RWF: "It's not the same without Dennis is it?"

The Russian National Dance show was next, which as I expected, was super. Lots of fabulous colourful costumes, oh, and they danced a bit to Vdol Pa Peterskay, which made me and Keira very happy, seeing as we love the version of that song that Prohor did, and listen to it quite a lot.

Ken Livingstone came on next. But he didn’t dance. Or sing. He just talked for what seemed like ages about bridging the gap between Russia and Britain, and then went on about fascism, although I’m not sure why. Either way his involvment would have been far more interesting if he’d have given us a chorus of Ty Dolzhna.

There were rock bands next. Sankt Peterburg were OK actually, we liked their lead singer because he was the most smiley person we’d ever seen. Zemlyane though, were awful. Well, maybe not awful, but just boring. And it was strange hearing Russian songs that we couldn’t sing along to. They really did seem to be on stage forever though. And my legs were hurting so much at that point, which didn’t help.
Then it was pop time.Kuba were next. They were on Fabrika Zvezd Series 2 apparantly. They were shockingly bad. Don’t know if it was the Hello Kitty guitar or the angel wings or the fact that they just couldn’t sing and kept screaming that put me off of them the most. They seemed to be on for ages too. I don’t think any of the crowd liked them actually, it was all pretty silent when they were on.

Fabrika were on next, doing Pro Lyubov to start with. I like that song. And then they did one that I didn’t know, and then Ne Vinovata Ya, which me and Keira like because they did it on Fabrika Zvezd with the Chelsi boys and Prohor and Dima. It was good, although there were a few sound issues at times, but we couldn’t help ourselves every time a certain bit came up, “aww, it’s not the same without Dennis is it?” “aww, that was Dima’s bit.” It was quite cool to see them though.

RWF: "Russians are strange people"

Squashed between Keira and 3 Russian men yesterday evening, I had an epiphany- Dima Bilan is amazing!

We’d been planning to go to the Russian Winter Festival for a while, since we knew it existed really. And when I found out last month that Dima Bilan was going to be there, we started getting pretty excited.

When we arrived, it was ridiculously exciting to hear Nevozmozhnoe Vozmozhno coming from the speakers on the stage. Apart from hearing The Ark a few times in a few shops in Norway, this was the first time for years that I’d heard a song I really like being played in public, which was super :)

We got there really early, considering Dima wasn’t going to be on until 5.40, but once I’d found a good spot near the front and in the middle of the stage, I wasn’t going to move. This was fine during the first lot of performers, a sort of modern folk type group and the wonderful Baikal Ensemble (who were from Eastern Russia, so a bit more on the oriental side of things), but I thought it might have been a bit of a mistake when the Aquaaerobik Project came on.

Being fans of Fabrika Zvezd, we’re pretty used to crazy stage set ups and performances, so we weren’t shocked whatsoever when this ‘Project’ came on stage wearing brightly coloured, skin tight plastic suits (one of them with a shoe attached to his head) and playing giant plastic guitars to the sound of generic electro music and the woman screeching quite unintelligible words. I don’t know, they were different I suppose, but not really my thing.

Then there was 5 minutes of time filling, when some girls from Ukraine and the Baltics were up on stage answering quite stupid questions from the most irritating presenter in the world. She was even more annoying than the woman from Fabrika Zvezd, and that’s saying something. When finally asked “who’s your favourite artist here today?” the girls all responded “Tiiiiiiiishman!” cue disbelieving looks between me and Keira, thinking they must be either joking or mental for clearly not loving Dima Bilan as much as us.

I was quite excited about seeing Mark Tishman actually, I didn’t watch this series of Fabrika Zvezd, but I thought it would be cool to see someone from it. He’s gorgeous in real life, he looks so much like Prohor Shalyapin. The first thing he said in English was “Russians are strange people,” which I thought was quite amusing, and then he went on to talk about the concept of Old New Year and why it’s good to have celebrations because of the ‘deficit of love in the world’ or something like that. Anyway, then he sang a song that he'd written himself,called Yarkim Plamenyem, it was rather Prohor-esque and lovely. Then he did the beautiful I’ll Be Your Angel, and another one that I didn’t know the name of. He was fabulous though, although it was only him on stage, he was a good performer, doing lots of interesting, flamboyant hand movements. It was good, if there’d been anyone else on stage with him I don’t think it would have worked as well. So yes, I can see why the Baltic girls were so excited about him now, hopefully he’ll have a good career and maybe, mmm…come back to the festival next year perhaps? : )

Russian Winter Festival

This weekend has been one of the best weekends ever.After a vodka fuelled,singing filled Saturday night,me and Keira went up to London on Sunday to see the Russian Winter Festival,which was a celebration of Old Russian New Year,as celebrated on the Tsarist calendar.The next few posts I do will be all about our big Russkytastic adventure,along with some pictures and videos that Keira took.I have neither the required patience or coordination to keep my arm suitably mobile in the air for so long,so she was in charge.The results are pretty fabulous.

I'm in love with everything you are

How excited was I when I discovered Eurosport were showing ski jumping from Val di Fiemme today?Very is the answer.I was very much looking forward to seeing the lovely and amazingly talented Gregor Schlierenzauer (look at him,he's adorable!),but I forgot,as it was a qualifying round,the top 10 jumpers in the world cup rankings didn't need to be there.So that sucked.
Anyway,I only came here to say that I won't be posting anything for the next few days,I'll be busy moving back to Surrey and celebrating Russian new year and doing yet more work on that horrible Luxembourg essay I thought I'd got rid of ages ago.I'll be back sometime next week probably,hopefully with all manner of wonderful things concerning the Russian Winter Festival.
I'll leave you with something Keira sent me.It's Tom from Jetzt Anders! (can't forget the exclamation mark),singing Anna Vissi's Everything.Not an easy song to sing- we've tried many a time in the kitchen at Europop Mansions Surrey Branch,but Tom does it really really well.No wonder the band split up,as great as they are,Tom's talent is a bit wasted in a pop group I think.Enjoy :)

Ein Leben,dass ich wirklich leben kann

Just another quick mention of Jetzt Anders! I was listening to them again this afternoon,when I thought "mmm,this song sounds rather familiar." That's because Ein Neues Leben is in fact a German version of Venke Knutson's (or Nylon's whichever you prefer) Holiday! How odd.Anyway,I love Venke's version,but I think I might like this one more,if only because I think the lyrics are a bit better.

I won't die without your love

While we're on the subject of boybands,here's the greatest Russian one ever singing Dima Koldun's Ya Ne Umru Bez Tvoiy Lyubvi,which came joint 3rd on my favourite songs of last year list.(Nice to see Arseniy looking as gorgeous as ever :) )

Für immer und ewig werd'ich mit dir sein

Do you ever just fancy sitting down and listening to some 100% cheesy pop?Of course you do!Well look no further than Jetzt Anders! So cheesy they even have an exclamation mark at the end of their name.
I've been thinking a lot about Austria lately (which is a sentence I've never said before) for various reasons,and when I realised I have no Austrian music whatsoever,I thought I'd try and find some.It turns out Jetzt Anders! a) are so called because there are already 2 other bands in Austria called Jetzt (Now) so they thought they'd better add an extra word- 'anders' meaning 'different', b) were formed on Starmania,Austria's answer to Pop Idol,in 2007, and c) are not around anymore.Which is a shame,because they're a really good old school pop group.I've been listening to their one and only album Gut So,and although some of the songs on it are a bit samey,some of them are super.
Such as this- Für Immer und Ewig (Forevermore),it's summery,happy and catchier than flu.It's the only proper music video of theirs I could find,but it ticks all the right pop-boxes,it's all choreographed complete with some questionable dance moves,the boys all have wonderfully cheesy grins,and they're all dressed in standard boyband white.Fabulous!


I love this one too,it's called Frag Nicht Nach Morgen (Don't Ask About Tomorrow).There's only one picture on the video,and I don't know what was going on when it was taken...


All boybands must have at least one big ballad on their album.This is probably theirs.It's called Alles,and it screams Westlife at me.


There'll probably be quite a few more Austrian/German/Swiss related posts in the next few days,I'm getting quite into their music at the minute :)