Elves in the Earthly Kingdom
On this day — February 2nd — Batu Khan once sacked moscow, the Siberian Eparchy was established, Americans celebrated Groundhog Day, and at the recently opened club Plan B, a concert was taking place that had practically zero chance of success, because all the metalheads had flocked to Apelsin. That's where EPIDEMIA was performing their "exclusive solo concert" in support of their DVD — "Chronicles of Twilight."
The club immediately won trust with two things: you didn't have to stand freezing outside waiting to get in, and at the entrance by the metal detectors stood indecently reasonable security staff. The employees were cheerful, friendly, attentive people. With inhuman calm and a gorgeous smile, they answered even the stupidest questions from visitors. After that, I got scared and started looking for the catch. The surprise did come — in short, getting into the hall cost me about an hour of my time and a considerable sum on phone calls, but in the end I safely found myself in the nearly packed hall of club Apelsin.
Inside, the hall looked magnificent — a spacious, capacious venue containing everything you could possibly need during a concert. The stage was hidden behind a big screen showing "10 Years on the Road" (though for some reason the footage was black and white). At exactly 8:00 PM the recording ended. Everyone froze in anticipation. And the recording started over from the beginning. At this point the fans began splitting into two groups: those still singing along and those who wanted to see the band live already. Half an hour later, a curtain concealed the stage, and then after a while it opened to reveal what everyone had come for.
The slow, melodic "Gates of Time" gave way to "Ringing of Coins," and a musical marathon began, shaking the club's walls. Over the course of the concert, the musicians performed practically everything that could be performed — all the best, most memorable, and fan-favorite material. I won't linger on this; those interested can check the setlist and understand what they missed (or remember what they heard and saw). I'd rather dwell on some other things in more detail.
First, three songs from the new album were performed at the concert (it's no secret this is "The Elven Manuscript 2"), some of which fans may have heard before, but still. The compositions were very impressive and captivating. True, in terms of music and lyrics, you can roughly find analogues to these songs in the original opera. And it's important that self-quoting stays within moderate bounds, where it only benefits the project.
Second, during a brief technical break, Max had to entertain the crowd. For a while he just walked around the stage with his eternal "philosophical" question — "so what should I tell you?" Fans, like a single creature deprived of creative joy, suggested the most banal way out — tell a joke. My own thought was to recreate the camera scene from the bonus section of "10 Years on the Road" (though my first thought was also about a joke). I didn't voice my idea. Besides, what can a weak voice do against the noise of an entire crowd? Max, having fended off the joke requests, chose his own option and talked a bit about the album recording. Alongside work on "The Elven Manuscript 2," the band's website would be continuously updated with the freshest and most interesting information about the project, accompanied by video clips. The audience also learned that the next concert in moscow would take place on March 23rd at SDK MAI, and that the new album would be much heavier than previous ones. We believe and we wait.
Third, there were surprises, both pleasant and not so much. It was very unexpected and interesting to hear Yuron performing a fragment of Torvald's part (A. Lobashev — ARIDA VORTEX) in "Born for Battle." Many didn't notice that in "Eternal Warrior," after the solo, Max started singing "...your calling is — hero..." again, but afterwards it was very funny to watch how Yuron's face changed when he realized it, and what a face Samosvat pulled when they told him about it. The song's performance ended with another amusing expression courtesy of Max.
Now for the unpleasant part. Over the course of the concert, fans lit sparklers several times. (Got to somehow compensate for the lack of pyrotechnics onstage.) And there's nothing wrong or criminal about that — quite the opposite, even. But toward the very end, someone had the absolutely idiotic idea of lighting a smoke bomb. I won't argue, at first it looked decent (but worse than the sparklers), but then the smoke spread a terrible smell throughout the entire hall and reduced visibility. All this nastiness soon reached the stage. The musicians continued playing as if nothing was happening, and only Samosvat expressed everyone's opinion, twirling his finger at his temple and walking off stage. Fortunately, a solo was playing at that moment, after which he returned. Everything proceeded normally from there, without "adventures," unless you count my friend on the opposite side of the hall getting hit in the face with an empty water bottle. (There's a silver lining to that too, since the bottle still had a bit of water in it — enough for a slight refreshment.)
"Walk Your Path" sounded, the musicians dispersed, security came out, and relaxing music played from the speakers. Horrible ringing in the ears, head swollen from excitement and prolonged headbanging. The crowd began gradually filing out, but many stayed to wait and demand more, believing that as long as the curtain hadn't concealed the stage again, the concert wasn't over.
And the musicians thought so too. The phrase "Well, shall we sing?" made those who'd left return to the hall and extended the happiness by another two and a half songs. (The half refers to the "Epilogue" that was played.) The most patient got to hear "White Falcon" and "Shards of the Past," after which I personally lost my voice and realized that trying to outsing Samosvat in a crowd is impossible, hazardous to your health, but fun and uplifting.
Now the concert was truly over, everyone was happy and didn't yet know that ahead lay the battle to exit the hall against orc-security guards and a skirmish in the coat check with goblin-cloakroom attendants. And some still faced a long ride on an iron serpent with several transfers.
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Written by Van Cyric
**
We thank club Apelsin and personally Ilya Zinin for the provided accreditation
Setlist: 1. Gates of Time / 2. Ringing of Coins / 3. On the Edge of Time / 4. Life in Twilight / 5. The One Ring / 6. I Prayed to You / 7. The Black Mage / 8. Will to Live / 9. Guitar Solo / 10. Feanor / 11. Rider from the Ice / 12. Kingdom of Tears / 13. Star Portal / 14. Drum Solo / 15. A New Day / 16. Hour of Trial / 17. Born for Battle / 18. Threads of Fate / 19. Eternal Warrior / 20. Blood of Elves / 21. Ocean of Emptiness / 22. At the Gates of Hell / 23. Walk Your Path / -encore- / 24. White Falcon / 25. Shards of the Past / 26. Epilogue