And so, the hour struck, and the action began. Literally from the very first minutes, the hall did not quiet down until the very end. It's hard to believe, of course, but Arkhangelsk had never seen concerts like this before. With each performing band, the noise only grew louder, although it might seem... but that's exactly how it was – it seemed impossible to get any louder, yet it kept growing. Although there were no such things as ecstasy pills or anything like that at the time, everyone was heavily sustained on port wine, and I must say, no one passed out between the rows. Initially setting up the sound, I asked the guys from the technical crew not to let anyone near the mixing console and not to touch anything there. Whatever was set up in the beginning – let it stay exactly the same for everyone. Let everyone be on equal terms.
And so, the hour struck, and the action began. Literally from the very first minutes, the hall did not quiet down until the very end. It's hard to believe, of course, but Arkhangelsk had never seen concerts like this before. With each performing band, the noise only grew louder, although it might seem... but that's exactly how it was – it seemed impossible to get any louder, yet it kept growing. Although there were no such things as ecstasy pills or anything like that at the time, everyone was heavily sustained on port wine, and I must say, no one passed out between the rows. Initially setting up the sound, I asked the guys from the technical crew not to let anyone near the mixing console and not to touch anything there. Whatever was set up in the beginning – let it stay exactly the same for everyone. Let everyone be on equal terms.
Rautkin and I decided to sit in silence for a bit before the concert, to rest. And Kinochev understood us at a half-glance. He asked – “isn't there somewhere quieter around here?” We went up to the second floor – there, next to the office of Olesya Viktorovna, the director of the House of Culture, was our wedding hall. It had beautiful velvet curtains the color of dried blood, and it was very, very quiet, only the first floor rhythmically blew out air: uh-uh, uh-uh... we had about three hours left before our performance – the perfect time to indulge in a little solitude for the three of us. We settled on the windowsill, silence, peace. We grabbed some glasses from the buffet and poured. Konstantin made a brief toast:
– “To pop!”
We looked at each other in surprise, and seeing our bewilderment, Kinochev clarified:
– “Well, to pop, guys! So that today, on this wonderful evening, we elevate pop to the greatest level, an unattainable height!
I remembered that phrase very well. We realized it was a completely new term, one that had just appeared in the capitals, applicable to our action. Something about the word “pop” didn't sit quite right with us, but coming from Kinochev, everything took on a special meaning; at the very least, if he said so, then it must be right. Later, we would pronounce this not-fully-understood toast exactly like that... Anyway, we clinked our glasses, brought them to our lips, and suddenly the door to the hall swung wide open and the club director walked in. And so we froze with our arms bent at the elbows like hussars. Drinking in the presence of the chief executive was awkward, but it was too late to hide it... Olesya Viktorovna looked at us, smiled, wagged her finger, walked out, and closed the door without asking a single question. What a wise woman! Kinochev asked in surprise, “Who was that?” I replied... a toast “for understanding” would have been fitting right about then. But we drank to pop. Downing the port wine, we headed downstairs to gather our crew. As a farewell, Konstantin repeated:
– “Just remember, Seryoga! Voice and drums. Drums and voice...
As for Oblachny Krai's performance, it's hard for me to judge now. We had run through the program dozens of times at rehearsals and could carry the whole thing purely on motor skills. This was exactly the case where we could have just walked out on stage and not played anything at all... I couldn't hear absolutely anything. At home, an unplugged guitar in bed at night sounded louder. I couldn't hear Rautkin worth a damn either – the entire hall was passionately singing all the lyrics. That’s what a recording released and distributed on time gets you.
We played honestly, from the heart, though blindly. Everyone was struck by Oleg Rautkin's appearance – the hall roared, recognizing their unprecedented hero in the frontman, someone they had never seen before. Oleg, however, outdid everyone with his look. He managed to get his hands on some completely non-Soviet tight trousers, Western to the core, with a tiger-like, bright orange spotted pattern. We all pestered him – where did he manage to dig up such pants, but he kept quiet, refusing to tell. Later we learned that he had swiped this item from some girls... but he looked absolutely flawless.
First, we came out and started the intro, and only then, in a complete frenzy, Oleg bounded out onto the proscenium in a black leather jacket over his bare chest, and in those menacing pants, leaping out from backstage a second and a half before his vocal part began... it was incredibly spectacular. After that, he didn't even need to sing... Later, people said that in some places his voice even drowned out the continuous roar of the hall. Camera flashes clicked non-stop throughout our entire performance. There were many, many photos, including color ones, and needless to say, the dominating feature in these documents was... Rautkin's pants.
When we played the final track from the album “Stremya i Lyudi”, at the lyrics “the trampling of people and boots is heard”, all the musicians who had performed at the festival, dressed in whatever they could find, paraded in an endless single-file line in front of the backdrop. They screamed in time with the music and moved toward the audience. Someone started splashing cold water on the front rows from a teapot... we played for 25 minutes, but they flew by in a second! I felt an excitement similar to Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin returning from space.
I remember stepping off the stage – still fired up, some people pulling me one way, others another. I was wearing this t-shirt with the cover of Iron Maiden's 1981 album “Killers” on it, and no one else had a shirt like it. My friend and classmate, Misha Gruts, a sailor, had brought it from his very first voyage to the UK. He lent it to me for the concert, and I looked like a God in it! Nowadays, of course, there are plenty of all sorts of these t-shirts everywhere... but back then – I was simply gorgeous in it. Everyone was grabbing at me because of that shirt, stretching it out, but I didn't care anymore... suddenly, out of nowhere, a tiny girl appeared in front of me:
– “Sergey, we waited so long for your performance, I am absolutely thrilled, can I give you a gift, I made it myself... And she hands me something wooden, looking like a cross between a shot glass and a goblet, painted with colors... the girl was very small, just a teenager, I didn't pay her much attention... Needless to say, how great my surprise was when, a month later, we met this teenage girl under somewhat different circumstances, after which she became my own wife...
Meanwhile, during the intermission arranged to set up Alisa, a ballot box was placed in the lobby, into which every spectator was supposed to tear off and drop their ticket stub, having written the name of the best band at that moment on it. Only one prize was awarded – not a single spectator ignored this process, and the urn quickly filled up with detachable coupons. They were counted during the performance of our Leningrad guests.
Alisa did not take the stage until I – having escaped the unregulated interaction between the talents and their fans – made my way into the hall, to the mixing console. Only when I said into the microphone that everything was set up and we could begin, all the lights in the hall went out. During the first song, “My Generation”, I started bringing all the instruments up to the right level so that they wouldn't interfere with either the vocals or the drums. Everything sounded very dry, and to drown out the noise of the crowd, I had to push the master fader almost all the way up.
Absolute pandemonium reigned in the hall, and I couldn't hear the instruments, the drums, or the vocals – I heard absolutely nothing. As a sound engineer at the console, I heard nothing at all. Having just stepped off the stage, from the amps and the drum kit... straight into the hall, to the console, in the center of the swarming Bandar-logs... I must say right away that I can't remember anything except the yelling mass around me... it was awesome, it was loud, that's all. I had just played my debut, and my mind was completely blown...
The concert ended, and everyone who had taken part in the festival poured onto the stage to the approving shouts of the hall. Our president Nikolai Dubinin came out. He announced the closure of the festival and gave the floor to the director, Olesya Viktorovna Solodukhina, to summarize the results. A wonderful woman, she smoothly sailed up to the microphone and slowly uttered the sacred words:
– “Based on the results of the audience vote, the best band in our city is... Oblachny Krai!...”, and she handed me a huge metal cup. I must say that I had last experienced such excitement when I was nine years old and being tied with a Young Pioneer tie. I won't be disingenuous, I expected it, but there was still some doubt – to tell the truth, there were some very strong bands...
Later on, when everyone was already leaving, happy and satisfied, Kostya started looking for his sweater. His mom had knitted that sweater for him; it was voluminous, red, with a huge bright black letter “A” on it. And that sweater disappeared from the dressing room. The distress on Kostya's face was indescribable. I didn't quite understand what the big deal was – so a sweater went missing. I also had a shaggy sweater like that, I looked like King Kong in it, and it disappeared too, but at that moment I... didn't really care. But Kostya was genuinely upset:
– “You understand, it's just that my mom knitted this sweater for me, she wanted to just make it red, but I asked her to knit the letter “A” on it, and it's such a pity that...”
That sweater was like a lucky charm for Kostya. I realized that the responsibility fell on me – after all, I was the one who had practically invited the band over, and now this item was gone. We rummaged through everything but couldn't find it. We sat there, all worrying together, and suddenly... the front door swings open, footsteps stomping down the corridor... one of our local Arkhangelsk musicians runs in, holding the red sweater. The guy had gotten home, found Kostya's sweater in his backpack, and rushed back like a bullet. You should have seen Kinochev's face at that moment. He lit up like the sun. He hugged the guy, gave him an autograph, and such grace descended upon us... everyone started taking out whatever they had stashed away for a rainy day. Someone had two, someone had three – everyone started talking at once, joking, popping their bottles open, simultaneously filling the faceted glasses, and thus, a bright finale was put on our festival.
Kinochev knew the festival was taking place at our home base and asked me to show him the legendary Pomor studio. Stepping inside and seeing what we rehearsed and recorded on, he asked if I could really work in any conditions less suited than Tropillo's multitrack studio. Kinochev was terrified when he saw the two 'Tembr' tape recorders sticking out at awkward angles and the mixing console, asking: does “this” actually play? I reminded him that on “this” very equipment, Vishnya had recorded Kino, along with a whole bunch of other stuff perfectly well, and it hasn't faded one bit to this day. And besides, we would, of course, record the album at Tropillo's, but was that really the point?
There were many different rock bands in Arkhangelsk, and not a single one of them was on friendly terms with Andrei Tropillo. The task was to develop this movement, to strengthen and deepen it. And we didn't build the studio just for ourselves, so as not to interrupt the recording process and to make notes for the future... of course, in the process of working in the studio, you improve and gain experience. With great enthusiasm, I recorded local bands in our studio. I wanted there to be another side of the coin besides our own music, to capture as many good bands for history as possible, and I recorded far from just heavy rock. Many different albums were recorded on those rusty tape recorders, which, if desired, can still be bought in Arkhangelsk today. “Stsena”, “Autodafe”, “Svataya Luiza”, “Blues-Inspector”, as well as the heavy metal band “Tor”, led by Alexander Koptev, which impressed the Leningrad musicians with its power and virtuosic technique, something no one, not even in the Northern Capital, could boast.
Now Shura Koptev is Father Alexander, the chief priest of the city of Onega. And the rest of the musicians there were... wow! We called their bass player Andrey Zubrikov nothing less than the “Magician”, because the tricks he pulled on the bass were beyond the reach of mere mortals. The drummer, Alexander Kharev, was considered the best in the city. He is still active to this day, playing drums in the band “Blind Vandal”, which recorded its last album at the DDT studio. We recorded a lot back then; I named the most successful examples, but the main thing was that the process was moving forward, and we were working...
The event received good press:
“The spring festival was thoroughly prepared and passed with great pomp, becoming a new powerful stage in the revival. The participation of the already famous 'Alisa' and the first performance in the history of 'Oblachny Krai' – it was a small, provincial, but undeniable sensation. There were a lot of bands. Everyone was given a chance to play, and the picture turned out to be complete. The pop musicians, with their naive professionalism, were so ridiculous that after performing for a year or so, they never again mingled with the rockers. From those days on, the 'Red Forge' became the base of the rock club.
Overall, the importance of the rock festival for Arkhangelsk is hard to overestimate. The youth, inspired by our first event, armed themselves with guitars, and many new bands immediately emerged from among those very spectators. The event served as a huge stimulus for young talents – rock in Arkhangelsk stood firmly on its own two feet. We were no longer kicked out of anywhere, nothing was taken away from us, but then again, we weren't given much of anything either.
And we loved performing! We wanted more. And Kostya enjoyed our reception, too. In response to our invitation for the band “Alisa” to Arkhangelsk, the Leningrad Rock Club, together with the “Phonograph” club at the LDM, invited us and “Autodafe” to play a concert with “Alisa” in Leningrad. The whole community chipped in to get the guys on a plane, remembering the port wine at the director's place, the sweater, and, of course, the cops, with whom Kinochev was already forming a rather difficult relationship...
Recorded by Alexei Vishnya
For Spetsialnoe Radio
March 2006
Related materials:
Original article: https://specialradio.ru/art/id223/