October 18, 2001. Denmark, Copenhagen, Lille Vega

Report by Voodoo

Author: Voodoo

Sound check

Trying my best to look casual, I walked straight across the large wooden floor beneath the stage and sat down on a long bench alongside the wall. I said hello to some people there but my mind was more attracted towards what was happening on the stage. It was the first time I met the whole of Mumiy Troll in real life. Meeting with Ilia a few weeks earlier wasn’t like this. Today I was going to see him perform! And not only him… They were only making their sound check, but to me it was angels’ music. Actually, it must be a bore having to do this before each concert but I was glad they did. I peeked at them. Sdwig. Yuri, Oleg. But Ilia wasn’t there! I had hoped to hear his voice in a microphone now, but I wouldn’t until the actual concert. There was some preparing to do with the T-shirts, CDs and stuff that I was going to sell before the concert, so I had a good excuse to sit and listen and look at Sdwig, Oleg and Yuri a good while, as I put the stuff in order. I was strictly forbidden to take photos, unfortunately, but it wasn’t much to see — actually just some guys standing, strumming some chords and staring blindly in the air, waiting and listening. Yury jazzed away at some occasion and did some rock-standard riffs with Sdwig. Something in the smoke-on-the-water-department. Then it was Olegs turn. That was the most enjoyable part.

Voodoo acting awkward

The venue is perfect, I thought — red, black and brown, simple and classic — no mirrors, steel or glass, just wood and leather. One bar and a big room for the scene. It would take 500 people. I am laughing as I write this because I have to admit that while others say Ilia makes you feel secure and at ease, I feel only utterly stupid and lost for words with that man! Maybe it’s because I’m the same age as him? Maybe because I feel embarrassed to show the obvious — that he’s changed my world. After a while I was wandering about the place searching for Gorm Johnsen (who had arranged the whole concert). I wanted to have a word with him and finally I found him talking to Ilia backstage in a dressing room. I suppressed my first impulse to run away and entered the room. Ilia immediately smiled and said something nice to me about a birthday gift I’d sent to him and I answered — god knows what, said a few words to Gorm and literally backed out again, not letting the opportunity pass to bang my hand and cigarette into a corner of a table and look very foolish. Well what should I have done? Fallen to my knees? Perhaps.

Ilia

Back again, going through the CDs, I saw that Ilia eventually came up to us and sat or rather half laid himself on a bench at the other side of the room listening to the sound check (does it always take hours?!). He seemed very relaxed and harmonious. Smiling that smile. He looked gorgeous in brown and soft lilac and his hair was blond from the sun. So handsome. I repeat. I repeat.

Hackenbusch

It was time for me to find the way to the meeting place for the SMTF-members: Hackenbusch. It was only a ten minute walk waay. Several members and cyber-friends were already there — it was such a joy meeting them! We were sitting at small tables watching MT-videos on big screen, having a drink and talking — mostly about Mumiy Troll, of course. I couldn’t stay very long because I had to go and pick up some Chinese food for the band and the staff on Lille Vega — which was including me. Bringing the food backstage with a fellow 'staffman’, I made another 'Voodoo’ — dropping the food on the famous table and then quickly running away from the whole band sitting comfortably in chairs and sofas around a low table. Speaking Russian. Looking sort of very Russian, too. Oh yes, 'Are you hungry’, I asked. And then I didn’t exactly run, but it sure felt like it.

Selling MT-stuff

Try counting Danish money while talking English to Russians after having a few drinks! No, it was great fun, actually :-) Especially with all the nice members of the fan club recognising me as Voodoo when I started talking Swedish. Most people preferred to buy their things after the concert, which I appreciated because of my slow counting of money. Actually, there were surprisingly many visitors from Sweden, and not as many Russians as I had thought. The atmosphere was overall cheerful and happy. Everyone seemed expectant. It was a big event, no doubt, MT playing in Copenhagen for the first time after the Eurovision Song Contest. They had already been on a Danish morning TV show the day before, but that doesn’t really count, or does it? ;-) The place was soon packed to the brim.

Talking to Sdwig

I made myself some errands backstage (who wouldn’t) and met Sdwig. A lucky strike, because he was sort of my favourite troll. He was nice enough to talk to me — maybe ten minutes or so — and I have very little remembrance of what we were saying (being in a sort of heaven-and-hell-land, who would remember?). Yes, I was teenagedly nervous. I told him about the fan club, and approximately how many members had travelled there to see Mumiy Troll. I asked about the tour but sort of didn’t listen to his answers. He told me about ESC and that MT being there competing for Russia made the TV-viewers look at the show, for which they otherwise have only a very moderate interest. I asked him if MT please, please wouldn’t let the fan club meet them after the gig and he said he’d ask the band. So I awarded him with a hug:-) I was surprised that he wasn’t very tall. Maybe 175 cm. Such beautiful eyes. A very pleasant man, gentle and intelligent.

The concert

The other members of SMTF were probably right in front of the stage and there was no chance for me getting through to them. I climbed onto the same bench I first had sat myself on at my arrival at Lille Vega. From there, I had an excellent view of the stage. The balcony’s were full of people as well and it was too late to try to get up there. This is the hard part, trying to depict the actual concert. I wasn’t of complete sound mind, so please forgive my confusion about it. Wearing jeans and T-shirts, about half an hour late as customary, Mumiy Troll finally entered the stage and played Lady Alpine Blue. The sound was perfect! The whole room and every person in it was filled with the power, beauty and strangeness of that song. Most bands need to warm up with a few songs before they are at their best. Not MT. They were totally tight and high in energy from the first beat of the drum to the last. They are an extraordinarily good live band who give everything when they play! (Yes, now I can say that too, Janni.)

Lady Alpine Blue
Bride/Nevesta
Malysh
Ne Ochen
Ne Zvesda
Utekai
Zabavy
Kot kota
Devoschka
Emu ne vzyat tebya
Sorry Angel
Lu Lu
Carnival/Karnavala.Net

These are the songs i remember and at least the order of the first five or so is correct. One song was played acoustically, but I can’t for my life remember which one anymore. I remember Ilia chasing Oleg back to the drums hitting him with a towel after it, though. They really seemed to have a good time playing for us and after the concert, they said that this was the best gig of the whole tour (which had been all over Germany and ended with this one in Denmark). Mumiy Troll really like Copenhagen, iit is a very beautiful and friendly city! What else happened? People said some man jumped up on stage to embrace Ilia, but I didn’t see it. Oleg is said to have tried to unfasten a small drum from the set to throw at the man but he (not Oleg) was too drunk to do anything anyway. Ilia hit himself in the face with the microphone saving it from falling out in the crowd. One of the SMTF members held it up for him. Sdwig hurt his hand trying to «fix» some non-functioning device by hitting it. :-D Sorry, :-(

Ilia was just totally brilliant! His power of living the songs in spite of the many times he has performed them before is admirable. The irony of Kot kota. The heart-gripping anxiety of Carnival. The intimacy of Emu ne vzyat tebya. What an artist. He could be an actor. I had such great fun all through the concert, dancing and swaying on the soft padded bench with people on every side but the wall which I tried to hang on to. I laughed a lot. Yes, a LOT. It was sometimes because of Ilia and a look he had on his face. I couldn’t tell if it was a sort of irony or a sort of self-distance, but sometimes while being unusually animated he put up such a serious face I just couldn’t help laughing at it. But maybe it wasn’t irony at all. He has a way of looking as if gazing far, far into the horizon — probably even further. Eyes bigger and bluer than ever. Than anyone’s. No one else has that way of in the middle of it all — however crowded, however noisy and panicky, looking so peaceful and still completely focused. Almost blank. Very Zen. That man is impossible to understand!

To be honest, I felt proud and happy and very amused at the same time, as if they all were my little brothers, performing for the first time and actually succeeding beyond my highest hopes. Maybe that’s why I laughed. I was totally in awe of them and the alternative would have been denying it all and walk out of there.

They did Devoschka in Russian. Ilia explained to the audience that since they are in Denmark, they would do it in Russian. As we all know it’s customary that Ilia sings that song in the language of the country they’re visiting. I wonder if they sang it in German…? Well, if they continue invading the hearts of Europe, they’ll probably have to give that tradition up anyway — too many languages to learn ;-)

The show was overall very entertaining. But the one thing I’ll never forget about this concert is the brilliant number Yuri did playing against his own echo using a distortion box with reverb. It was after the band had left the stage and the audience were simply ecstatic and calling out for more. He came in alone and made some sounds that turned into a rhythmical echo (maybe this is a standard thing to do but i never heard anything so amazing on a concert before). Soon he had a whole background loop to which he improvised. It was SO groovy and so — I have to use the word intelligent. I don’t know what I’d give to have it on tape! He is one of the world’s greatest living guitarists. Then Oleg took his seat behind the drums and started completely off time! Ha ha. Yuri just shook his head and changed gear . Well, the final number was of course Carnival. As the other songs that they have made an English version of, it was sung in both languages (Eng/Ru/Eng). It was magical, it made your heart bleed. Spectacular and at the same time such contact with the audience! At some point — probably in the middle of Carnival, Ilia made his usual Spasibo bolsjoj, bolsjoj, bolsjoj thing. Except in Daish, spasibo, thank you, is pronounced like the Russian word 'tak’. The effect was very funny: 'Tak, tak, tak, tak…’

After party

I took some pictures on the band in the dressing room after the concert. I felt honoured to be with them, we had a beer and talked a little. Then there was the thing with SMTF meeting the MT between the S and the F. After a lot of confusion, we managed to meet up at a very nice art-gallery in the city which had (surprise!) been prepared for a quiet after party. Most of the SMTF-people went there and it was all very nice. Some photographing and autograph-writing was going on, but mostly just talking, eating and drinking and having a good time. There was also the famous Swedish journalist Carolina Noren who would interview Ilia live on Swedish radio (Curry curry) the next day, and Claes Cornelius, the manager of Ace of Base, who is a great fan of Mumiy Troll’s. We all stayed late.

(www.lunarpages.com/smtf)