Quite a powerful start to the new year — the arrival in Kyiv of, I will not hesitate to use the word, legends of thrash metal from the CIS: the band KRUGER. A band long known and well respected, yet this for some reason failed to generate the expected excitement among the Kyiv audience. Well, let us go through everything in order. The following bands were announced for this concert:
IDOL (Kyiv, death metal) DIONIS (Kyiv, speed power) VAE SOLIS (Kryvyi Rih, symphonic black) STORMHOLD (Homel, thrash-heavy) TE DEUM (Kyiv, doom-death) KRUGER (moscow, diesel-rock)
I arrived at the Sputnik cinema an hour and a half before the announced time, and the first thing that struck me was the complete absence of long-haired individuals (with the natural exception of those involved in organising the event). "Well, fine," I thought — people will gather. Inside at that moment a soundcheck was underway — one that went on far too long (indeed, IDOL seemingly didn't even manage to tune up properly), and as a result the session began roughly an hour late. I stepped outside several times during the soundcheck and saw at most twenty people standing in front of the entrance. I don't know what affected attendance — perhaps the price (around $6), or the limited fame of the performing bands apart from TE DEUM (though come on, this is KRUGER!), or maybe the BEHEMOTH concert announced for 22 March (everyone saving up). I don't know — honestly I felt a little embarrassed that a band of this calibre was playing to a half-empty hall.
The first band to perform was the Kyiv death formation IDOL. Fairly original music with two vocals — and most remarkably, one of them female! Can you name many death metal bands with a girl screaming? Neither can I. The vocalist, however, was not growling (that was handled by Tiamat, who doubled as the session MC) — she was doing something closer to a deep, low scream. Overall quite an interesting band and a very effective opener. The only shame was that they had no soundcheck (at least I didn't notice one).
Then the power metal band DIONIS took the stage. I cannot say anything particularly remarkable — a band like a band, playing power like power. The vocalist jumped around the stage, bent, swayed — in short, all in the finest traditions of power metal. In my view everything was far too standard, but it goes down fine with a beer. A note: one song was dedicated to a girl in the audience who was celebrating her birthday (Ira!!! My congratulations once more ;)))). Well, and the sound continued to deteriorate. As I was told by people who had direct involvement with the equipment, the whole problem lay with the sound engineer at the mixing desk. The person simply had very limited understanding of heavy music and could not set up the bands properly because he didn't know how they were supposed to sound. As a result practically all bands, with the possible exception of KRUGER, had problems with the sound of individual instruments: guitars would disappear, then keyboards. There is nothing to be done — this is a major problem of the Ukrainian underground: the absence of professional sound engineers who understand heavy music.
Then came an attempt to hold a competition for best corpse paint. This attempt — and for Tiamat, evidently, a torment — lasted a good 15 minutes. Eventually one guy was found who received the prize: a bottle of beer. Personally, I counted exactly two people with corpse paint.
The Homel band STORMHOLD I frankly did not like. Honestly, from the project of ex-GODS TOWER vocalist Lesley Knife I expected considerably more. What we got was something completely characterless, with utterly appalling sound into the bargain. On the subject of sound — truly incomprehensible things began happening, like the complete shutoff of the left speaker during the performance. Lesley Knife himself wasn't there either. Reportedly because of the long-suffering, universally cursed (we all remember CANNIBAL CORPSE!!!) Belarusian customs — which haunts every Ukrainian metalhead's nightmares. The only thing that truly pleased the crowd and got them going was a track from GODS TOWER's album The Turns. That was the one that truly got people moving.
I missed the beginning of the performance by VAE SOLIS from Kryvyi Rih, who came next, but when I returned to the hall I was met by quite solid black metal. Moreover, not the symphonic kind everyone is used to — here there was a minimum of sentimentality and the like. On the contrary, everything was quite aggressive and fierce. Interestingly, this sat rather awkwardly with the image of their keyboardist — fishnet, leather — all very gothic. The sound gags continued...
TE DEUM failed to please me in any way. The programme had grown tiresome long ago; the new material was hard to make sense of. During the performance the bassist's bass strap came undone a couple of times; while he reattached it, they played without bass. Between songs someone from the audience loudly recommended they tune the guitars, after which the guitarist invited them to come backstage after the show where everything that needed tuning would be taken care of (this clearly rattled Kurt). The guitarist Kanibal, however, with his shaved head and crutches, added a certain distinctive flavour.
And then the headliners were on stage. During their tuning up the crowd collectively stepped back from the stage. The band's playing can be characterised as something like "an explosion from the past." Contrary to the views of many people I had spoken with, KRUGER are a force. Good old thrash — Soviet-era quality. What more can be said? It had to be heard and seen. On the subject of seeing — the performance included a fire show: Khamer, wearing a dragon's head, was breathing fire. Songs from the new album were also performed — reminding me in certain ways of early SEPULTURA — as well as the universally known heavy metal anthems "Long Live Rock'n'Roll!" and "Fighting The World." By this point those remaining near the stage were mostly the older generation who had known this band for years. And KRUGER, for their part, demonstrated that the old guard was very much alive and had no intention of ceding ground. LONG LIVE ROCK'N'ROLL!!!