for the main act. A spacey ever rising crescendo shook the hall so that when IC3Peak arrived – silhouetted in the magnesium flare of white light – the fans were at fever pitch.

Bewitched.

Kostylev, sometimes crisscrossed by beams of red light, was busy behind his techno-deck but would sometimes add a bit of needed visual stimulus by pounding on electronic drums.

Kreslina, meanwhile, strutted back and forth along the stage, now with a dignified straight-back, then all of a sudden falling into a crouch.

Her malleable voice came to us as a percussive shriek, a witches cackle, a vituperative nagging, a girlish fawning and an angelic serenade. She can hit the high notes in a way that would put Julia Volkova to shame. Sometimes her warblings bring to mind Lalo Schifin’s score to the 1979 The Amityville Horror.

The pieces were introduced by a backdrop that featured the title written out as an electrical storm and were blasted out at a fair volume. Many of these came from their last two – more confident and coherent albums – Sladkaya Zhisn (`Sweet Life`) and Skazka (`Fairytale`) but I did recognise Quartz from the Substances album too.

The band has made the commendable decision to start singing in their native tongue and some of their recent videos, particularly the one for Skazal make a point of throwing a whole load of Russianisms into the air.

That said there does appear to be a notable Japanese manga influence working behind their whole act. Just look at Kreslina’s ponytail and kimonos and listen to those Eastern melodies and observe the digital focus of it all.

Another clear ingredient to IC3Peak’s impact comprises the erotic presence of Kreslina which is all the more alluring for not seeming to be forced.

Traditional.

The masses raved. They chanted and sang along. They took snaps with their phones and waved their hands in the air. They cheered whenever Kreslina said `Preevyet Moskva!`. They let the band toy with them by returning for an unexpected second encore. All in all, genre trappings aside, this could have been a rock gig by Aria.

In the face of such adulation, and corresponding new income, it remains to be seen how much the sociopolitical significance of IC3Peak can survive….

Ringstone round.

So I was ushered out of the club following the hour and a half set and found myself, still with a beer in my hand, at the entrance to the club just happy to soak in the early summer evening. Next to me a group of teens had formed a circle. They began a playground chant based on IC3PEAK’s Smerti Bolshi Nyet (`Death Noe More`):

`In my gold chains/ I’m drowning in the swamp…`

Skazka (Fairytale)` by IC3PEAK.

Russian bands SUNWALTER at the Alibi Club, Moscow, December 1st and DOLPHIN at Glavclub Green Concert, Moscow December 8th.

Up-and-coming Sci Fi metal act Sunwalter have forged a great rapport with their burgeoning fan base, while established groovers Dolphin put on a polished but aloof performance.

Sunwalter shots by Iain Rogers.

Sunwalter, a five piece now in their first decade, term their own brand of symphonic power rock `sci fi metal`.

The lyrics of these twenty-something’s compositions (sung in English) reside in an intergalactic reality of their own. This is a broth of Roswell speculation and cosmic adventure as shown in their most recent album – Alien Hazard – which they toured Eastern Europe with last year.

They sustain this theatricality in all their dealings: they wear costumes, have stage names (Alexio – vocals, Olga Sol- vocals, Myutel and St Odium on guitars and Miran on drums), their stage act constitutes masquerade and the music itself owes something to the pomp and circumstance of the `prog rock` of 40 odd years back.

Sunwalter form an upbeat (if escapist) counterblast to the dark and (often lazy) nihilism of all too many acts in the same genre. They are very much helped by the soprano like `clean` vocals of Olga, who gives an operatic edge to the whole enterprise.

When I interviewed them a few years back I was very much struck by their ambition. This was focused on the music itself, in getting it just right, but also in pushing themselves out there and becoming known.

So when I clambered in to the Alibi club, right next to a Lukoil building, it was with some proprietorial concern.

The event was another `battle of the bands` format of the kind that I had first met them in. That is, a coterie of camp followers congregating to compare notes and to cheer on their own teams. This time, however, Sunwalter were hosting and it was their name at the top of the list and their t-shirts and CDs on sale in the lobby.

The bands had to do their own sound checks before going on. This was why I had assumed that the portly, bespectacled lead singer of Schwarzkopf was a sound engineer.

He and his band went on to parody Rammstein with great competence. I think their songs were their own, but would have believed them to be by the band they so much model themselves on.

Likewise, the next act (Suicider?) – lead by a standardised hairy rock god – seemed to be referencing Metallica, up to an including the American accents.

When Sunwalter made their eventual appearance they brought with them a sense of relief. This lot, at least, represented more than mere acolytes.

Alexio from Sunwalter.
He may look like a stage hypnotist but
he can reverse the polarity of the neutron flow in your warp drive faster than you can say ` ““Flash Gordon`.

The attendance swelled to about 300 and it became clear that many of them had come just for Sunwalter, who, for their part seemed to relish every moment of their hour and a half set.

Sunwalter guitarist Myutel.
(He’s a nice boy really)

Alexio growled from behind a Sunwalter themed disc shaped lectern while Olga, resplendent in a shiny blue one piece costume and green eye shadow nodded to the beat.The drummer wore a death’s-head mask and at one point the guitarist leapt down from the stage and began playing from behind the audience. Olga kept up a lot of banter with her fans – she seems to have become the focus of attention – and one of them won a competition and received a gem stone.

After the curtain call the satisfied punters posed with Olga for selfies. It was then that I reflected that, for all the cheer this accomplished band spread around, they remain a hobby-band with day jobs. They deserve so much better.

Sunwalter’s site (English)

With the tickets going at 2, 200 roubles, this was the most that I had paid for a concert in Russia. This might explain the nature of the ticket holders. They were dressed as if for the theatre and a few men had ponytails but not many wore the usual faded black t-shirt with band logos on. I was amongst urban professionals. One of them even apologised to me when he almost knocked a glass out of my hand!

The Glav Club Green Concert venue is to be found in the industrial heart of the Leninsky Prospekt area. The place seemed well run as snazzy black suited young women took our coats in the wardrobe area and it proved spacious enough to house the two thousand or so punters in non-sardine like conditions.

Andrei Lysikov of Dolphin.
An icon of Russia’s post-Soviet rock-pop scene.
[spblife.info]

Dolphin (Delfin) represent one of the few signature Russian rock bands that I know little about. This owes to the fact that there is a strong lyrical content to their `rap rock`.

The lead singer, 47-year-old Andrei Lysikov, began life, after all,as a hip-hop rap artist. With Malchysnik – think a Russian Beastie Boys for the post-Soviet generation- made the Russia of the Yeltsin years both blush and wince.

Long since then he has mellowed (this concert was certificate 12+) and has been producing a more thoughtful type of techno-rock rap fusion in creative buddyship with the guitarist Pavel Dodonov.

Nobody seems quite sure how to categorise this fusion. Trip hop? Shoe gazer? British readers will know what I mean when I mention New Order and Depeche Mode. The ensemble also sometimes recall the more indigenous t.A.T.u at times.

Whatever the genre, many of their numbers, such as `Vyesna` (`Spring`) are known to pretty much all Russians.

The nondescript three-piece engineered a non-stop two-hour set shrouded in a purple and blue laser light show. Between sets they produced portentous electronic soundscapes.

This combination was often majestic and the drummer in particular fleshed out a pre-programmed bass with sharp percussion, sometimes incorporating wood blocks. A trumpeter and saxophonist came on for three songs too. The vocals, however, all seemed a bit the same, although it would have helped if I could have caught the content more.

In contrast to Sunwalter, though these heroes of Russian rock did little to reach out to the people who had bought tickets to see them. We might as well have been watching them on a screen. The audience responded in kind by not singing along and not calling for an encore.

What we did do, however, was jive. It is not so obvious from their recorded material that Dolphin constitute a great dance band – but, as the gyrating girl in dreadlocks and a satchel in front of me well knew – they can get you moving it.

Where are they now? : t.A.T.u divided by 2.

The two members of Russia’s most popular band have both played in Moscow recently -and I caught them both.

Fame.

A girl synth pop-rock duo formed in Moscow in the late Nineties, the Russian outfit t.A.T.u produced a string of international hits through a nine year period in the Noughties.

As much as Eurovision followers may recall who Dima Bilan is, or rock historians may have read something about Machina Vremya or Akvarium, or metal-heads could well have head banged to an anthem that Aria played, the Russian group with a worldwide profile is t.A.T.u. They were the `National treasures` who featured in the opening ceremony of the Russian Winter Olympics in Sochi in 2014.

T.A.T.u consist of the Muscovites Yulia Olegovna Volkova, now aged thirty three (and married with a child) and Katina Elena Sergeevna, who is one year older. Ivan Shaplov, who had a background in television, managed them.

Beginning with Ya slosha s’ooma (I’ve Lost My Mind) in 2000, they released a series of dance floor standards, pop ballads, cover versions and even mash ups with the like of Rammstein, the German heavy rock band. They strutted their stuff in the Eurovision song contest of 2003, and came third place.

Synth-pop with attitude.

t.A.T.u could be seen as a product of the ferment of Nineties Russia, which brought forth techno bands like Virus, but also song based dance acts like Mirage. They combined something of both of these styles but injected it with a dose of teenage defiance. In so doing, they made the Spice Girls of a few years earlier look tame in comparison. Moreover, their mock-lesbian pose, with corresponding graphic videos made them notorious.

In fact, the romantic thread which runs through their lyrics had been inspired by the Swedish film called Show Me Love (1998) by Lukas Moodyson. This is about a schoolgirl tryst in the small town of Omolo. Their trademark white shirt and short check skirt look, meanwhile, owed something to the erotic end of Japanese Manga comics.

Their sound, a distinctive mix of Euro-pop and techno, was helped along by the Durham born British pop visionary Trevor Horn, who produced many of their compositions.

t.A.T.u forever created controversy, and sometimes without meaning to. They appeared on stage brandishing Kalashnikovs, they were accused of sneering at the disabled with their song Lyudi Invalidi, mimed sexual acts live, supported gay rights, and wore t-shirts that featured ant-Iraq war slogans.

Their fans came from the same age group as the girls. Their appeal lay in the music and the image more than anything else. t.A.T.u seemed like ordinary Russian young women: a bit talented, attractive without being too glamorous, half Westernised and with ambitions for something more. Furthermore, by singing in both English and Russian they kept hold of their national identities. Their debut album 200 Po Vstrechnoi /200KM in the Wrong Lane (2001) was the first ever to win the platinum award in two languages. t.A.T.u encouraged kids in China and Turkey and elsewhere to try and learn some Russian.

The Venue: Mumiy Troll bar in Moscow.

Mumy Troll, an uneasy mix of cabaret bar and restaurant, can be found just below street level on Tverskaya Street in an area of plush hotels. The place has a dress code and the lead singer of the band after which it is named intends to set up an international chain of such places.

Julia Volkova live, March 2016.

Voices called out `Julia! Julia!’ as though she was a friend that they had passed in the street and she beamed as someone handed her a huge bouquet of pink roses. I had come expecting to see an ice queen; instead what I got was a good-time girl….

This, I had also thought, was not going to be my scene but I found myself happy to lay down the thousand rouble entrance fee at the door to see Julia Volkova play live. It would not do to miss a chance to witness the return of an iconic half of Russia’s best known pop sensation.

Since the t.A.Tu days Julia has fallen out with Lena, reconciled with her and then fallen out again, married and divorced and given birth twice, and received surgery for throat cancer. Furthermore, if you type her name into a search engine the word `homophobia` will pop up. She found herself in the middle of a row about gay men after letting slip, on a Ukrainian chat show, that she would not like her son to be a homosexual..

Donned in smart casual gear, there were more women than men and many could not have clear memories of the early noughties. They gathered round the oval bar in the centre of the club to order pricey German beers or even cocktails. Some of them were Friday night regulars who would pass the evening chomping on their pommes frites and chicken kievs gazing at it all as if it were on television.

The faithful, however, congregated around the platform and waited while a loop of soft rock from Mumiy Troll played on in the background. The lights then flickered as stage smoke appeared.

There was no other build up. Looking over at the stage door we stole a glimpse of Julia, hemmed in by bouncers with sweatshirts bearing the legend `No Stress`.

The drummer lumbered on stage first, and looked like one of the bouncers, and he was followed by a silken haired maestro of a violinist, a t-shirted guitarist and a man with strap-on keyboards.

Then at last Julia made her entrance: she was a black kitten in fishnets, with wild spiked hair and lobster coloured skin. She was accompanied by two backing singers in black and white uniforms like air stewardesses.

This odd ensemble set about a rendition of `Friend or Foe` and, as though they had been waiting for this very number, the gathering sang along as they held their smart-phones aloft hoping to capture Julia as she boxed the air to the peppy beat.

This set the trend. Julia’s more contemporary pieces, such as the Berlin cabaret like `Woman All the Way down` did not get an airing and instead we were treated to a bit of a t.A.Tu retrospective with such classics as `Nas Nye Dogonyat`, `Loves Me Not` and `Ya Soshla s Ooma`

There also ensued some sort of monologue spoken over an instrumental backing, the usual teary ballad and a token rap interlude. The chunky rap artist –whose contrast with the diminutive frame of Julia could not have been greater –only drew a polite but cool reception.

The hour and a half long set was filmed and what defined it was Julia’s ebullient demeanour. At one point she even addressed onlookers peering in from the windows overlooking Tverskaya Street.

Then the sound. Rocked up by pounding drums and reinforced by extra singers it became pure pop-rock-dance fun, and was quite apart from the plastic industrial clatter of some of t.A.T.u’s recordings.

I have been to more worthy gigs and to ones cooler and more up-to-the-minute. This one, with its feeling of being a friend’s reunion, is one of the few where I haven’t been waiting for it to end so that I could replenish my drink.

Lena Katina live, March 2018.

Some of the nondescript thirty-somethings who came stamping into this from the early March frost that night may have been regular clientele come to sample the lobster. Even so, the crowd struggled to reach three digit figures. They then had to sip their spectacular cocktails for about an hour before the five-piece band, including two backing singers, appeared on the stage. Then, at last, the spangled and henna haired form of Lena Katina sauntered on, to polite applause.

Her two and a half hour show was episodic. The first section consisted of a string of short and sweet pop ditties, with a female violinist making a guest appearance for one of the slower numbers. Most of these songs went in one of my ears and out of the other although `Never Forget` is a good solid ballad, worthy of t.A.T.u. For me, however, the stand out piece had to be `Silent Hills`, a stirring rumination on marital breakdown with some intelligent lyrics.

The band then fled the stage to allow two Townies to come on with a mixer desk for a drum `n` bass interlude. (At least there was no rapper!)

Then the predictable last section was one which doubled the number of spectators standing near the stage: it was t.A.T.u revival time, and this seemed what many of them had come to see. The band rattled through the classics which they were authorised to do – and these included `Pol chas` `Ya soshia S’uma` and the barnstorming `All About Us` all of which sounded pretty much like the t.A.T.u originals. The band then left without an encore but not before they had rolled down a screen and Lena sang a ballad about her t.A.Tu days accompanied by shots of Yulia and herself in New York in the Nineties.

If t.A.T.u could be considered to be a `rock-pop` act then Lena Katina, with her sound grasp of melody and `sincere` persona, represents the pop part of the equation. The more `rock and roll` one, however, is Julia Volkova whose act was a bit more transgressive in its sexyness and I rather preferred her for that.

The main image (of Julia Volkova) belongs to Mumiy Troll bar, Moscow.

The review of Julia Vokova first appeared in Moskvaer (see related links page).