Along with celebrating my brother's birthday today, I will
be remembering another event that happened on this day, October 9, back in 1992
- my first (big) live concert on the stage of the Big Hall of Yerevan (then)
Polytechnic Institute (now State Engineering University of Armenia).
I was the bass-guitarist of “The Breeze” band then. The new
and expanded line-up had been existing for two months already, and was ready to
hit the stage by the beginning of October. Since clubbing life was at its
embryonic stage, all our groups were aiming for one big concert, after which
they normally went into euphoria. Not all of them thought about the need to go
forward: some of them didn’t even make their second gig, but some did though,
heading to another gig, and even moved to the recording studio.
I remember the first song, which actually lasted some four
minutes, seemed endless to me! However, quite soon we got into the right way and
we “made that night”. The gig went absolutely fantastic for those days, at the
end of which our full line-up (9 musicians!) went on stage to perform Kiddy
Jones (five "electric" musicians + string quartet). It is important
to mention that our line-up was changing constantly on the stage. We presented
electric quartet (with our drummer on vocals), electric quintet (with our lead
vocalist), electro-acoustic quartet, a guitar solo-composition played on
12-string guitar and sung by Arsen, string quartet + 12-string guitar, string
quartet + electric quintet, and ended up with a song, sung in three voices
accompanied by grand piano/bass/drums trio. And we were called out for an
encore!
What happened after we played Kiddy Jones song – oh, it worth
that all! I still can see in front of my eyes that overcrowded hall through the
stage with all of us standing still with shivers running down our spines. They
were all applauding and cheering us up, asking for more. I even got a present from an unknown girl – a book
that is still with me. And it went in harmony with all that happened on stage
and in our hearts in those days. We were then writing our own music, improving
ourselves, we had our dreams.
But then, reality started telling its rules, so many of our
good musicians ended their musical lives up through suicide. It became difficult
to create something, unfashionable, unprofitable... Ah, creating! It always means
“giving”, doesn’t it? But the musicians already started to want to get. So, having
some bargain with our Dream, we decided to continue our creative union in a new,
commercial way. And he wave reached some success, however the overall spirit of
our work was already different. But, as for many other Talents, we missed something
to bring this work to its end.
Arsen, who is the author of most of the songs, continued his
relations with music, however today his talent is being wasted, in my personal
opinion, on “things” like this.
I find it hard to call this music, hence the “thing” word is
used. No-no, I do not contest the genius of this McCartney composition in any
way... But this is McCartney, and it could have been Adonts instead! Without
any doubts, he can sing and play, and for sure, he does it quite well, but...
we have probably lost a lot of good songs during the past years, for he could “pick
them out of thin air” and bring them into this world.
Soon I will be telling the world about my activity I have
been occupied with for almost two years. It correlates very well with all I’ve
wrote here today, and I hope I am not doing this in vain. I was also granted
with something, something I do now want to kill in myself. And I want to be
sure that the Universe that maintains the balance of all things, will not let
Arsen’s Talent fall into Oblivion...
Eh, probably some other guy or girl on this planet was already
granted with the same talent and s/he will soon make our lives brighter with a
new Song.
P.S. By the way, here is an example of the songs Arsen was
able to write that I was talking about:
