Diary of Moscow trip
08.05.2012
I wrote a short diary about my trip to Moscow and the first show I played there with my band end of April. In cooperation with Rock Oracle magazine the Russian version is online now here.
The English version is here:
Paris-Stuttgart-Vienna-Moscow-Samara-Moscow-Stuttgart-Paris / 7 flights in 5 days / 1 concert / 1000 impressions.
I set out to make an experiment without knowing the result – putting my solo project, which has so far seen 2 studio albums, into a live performance with live musicians for a premiere show in Moscow. To make a long story short – it was an amazing experience. I travelled from my parallel world to Moscow in the evening of Thursday, 26th of April arriving late due to heavy thunderstorms at Moscow Vnukovo airport. Pickup was as usual perfectly arranged by Russian Synth Community and I found the hotel in the heart of the City safe at 10pm. Just in time for a couple of Whiskeys at the hotel bar that rocked me to a gentle sleep.
On Friday, my band was supposed to arrive by plane at 4pm, so I used the spare time and the warm spring weather to explore the surrounding area of the hotel. Leading me to Paveletskaya station and across the bridge of the Moscow river floating by the hotel. At 3pm Alex Mental arrived at the hotel for a first meeting. Alex, with whom I created the song Fallen Stars and who has his own project with Mental Discipline, came from Perm to join my band on the keyboards for this show in Moscow and we used the afternoon to exchange about latest developments in music projects and discussed about preparations for tomorrow’s show. At about 4:30pm the band finally arrived from the airport at the hotel, where we had a first welcome beer and band reunion (Zura, Dr Drum, Joe Haynes, Achim). Plans were made and it was decided to have a couple of more beers at the hotel lobby, while Alex and myself went to a photo shooting in the nearby Moonpark studios with Mike Encore. On the way to the studio I had the chance to learn a lot about Russian animals, Moscow traffic madness (it took us 1 hour to get there for 3 km), industrial zones transforming into areas of modern art and that Lenin’s dead body is still being washed regularly to be exposed in his mausoleum. The photo session lasted about an hour and he shot different portrait lighting setups of both, me individually and together with Alex. A first glimpse on the previews in his camera were already really promising, so I am looking forward to receiving the final results. Back to the hotel to pick up the rest of the guys and then we left for a tour of the city by metro. We started from Paveletskaya where we were overwhelmed by the beautiful architecture of Moscow metro stations and drove 2 stations to the Red Square.
Here we met with Alexander Kondrusev, a photographer from the Russian Synth Community, who accompanied us over the Red Square and made some very nice pictures. We walked by the Lenin mausoleum and I recalled him being so fresh in there. Kira explained to us the story of the basilica when Ivan had his architects mutilated so they won’t build something comparably beautiful again. With this nice story as an appetizer it was about time to go for dinner and Kira led the way across the Moscow river by foot to an Ukrainian restaurant called Taras Bulba. A great place with traditional interior and also the servers are dressed in traditional clothes. The menu is really diverse and we decided to try everything. Zura, who is fluent in Russian, was a great host to order as much food as possible. We started with Borscht and made our way through several Russian salads and delicious meat dishes ending with a Pilmeni desert that left us very full. Fortunately, Alex had brought some Beluga Vodka from Perm which helped us to digest at the hotel before falling into our beds after an exciting day at 2am.
Saturday, the day of the concert arrived and we started with a breakfast at 9:30am followed by a short band meeting to discuss the setlist and the remaining actions until pickup time at the hotel at 3pm. While Dr Drum and Joe Haynes decided to relax in the hotel sauna, I finished some technical preparations with Achim, the sound engineer, in my room. Since it was the first show of my project I wanted to make sure that everything will work out alright. Especially the recording equipment needed to be tested again. Pickup was on time at 3pm and the way to the PiPL club was short. We arrived at 3:30pm and had enough time to set up our equipment and take a good look around this nice venue which can host up to 1000 guests. Also I had time to meet all the friends from Russian Synth Community again and exchange latest news. Over the several years that I have now the opportunity to travel to Russia with my music projects, there has been established a great friendship which gives every concert a feeling of coming home. Sound check was at 5:30pm and went considerably well, facing the usual challenges to have all instruments on stage sound reasonably loud and so everybody can hear what he needs to hear. I was relieved to see the background animation of my logo work well with the LED screen of the club. The animation had been programmed by a graphic designer which I met in Tel Aviv during a Diorama concert in March and we exchanged ideas on this animation by internet – not knowing if it will work with this screen at PiPl club. However, we had a small issue with Alex’ Nord Lead keyboard but luckily we could exchange this just before the show with a keyboard from Diary of Dreams. The show started at 8:20pm and went really well. During our show of 60 minutes we played mostly songs from the 2nd album, 2 songs from the 1st album and the Mental Discipline track Fallen Stars. Looking back at the show now a couple of days later I am really happy with what we created that night and that we got the chance to do this premiere in Moscow, having gathered so many musical inspirations in this city, which for me will always be a garden of light.
Thank you Moscow!
02.05.2012
Pictures and movies reflect what we feel and shared during our time in Moscow and the first concert of Felix Marc project: an amazing hospitality and great party with the people who came out to share the moment with us. We will never forget! A collection of great pictures can be found in Alexander Kondrusev’s live blog here.
Felix Marc & Band at Red Square
28.04.2012
The Muse (Making of)
09.04.2012
In order to shorten the countdown remaining for the concert in Bochum on May 11, I uploaded the 12 minute long making of from the music video shoot to the song “The Muse”. Enjoy iton my youtube channel here.
Band introduction and video greeting for Moscow
03.04.2012
During the last rehearsal end of March I did some video footage to introduce the band and to announce the upcoming live premiere in Moscow on April 28th, at the P!PL Club. Feel free to spread the news and share this video among your friends and surely come out to see the show. We are all very excited. See you there. See the video here.
