Wednesday, April 27, 2005
East comes West to the Forum
Originally from the west (west of Moscow) in Obninsk, Russia, the band Bering Strait came to the Outer Banks Forum most recently from their current base in Nashville.
With the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, a "60 Minutes" story, a Grammy nomination for their instrumental "Bearing Straight," and a television theme song ("I Could Use a Hero" from Animal Planet's Animal Cops) on their resume
, they arrived at the First Flight High School Saturday night.
An expectant audience of young and old awaited their advent to a stage dominated by a drum kit on a riser behind 6-foot-tall plexiglas panels. Elsewhere on the stage were instruments that might be expected of a country music band -- guitars, basses, a pedal steel guitar, acoustic and electric dobros, a Korg keyboard, amps and more amps.
A roadie went around putting bottled water and a towelette by each mic stand.
After opening remarks by V.P. Programs Executive Director Amy Huggins thanking the evening's patrons and listing next season's acts -- including the Preservation Hall Jazz Band -- Bering Strait, named for the narrow strait of water that separates Russia from Alaska, came onstage.
Five regular members represented the band -- "Sasha" Ostrovsky on pedal steel, Natasha Borzilova on vocals and acoustic guitar, Alexander Arzamastsev behind 'glas on drums, "Spooky" Olkhovsky on bass and Lydia Salnikova on keyboard and vocals.
They opened with Brian Maher, Billy Montana and Helen Darling's "What Is It About You," a mainstream romantic country workout of a type that is helping to blur the country-pop line nowadays.
Ostrovsky on pedal steel, looking like Albrecht Durer with his long curly locks, provided most of the licks and fills, helped out by guest Chris Pandolfi on 5-string banjo.
Brunette Borzilova handled the lead vocal with a voice that should -- and will -- rival the biggest names in Nashville, and no accent. Red-headed Salnikova, singing backing vocals, displayed no Russian accent either while singing. Both women were youthful and comely.
They might have been inmates of the high school.
Several band-members spoke between songs, displaying only the slightest accents and a total command of English speech and idioms. (They have lived here since the mid-'90s.)
Regular-guy Arzamastsev was mostly hidden behind his drums and Olkhovsky, in a baggy t-shirt, knit cap and low-slung Fender Jazz Bass, could have stepped out of an MTV video.
Showing their eclecticism, the band played their upcoming single -- Christine McVie's "You Make Loving Fun," a big hit for Fleetwood Mac in 1977. (Salnikova's backing vocals were an improvement on Stevie Nicks'.)
Among their songs for the evening was "a beautiful Russian drinking-song, which like so many Russian folksongs, revolves around cold weather."
On this and the other Russian numbers of the evening, the band skillfully blended their modern instruments into the songs without losing their traditional feel.
The women's Russian vocals on these were truly haunting.
They played "I Could Use a Hero," a song with a very sticky hook, which they pantomimed for Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade last year. "All the bands lip-synced, so we didn't feel too bad."
The women and Sasha Ostrovsky indulged in patter between the songs, which became a theme. Natasha Borzilova twice affixed "I don't know why I said all that" to her speeches, and Lydia Salnikova, behind her keyboard, said during the setup for a number, "They're changing instruments again. I have only this keyboard, and nothing to change, so I must speak."
Later Sasha, alone on stage preparing for a terrific dobro solo, told how the other night, while he prepared for the same number, he talked at such length that the others were screaming offstage.
He mentioned meeting and befriending his hero, dobro legend Jerry Douglas, and how Douglas gave him a dobro when he (Sasha) first came to America, and being accoladed at bluegrass festivals, although as a comedian ...
"Play the song!" came shouts from backstage.
The band played some breakneck instrumental bluegrass, the angelic-voiced Natasha taking some surprising lightning-quick solos on her acoustic guitar.
Afterwards she said, "You know what's better sometimes than American bluegrass? Russian bluegrass!"
With this the two women began some quick, multisyllabic vocalizing in Russian, against an insistent four-beat from Arzamastsev's bass drum. Soon the bass and other instruments joined, and Cossack sword-dancers appeared in the mind's eye.
Lydia took a solo turn, a piece written while harmonizing with an air-conditioning unit in a hotel ("You could say I was bored"). An atmospheric keyboard piece, "Safe In My Lover's Arms" rose well above its homely beginnings.
Sung by Lydia with harmonies by Natasha and accompanied by her own keyboard, it started with one soft sustained chord (like the air conditioner). She then gradually layered on harmonies and harmonics and added her slow, plaintive vocal ("I wish I was safe -- in -- my -- lover's -- arms...").
It was beautiful, and hair-raising.
The band's second CD is coming out soon and should make an excellent successor to their self-titled first. The first featured the well-developed voice of a confident, mature band cohesively mixing a few genres (bluegrass, country, pop, Russian folksong); the second will add some other directions, like Lydia's new piece.
They're getting great press and are poised to hit big. Vsego dobrogo!
©2005 Womack Newspapers Inc.
With the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, a "60 Minutes" story, a Grammy nomination for their instrumental "Bearing Straight," and a television theme song ("I Could Use a Hero" from Animal Planet's Animal Cops) on their resume
, they arrived at the First Flight High School Saturday night.An expectant audience of young and old awaited their advent to a stage dominated by a drum kit on a riser behind 6-foot-tall plexiglas panels. Elsewhere on the stage were instruments that might be expected of a country music band -- guitars, basses, a pedal steel guitar, acoustic and electric dobros, a Korg keyboard, amps and more amps.
A roadie went around putting bottled water and a towelette by each mic stand.
After opening remarks by V.P. Programs Executive Director Amy Huggins thanking the evening's patrons and listing next season's acts -- including the Preservation Hall Jazz Band
-- Bering Strait, named for the narrow strait of water that separates Russia from Alaska, came onstage.Five regular members represented the band -- "Sasha" Ostrovsky on pedal steel, Natasha Borzilova on vocals and acoustic guitar, Alexander Arzamastsev behind 'glas on drums, "Spooky" Olkhovsky on bass and Lydia Salnikova on keyboard and vocals.
They opened with Brian Maher, Billy Montana and Helen Darling's "What Is It About You," a mainstream romantic country workout of a type that is helping to blur the country-pop line nowadays.
Ostrovsky on pedal steel, looking like Albrecht Durer with his long curly locks, provided most of the licks and fills, helped out by guest Chris Pandolfi on 5-string banjo.
Brunette Borzilova handled the lead vocal with a voice that should -- and will -- rival the biggest names in Nashville, and no accent. Red-headed Salnikova, singing backing vocals, displayed no Russian accent either while singing. Both women were youthful and comely.
They might have been inmates of the high school.
Several band-members spoke between songs, displaying only the slightest accents and a total command of English speech and idioms. (They have lived here since the mid-'90s.)
Regular-guy Arzamastsev was mostly hidden behind his drums and Olkhovsky, in a baggy t-shirt, knit cap and low-slung Fender Jazz Bass, could have stepped out of an MTV video.
Showing their eclecticism, the band played their upcoming single -- Christine McVie's "You Make Loving Fun," a big hit for Fleetwood Mac
in 1977. (Salnikova's backing vocals were an improvement on Stevie Nicks'.)Among their songs for the evening was "a beautiful Russian drinking-song, which like so many Russian folksongs, revolves around cold weather."
On this and the other Russian numbers of the evening, the band skillfully blended their modern instruments into the songs without losing their traditional feel.
The women's Russian vocals on these were truly haunting.
They played "I Could Use a Hero," a song with a very sticky hook, which they pantomimed for Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade last year. "All the bands lip-synced, so we didn't feel too bad."
The women and Sasha Ostrovsky indulged in patter between the songs, which became a theme. Natasha Borzilova twice affixed "I don't know why I said all that" to her speeches, and Lydia Salnikova, behind her keyboard, said during the setup for a number, "They're changing instruments again. I have only this keyboard, and nothing to change, so I must speak."
Later Sasha, alone on stage preparing for a terrific dobro solo, told how the other night, while he prepared for the same number, he talked at such length that the others were screaming offstage.
He mentioned meeting and befriending his hero, dobro legend Jerry Douglas
, and how Douglas gave him a dobro when he (Sasha) first came to America, and being accoladed at bluegrass festivals, although as a comedian ..."Play the song!" came shouts from backstage.
The band played some breakneck instrumental bluegrass, the angelic-voiced Natasha taking some surprising lightning-quick solos on her acoustic guitar.
Afterwards she said, "You know what's better sometimes than American bluegrass? Russian bluegrass!"
With this the two women began some quick, multisyllabic vocalizing in Russian, against an insistent four-beat from Arzamastsev's bass drum. Soon the bass and other instruments joined, and Cossack sword-dancers appeared in the mind's eye.
Lydia took a solo turn, a piece written while harmonizing with an air-conditioning unit in a hotel ("You could say I was bored"). An atmospheric keyboard piece, "Safe In My Lover's Arms" rose well above its homely beginnings.
Sung by Lydia with harmonies by Natasha and accompanied by her own keyboard, it started with one soft sustained chord (like the air conditioner). She then gradually layered on harmonies and harmonics and added her slow, plaintive vocal ("I wish I was safe -- in -- my -- lover's -- arms...").
It was beautiful, and hair-raising.
The band's second CD is coming out soon and should make an excellent successor to their self-titled first. The first featured the well-developed voice of a confident, mature band cohesively mixing a few genres (bluegrass, country, pop, Russian folksong); the second will add some other directions, like Lydia's new piece.
They're getting great press and are poised to hit big. Vsego dobrogo!
©2005 Womack Newspapers Inc.
