Summer is festival season. I visit several festivals every year. Some – as an organizer and partner, some – as a guest. This year, for the first time, under the name SANDLERFEST, a festival of progressive rock music was held, which our production center has been holding for the third year together with VDNKh. In 2019, 2020 and 21st it was held under the name “Russian Woodstock”, this year the name was changed for obvious reasons. We have collected 130 groups from all over the world – USA, Cuba, Ireland, Greece, Israel, Bulgaria, Cameroon. Five scenes, two days of music celebration…
The main novelty and opening of the festival, which I already mentioned in passing in my last column dedicated to the legendary guitarist Jeff Beck (ZD No. 26 in MK on 07/06/22), was a special program “Russian Classics in Rock”. Finally, I realized my dream: with a symphony orchestra, soloists of the Bolshoi Theater, the Mariinsky Theater and the Helikon Opera, the works of Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Rachmaninov, Prokofiev and other classics of Russian academic music were performed in ROCK ARRANGEMENTS! There was an incredible drive, so I want to talk about it separately and in more detail now, before moving on to my usual and, judging by the letters from readers, rock stories expected with interest. Moreover, as always with me, the stories of today echo and have a visible connection with the past. So it will be today.
I originally named the festival Russian Woodstock because I wanted to pay homage to the legendary 1969 Woodstock and its creator, Artie Kornfeld. I was lucky to meet him. Now Artie lives as a hermit in his villa on the ocean, communicates mainly only with the protection of the estate. Local musicians never saw him and assured me that it was impossible to meet him. He is one of the top thirty people who created rock and roll!
I met him at his house in Miami, which still seems completely unrealistic to me. I went there and did not believe myself. My very influential friends were still able to negotiate with him, and he accepted me. Having warmly welcomed him, he did not fail to notice that I was the 16th person in 20 years who crossed the threshold of his house. He talked a lot about the Woodstock festival, about working on it, about what happened after. We talked for three hours, I interviewed him, and he signed his book about Woodstock for me, presented me with many unique publications of those years, and on camera gave permission to hold the Russian Woodstock festival in Russia. That was incredible!
Another no less legendary festival that I have always admired is the Swiss Montreux. It is two years older than Woodstock and has been held since 1967. A unique event in the music industry – the largest, amazing, super-professional jazz festival, which has no analogues in the world.
The legendary Chuck Berry, Billy Cobham, Al Dimeola, Brian May, Keith Emerson, Robert Plant, Jeff Beck, Billy Idol, Adrian Belew, Ian Anderson, Jethro Tull, Motorhead, Nazareth, ZZ TOP performed on the Montreux stage … I only listed these musicians with whom I was lucky to meet and make friends, what else I will write about in my column, and, of course, many other legends of music. I have a separate story associated with each (!) Of the listed ones …
In 2017, I also traveled to Montreux at the invitation of my good friends, and I was lucky to meet John and Helen Meyer, the founders of Mayer Sound, who put sound on this world’s main jazz festival. The kings of sound, and their technique is the “Rolls-Royce” in the world of music. In the Bolshoi Theater, the Kremlin Palace of Congresses, it is their sound that stands out. Metallica and many other supergroups use their sound system.
Once upon a time in our youth, in the first official rock band in the USSR, Integral, we either made the equipment ourselves or bought self-made speakers, amplifiers from our friends, made speakers, equipment, as best we could. And that signature sound of the snare drum, which we did not understand how to record with a surround hall, turned into a whole story. Then the idea came to my mind – to use a soldier’s belt, which, when clicked, made a pop and at the microphone, through the delay of the reverb, approximately resembled the very necessary sound. Then I could not even dream, I could not even imagine that 50 years later the legendary Mayer Sound would choose our Center as an exhibition area and showroom for their device. Their acoustic system was installed in the hall of our center, where such legends as Chris Slade (AC / DC), Bobby Rondinelli (Rainbow, Black Sabbath), Seth Riggs, who taught vocals to Michael Jackson, Barbara Streisand rehearsed, performed and held master classes , Tina Turner, Madonna, Liza Minnelli and many others. 130 of his students have become Grammy winners and nominees! This is how my favorite festival brought me to the creators of my favorite acoustic systems…
Russia also hosts a huge number of festivals. Some are very good, some are not close to me in spirit or musical directions. I love it very much and always go to the International Blues Bike Festival in Suzdal. This year it took place in mid-July. A unique festival with a simply incredible atmosphere, created by Maxim Prevezentsev. Thousands of fans of blues and biker culture gathered there, representatives of almost all biker clubs in Russia. Against the background of the bell towers and the history of Russia – the roar of engines, the sounds of the blues … All this made a deep impression on me personally. Three days of amazing rest and a storm of emotions.
My good friend Yevgeny Margulis performed at the festival with the Steppe Wolves group. They made an amazing tribute to The Beatles. Zhenya is just as crazy a Beatles fan as I am – this is the band we grew up with, and now his project has turned out to be completely unique.
I am certainly pleased that such cool musical events are taking place in Russia today – this is not “music for the feet”. These are large, highly professional, most interesting festivals where you can meet amazing musicians, super professionals, real fans of their work. Meetings with them change the idea of the Russian music industry, about the fate of which there are so many worries, worries, and fears now. Many of them are justified, but these “rays of light” allow you not to lose heart, but to live and create not only with hope, but also with real professional drive.
Newspaper headline:
Bell towers, crosses, blues sounds and festivals of hope