Legends in Kirov
The word of "former times", in relation to the scandalous fame of the group Tatu, is mentioned not at all accidentally in the subtittle of this stuff. As a foretaste of the arrival of the "star-duet" on Vyatka's soil the local mass media were not tired to stress exactly the epithet "scandalous" in their announcements of the forthcoming show, relishing with frightening persistence the pseudo-pregnancy of Lena Katina and the erotic component of the concerts of the famous group. But then the journalist-colleges forgot to tell, that the group Tatu has entered a professional niveau for a long time, unexpected to the mayority of the local representatives of show-business. Therefore the words paid off in their best sense: there was nothing to see of scandals in Tatu's Kirov performance. (Confess, be honest, was it necessary for you?) As substitute (yes, again such a 'substitute') we were witnesses, I am not afraid to say this, of the most magnificent show, which took place in the circus, and maybe of all concert areas alltogether in the city. And you know, after SUCH a concert we can't even call the girls 'tatugirls'. Lena Katina and Yulya Volkova, they are not "Star-Factory" for you, or even Vitas (by the way, recently he made troubles with Kirov's organizers because of the absence of pink toilet paper in the hotel room) - those Tatu soaked up all the best of the west and especially the american show-business, and the result of the "absorption" I could prove with you directly on myself.
They didn't get them
To avoid unnecessary attention for the group from the press and the fans ever since the morning, the organizers of the concert kept quiet about the exact time of arrival of Tatu in our city. The group had been put down on the platform of Kirov's station and immediately they were brought to the "Central"-hotel. Exactly calculating the road. Knowing that at 14:00 the duet had an autograph-session, the first half of the day neither the fan's nor the writing brothers have shown special activities on the occasion of the arrival of the famous VIPs. Instead of it, already one hour before the hour "X" (excuse the tautology) 150-200 schoolgirls/boys gathered at the audio-video-photo centre doors of the "Kolizeum", swinging posters and periodically started singing the choruses of the never perishing hits of the group. The singing happened to be much longer than expected. Lena and Yulya overslept, without a joke, as a result the 'tatu-convoy' of two Mercedes arrived at the AV-centre doors of the "Kolizeum" with a late arrival of half an hour (by the way, the members of Tatu have chosen that location for the autograph-session themselves, sympathizing with the most popular centre of the city for audio-video and photo products).
This action the girls worked through like a clock mechanism. Autographs for the fans, smiling for the photo lenses - and the next! It's necessary to acknowledge, Tatu was the first group visiting our city, who granted so much attention to the local army of their admirers. Western school, again.
After the "distribution of elephants" Tatu was brought into the cars and quickly dragged to the live broadcast at "Evropa plus Kirov". On their track a few dozens of the most desperate fans started running, some of them with live video-cameras in hands, but where to run...A second later the strikers will say about their spontanous athletics round: "Now we know, where to become Olympic champions in running."
"We go to one toilet"
As a final action of Tatu in Kirov before the soundcheck and immediately before the concert was a press-conference, planned in the bureau of "Evropa plus", but even there it didn't go without surprise: for technichal reasons the contact of the group with the press the organizers moved at the last moment...to the library named "Pushkin"! The funny situation had reached it's highlight, when the first question arose from the sharks of the pen, addressed to Tatu: "And when where you in a library yourself the last time?" The answer of Yulya and Lena was fast, It was shown that both members of the group have enough adequate personal collection of diverse literature, so there is no necessity to take books for rent. Besides Yulya confessed, that she hates reading generally, but Lena had surprised those present agreeably, that she reads at the moment proust's "Pharao" in her leisure time.
In fifteen little minutes the journalists could not talk with Tatu about everything. They talked about Pugatcheva (now it's time for her to go), Yulya Volkova's daughter (children - that's the best, that can happen to a woman's life), fans of Kirov (in Kirov there are great fans, they even run after us), ex-producer (we've seperated with Shapovalov on good terms, nothing negative, but practically we don't keep company). They touched even the topic image (we never had an artificially built image, we began, when we were 16 years old, accordingly we were in school-uniforms in the first clip. Now we generally don't wear costumes in our concerts, we come on stage in jeans and jersey - a maximum of comfort, in the west everybody does like that), they talked about the phenomenon of frantic Tatu fans in Japan (they all are restrained there, but we - Russians - are liberated, so it's very interesting for them to observe us. Furthermore the Japanese have schoolgirls as unfailing Hentai and porno heroines, and maybe in those days our school uniforms had evoked such a lively interest there), and finally about unisexual love (our unisexual love shows itself, that we love each other like friends and carry out our emotions on screen, and generally we sleep in one bed, under one blanket and wash ourselves in one bathroom, we use one toilet). After that Yulya and Lena told about the upcoming new album of the group, the third longplayer will be more light-hearted and dancing than the previous.
Lyudi Invalidy under the circus' dome
Despite the expectation, the visitors at the Tatu concert gathered very - this will be the most applicable word - moderately. Not a half empty hall, of course, but it was far from sold out. By the way, that didn't disturb as much as the completely inexplicable passivity of the "sitting" audience, one and a half hours indifferently watching the magnificent show of this most "most scandalous group on earth". Both the musicians of the group (about them a bit later) and Yulya and Lena themselves tried to shake up the lazy citizens, but in vain. But the stalls raved to the max. I want to permit myself a little lyrical digression, having on my own shoulders many years of experience visiting numerous rock and metal concerts, without being so much a fan of Tatu, I have not used my own voice less than them and I wasted the physical ressources of the organism from the third number of the performance of the group!
It's hard to describe with words of neutral emotional colour and adequate lexical contents, what happened at this night on the stage which was erected on half of the arena, but as one of the famous Russian satirists said, all the plenty of emotions the Russian can express only with the help of foul language.
The quartet of american musicians, connected with Tatu for a few years, came out on stage before the appearance of the singers with a powerful opening intro. The highest niveau of the control of the musical instruments, excellent sound and simply outrageous drive of the nameless composition immediately brought the young people to crowd at the stage in a state of euphoria. And it came to the mind: "Did we exactly get to Tatu? That is completely Rammstein!" But when under roaring applause of the crowd Lena Katina and Yulya Volkova appeared on stage in the light of the lamps and the first chords of "Lyudi-invalidy" sounded, the hall exploded.
The following "All About Us", "Friend or Foe", "Kosmos", "Obez'yanka nol'", "Pokazhi mne lyubov'" finally "finished" the admirers of Tatu, after that there was the turn of the slow "Gomenasai" and "Polchasa". The last composition the Kirov-people sang together, and in the eyes of a girl next to me shone betraying tears...Alltogether Tatu played almost all of their hits, with the exception of the provocating "Mal'chik-gej" and "Prostye dvizheniya". The enthusiasts of scandals had to be satified only with the partial uncovering of Yulya Volkova behind the stage curtain (the girl simply was too hot), yes some absolutely platonic embraces, while the 'tatugirls' once did passionate tongue-kisses. The finale of the concert turned out to be really grandiose. First Tatu literally roared "Nas ne dogonyat" (God, how the drummer aroused there!), and then was the turn of the finishing "Ya soshla s uma". That's all. This was unsparing. From where appeared the hidden former reserves of physical power, the already "killed" vocal chords suddenly revived to let out the triumphant "I've lost my mind, I need her" and the area in front of the stage changed into a boiling stream of upright stretched out arms, ardent eyes with enthusiastic fire and moving in united rhythm of the bodies. What else to add? Bravo, Tatu!
Instead of an epilogue
But even without that, the on stage returning musicians of the group amplified the most pleasant emotion of the Tatu gig for some lucky people, remaining in the emptying hall after the concert (in the crowd of them was your humble servant, too). The security guards, which is in general not their nature, gave everybody the permission to take autographs and photographs from the pianist, guitarists, and (You were the best, chap!) the drummer. The Americans were very satisfied with the concert and with the audience, too, they talked much with the fans, to understand all the phrases was quite uncomplicated. At the end they striked all of us able to speak Russian: first they knew, that at the moment most of all they needed "Pivo" [beer], then they striked us on the spot with their knowledge about Russian act "Ariya" - "Byaka". After this there is only one thing to add: no comment...
Evgenij Laptev
gorodkirov.ru
Transkated by Argos
01.11.2006 |
