40 concerts. 5 trips, three to Moscow, one to St. Petersburg, all for solo shows, and one abroad to a huge European festival. From a dozen viewers at the smallest to several tens of thousands at the largest. Of this, of course, one could only dream before - this is my year.
The final trip of the year is wild and super soulful. Two trips to Moscow literally back to back. Anacondaz and Neuromonakh Feofan in the first part, return to Saratov for 2 full days, IC3PEAK concert at home and suitcases, train station, Moscow - part two, Architects and Little Big.
Architects and Feofan - two performers whose concerts I was going to attend even before they were announced, no matter the dates or circumstances. Feofan's concert predictably turned out to be this year and took December 1st, and Architects a bit later exploded with a tour in support of the freshly announced album, Moscow in the list turned out to be December 6th. Not very convenient, but there's a challenge in this! These two concerts are the main thing, and everything else is dependent, but it's a sin not to go to such concerts when you're in the same city with them. An extra day in one direction, another day in the other direction - here's an improvised vacation to hell, back and to hell again.
Anacondaz - Adrenaline Stadium - 30.11.2018
https://twitter.com/seginaboroda/status/1068732098276659200
Anacondaz have long been constant companions in life, so such opportunities can't be missed. The guys released the album I Never You. Like any other Anacondaz album, the first time it sounded very strange, but like any other Anacondaz album, I wanted to listen to it a hundred times and break it down into quotes.
This trip is the first trip exclusively to "ours". These are such "ours" who are in the heart here.
Warming up Anacondaz were the guys from the band Ermak!, which I was lucky to see a month before this in Saratov's M.Place, when they were playing for just a couple dozen people. And here several thousand, these are very cool impressions.
The concert at the stadium promised to be the largest solo concert in Anacondaz history and this was evident by how the band prepared. We're waiting for professional filming to watch this chaos from the outside.
Excellent mature performance. Really liked how warmly the fans who came accepted all the new songs. Old bone-crushing fighters traditionally left their painful marks on my body. A wild number of falling people in the slam - another memorable part of this concert.
Even if I return mutilated in a bloodied cracked helmet,
I still don't intend to violate my evening plans on principle.
This was my fourth Anacondaz concert, the first not in Saratov. Everything as always, at Anacondaz concert - like at home.
Undoubtedly, Anacondaz couldn't stay away from everything happening with concerts in the country, Artem spoke a fiery speech of support from the stage for Husky, IC3PEAK and others. And with a note "this is grotesque" everyone started performing "Mom, I Love".
Neuromonakh Feofan - Cition Hall - 1.12.2018
https://vk.com/wall-30192213_33130
This year I already had two Neuromonakh Feofan concerts. Those who were at the Moscow RED in March understand why I immediately promised myself to go to his next solo show, regardless of whether some dates nearby are taken by more top concerts. Because there are no more top concerts than Feofan's concerts. The brilliant deadly The Prodigy concert simply pales before dancing to ancient Russian drum. Obviously, this is a rather temporary phenomenon and therefore I don't want to miss a single program while it's so engaging.
Feofan released 3 mini-albums this year. Masterful Tropa, beautiful Zamirenye and more down-to-earth Siyaniye. The Veche tour program promises to include both new chants and top tracks chosen by listeners in voting. Can't allow myself not to dance to Remeslo. A bit later Darkness in Me came out. My favorite Feofan format. Such absolute darkness and total head demolition. In anticipation of the concert.
Cition Hall, which hosted the concert, stood out a bit earlier with its reception of people at ATL. Crazy crush, hours of waiting for your things, anarchy and looting in the wardrobe. The venue turned out to be completely unprepared for 5 thousand visitors.
Cition's problems were visible from the very first minutes, when entering the building everyone encountered that "face value" tickets weren't being read by anyone. Okay, ten extra minutes and we figured it out. The wardrobe - absolutely ridiculous considering the estimate of the possible number of people. Okay. An extra hour of waiting - well okay, in Russia we've never seen concerts that started on time. Everything - okay. From the moment the bear came out for the warm-up it became clear how unimportant everything is and what frenzy will happen everywhere now.
"This is a war for a piece of free space." Fire and total meat on the dance floor, in which it seems absolutely everyone participated. Two parts of the concert for about an hour each with a short break during which Feofan changed his classic black robe to a fashionable white one. All this time it was simply impossible to stand, first of all the feet rush to dance, secondly - if you want to live, learn to spin. With all this seeming intensity - the dance floor at Feofan's concert is the epicenter of goodness on all earth.
And left-right on "Dvor". And two walls of death on "Pognali". And marvelous round dances on "Want to Dance". What beauty. Lord, what did we even deserve Feofan for?
After the concert, sitting on the floor right in front of the stage, we watched the picture of how people brought all the lost/torn shoes into one pile. About a dozen "broken shoes" were definitely there. This, in my opinion, perfectly describes Feofan's concerts and why you want to go to them forever.
I read a bunch of negative reviews about bad sound, about tipsy people, etc. And I was amazed, when did honest people there even have time to think about this? Not a second of peace after all. Okay. All's well that ends well, with difficulty but we found our jackets and went home to rest.
Neuromonakh Feofan - this is when they took all your cultural code, ground it up and stuffed it into songs. This was my fifth Feofan concert, and only one of them at home, in Saratov.
IC3PEAK - Saratov - 4.12.2018
https://yelkz.livejournal.com/794168.html
This post would be incomplete without the IC3PEAK concert in Saratov. First, this is the case "when they came for me". Second, this day very strongly influenced the entire remaining part of the "tour". Third, I really wanted to get to them considering the missed January concert at Iskra with a ticket in hand.
A bunch of police, several dogs checking for bombs and drugs, a huge queue of people standing for a couple of hours in the cold. It was even quite unpleasant to go there, constantly in my head were spinning different variants of events that could happen. Fortunately, Saratov turned out to be relatively calm compared to other cities where concerts were canceled and musicians were detained and taken to the police station.
Light shines brighter only in darkness
The queue of those who came to the concert additionally heated the atmosphere with their performance of Husky's "Ay", GroB's "Everything Goes According to Plan" and the main "anti-Russian" song of the evening's heroes "Death No More".
Musically IC3PEAK arranged such a witch's sabbath that from the side to the police comrades it might indeed seem that they're not there by accident. The concert turned out to be very difficult, the band and the fans who came were already absolutely exhausted for this evening, and the venue predictably wasn't ready for such a number of visitors. But all this isn't as important as the very fact that the concert took place and people weren't afraid of it.
In this queue in the cold I caught a cold and the next day I was already packing suitcases with the understanding that it would only get worse.
Architects - Adrenaline Stadium - 6.12.2018
https://vk.com/wall-132833186_5355
It so happened that I can't imagine this year without Architects. They guide me through life this entire period, their songs have become monstrously close to me. At the moment for me there's no more relevant music. Super symbolic that it's the Architects concert that completes this year.
There were simply insane expectations and huge hope for this concert. If it weren't for Mike Shinoda's concert, I would have called Architects the most emotionally difficult of the year.
Stadium this day wasn't filled as powerfully as at the other concerts of this trip, this is the only one of 3 concerts at the stadium where they didn't put a fence between the fan zone and the dance floor. What kind of fashion has started? Without a fence it's more soulful, the crowd is more united.
Architects performed in such a way that they left no questions at all. This time Russia opened the tour and this was perfectly audible in Sam Carter's voice, he pulled off even everything where you could expect failure.
Didn't quite get in sync with the other fans who came to a "metalcore" concert, with all the consequences - blood, guts, you know. Architects don't have such aggression in their songs that would make you rush to kill, but in the eyes of some - this was there for some reason. Perhaps this is all my perception - a consequence of temperature and general background from the cold.
At the beginning of the concert I was still trying to keep up with all this, but then after I plowed several meters on my knees in a circle pit on Gravedigger my fervor diminished and I just stood aside and enjoyed where I was and what music I was hearing. This fall is one of the scariest concert things in my experience. The fastest acceleration of gravedigger sets the pace for the circle, someone touches my leg from behind, I fall. Falling, in these fractions of a second, I managed to notice an onrushing second counter circle, which like a gear entered our gear, and I'm falling between them. Breakdown. The light goes out. Five more people fall on me from behind because they can't stop and also see nothing. In this situation I was only thinking that I needed to grab my head, not spread my arms, wait until they pick me up - this is the safest. For 15-20 seconds I just lay on my knees with several more people lying on me. Insanely scary. They picked me up. Alive.
As if trying to outshout Sam, the hall sang all the hits, Nihilist, Naysayer, Gone With The Wind. Outshouting Sam is impossible, but on the recording it turned out very beautiful. Exactly a week has passed since that night, I'm still coughing and spitting out my lungs from how loudly and from the heart I screamed these lines there. It was worth it.
Despite all the negative moments - this is a great concert for me. A dream come true, amazing emotional background accumulated throughout the year. I infinitely love Architects, the concert only strengthened this and, as often happens after a concert, they became much closer to me, the whole band and the fans like one big family.
T // S :black_heart:
Do you remember when you said to me "My friend, hope is a prison."
Little Big - Adrenaline Stadium - 8.12.2018
https://vk.com/wall-55072656_66458
At Stadium before the Anacondaz concert I saw an ad for the Little Big concert on Saturday December 8th. Walk so walk. Little Big concerts are spectacularly beautiful expensive shows that have never disappointed yet. Two weeks earlier at the Saratov overcrowded concert at Gatsby I had to stand with my jacket the entire concert, because of which I couldn't let loose. And here's a chance.
After Architects until Little Big I spent two days trying to at least temporarily defeat the cold so it wouldn't interfere. With difficulty, but I managed. Sold out at the seven-thousand stadium, a queue of several hundred meters on the street that moved with incredible speed, over-the-top organization.
The Little Big concert in Moscow is the Saratov set, plus a few more tracks, it's the band Hleb coming on stage, exploding with a couple of their meatiest tracks, it's Tatarka, without whom Ilich simply couldn't do without, naturally.
My third Little Big concert, the first not in Saratov. This concert perfectly showed how much they deserve their current popularity and why Little Big's capital concerts are something special. They like nobody else know how to turn the venue size to their advantage, I haven't seen such cool sound, light and so many flying things from anyone else yet. Similar visual pleasure I experienced perhaps only at Infected Mushroom at Kubana 13. This concert was 10 out of 10 already on the first notes of Punks Not Dead, when Lissov rose on an improvised elevator with a guitar from behind the huge Little Big letters. At such moments everything is immediately clear.
All this together is fucking space. You shouldn't have the question of whether to go to a Little Big concert or not if you're in the same city with the concert, never.
A declaration of endlessness
This is terribly difficult. Hard to come to terms. Absolute fatigue, complete emptiness - physical and emotional. There are no plans, no goals, nothing. And all this needs to be invented anew, at least for such moments.
If hope is a prison, then maybe faith will set me free