Igor Krutoi/Krutoy at Barclays Center (ft Dimash, inter alia)

I went to see Igor Krutoi at the Barclays Center on 10/26/19  I've also seen his name transliterated as Krutoy in English.

This was quite a remarkable event.  This arena seats 19k.  It was almost completely full. Most of the audience was Russian.  There are a lot of Russians in Brooklyn.

Igor Krutoy is very famous in Russia.  Also many of the performers were top performers in Russia.  

It was kind of incredible to me that they would bring so many top solo performers to a single concert in NYC.  It would have been prohibitively expensive to have so many top US performers in a single concert.  I think David Foster here only manages to do it, because it's for charity concerts.

YET, there was virtually no publicity for this event.  It must have been word of mouth that got people in. I would think the English language media might have noticed such an event, but I don’t think so.  I guess he does these concerts every few years, but, still, it’s a fascinating and important cultural occasion.

I found out about this concert, because I have been following the even more extraordinary Dimash on YouTube and Instagram.  I searched online for concerts in the USA with Dimash and found this one on a fan website, so I got a ticket immediately and was very fortunate to find an aisle seat — tho I was up in the nosebleed section quite far from the stage.

All of the singers had beautiful voices.  None of them were rough singers.  This has been a point of irritation to me that the US music industry so values rough singing.  When I look at episodes of the The Voice all over the world, they seem to turn around faster for people with rougher voices.

I got to see some clips of the Voice Senior in Germany.  All those people had rough voices, because they were old. The US music industry seems to want young people to sound like old people. Similarly, they want women to sing low and men to sing high.  Stupidity.

In this concert, they had people who sang well.

It was loud in spots, so I had to put in ear plugs part of the time.  They also did the thing that I find utterly incomprehensible of shining bright lights in my eyes. They get my pupils all dilated in the dark theater and then shine bright lights in my eyes.  This is just cruel. 

Why can’t they figure out -- as they did in the Queen concert I went to — to mostly shine the lights on the ceiling; and if shining in the audience use dimmer lights?

Almost the entire thing was in Russian. I did study Russian, but not enough to understand the speeches or the songs — tho I could catch a few words. As a result, a lot of stuff went over my head.  The only person I heard speak or sing in English was Dimash.

Fortunately, I had some Haitians sitting next to me who I could talk to.  One of them showed me that I could find more about the performers on the Internet.

A lot of this audience didn't seem to speak much English, when I tried to speak to them.  People worry so much about Hispanic immigrants.  I feel that it should be even more concerning that there are so many Russians who are potentially here as agents of a foreign power.

I didn’t feel that most of the singers seemed truly authentic.  They seemed a bit plastic to me — except for Dimash and Krutoy himself.  Krutoy really caught my attention when he sang, even tho I didn’t understand him.  I felt he was authentic.  On the other hand, I couldn't understand the lyrics and I was very far from the stage, so I might have felt differently about the other performers if I had understood or been closer.

Most of the performers were wearing fixed smiles at the start of the concert.  The beginning felt a bit Lawrence Welk-ish -- but it got louder into pop and rock as the concert went on.  I think Dimash was the only true pop/classical crossover artist.

Krutoy was quite impressive.  He was there at that piano for 3 hours without a break.  I gather he composed a lot of the music as well. The music was classical, pop, rock, and polka.  There was sometimes a classical orchestra, sometimes a rock band, often backing vocalists, and sometimes dancers. He was there at his white grand piano the whole time.  Just phenomenal.

Dimash was the only non-white soloist.  I couldn’t see if any of the band was Asian.  The backup singers were all white, so far as I could tell. 

It’s a testimony to the extraordinariness of Dimash’s voice that he could break into an event like this.  I was an exchange student in Russia in the seventies.  I met an African student there who was quite critical of the Russians as racist.  Certainly, we see in the US political field that they’ve preferred to support a racist candidate.

I must say that Dimash was even more impressive in person than on the YouTube Videos.  The power of his voice was incredible, earth shattering.

I found out after buying a ticket for this concert, that Dimash has a solo concert in December. I'm going to that as well. I feel that I'm going to enjoy that more.   

One thing that really bothered me was that the audience was rushing out during the finale — and by the time the finale was over the arena, previously full, was almost empty. I found this horribly rude for everyone to leave when all the performers were still on stage singing together. Notably, you could hear Dimash's whistle tones over all the rest of the performers during the finale.

Here are some YouTube Videos of Dimash.at this concert

Here are some of the other performers.

Fortunately, since I had never heard of most of these people, I was able to click on their bios online during the concert and read wikipedia articles about them.  

I would say that Philipp Kirkorov was the closest to an American rock artist.  His stage presence and costuming reminded me a bit of Adam Lambert, tho older, and I would say he seemed a bit less committed to his performances than Lambert.  What I mean by committed is when you can see that performer's sense of self dissolving into the performance.  I feel the best performers do this: they disappear personally and become their performances.  Dimash does it.

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The guy sitting next to me thought that the concert was lip-synched, because the screens near the ceiling of the arena were delayed with respect to the performers' mouths; however, when I looked at the screens on either side of the stage, they were in sync with the performers, so I think the screens near the ceiling were on some kind of delay. I'm thinking that the screens near the stage may have been provided by the Russians and the screens near the ceiling by the arena, so they might not have been compatible.  It doesn't prove there was lip syncing.

Certainly when Dimash put his mic down to an audience member I could hear her singing, which wasn't the case in a video that I saw coming out of another venue.

****

Here's Igor Krutoi's post about this concert.  I must say that the performers look much better close up.  I was pretty far away.

View this post on Instagram

До сих пор, при воспоминании о нью-йоркском концерте, появляются мурашки... И, конечно же, особые впечатления о Финале шоу с песней «Ангел-хранитель» на стихи моего Друга Игоря Николаева @igor_nikolaev_music , за что ему моя огромная благодарность!!! 🤝🤛♥ #игорькрутой #крутой #вжизниразбывает65 #димашкудайберген #филиппкиркоров #николайбасков #анилорак #астудио #димабилан #сергейлазарев #интарсбусулис #иринааллегрова #валерийлеонтьев #барклайсарена #barklayscenter video - @phot.on

A post shared by Игорь Крутой (@igorkrutoy65) on Oct 28, 2019 at 10:59pm PDT

View this post on Instagram

Вчера при полном собрании 16500 зрителей в @barclayscenter в Нью-Йорке прошёл мой первый концерт из международного тура "В жизни раз бывает 65". Огромное спасибо артистам @nikolaibaskov @avarum @keti_one_official @bilanofficial @intarsofficial @lazarevsergey @anilorak @irinaallegrovaofficial @kudaibergenov.dimash @valera_leontiev @fkirkorov, a также всем моим любимым поклонникам за поддержку! Продолжение следует! Video - @phot.on #крутой #игорькрутой #вжизниразбывает65

A post shared by Игорь Крутой (@igorkrutoy65) on Oct 27, 2019 at 1:20am PDT

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And then there was this

NYC had it's first weekend without a shooting in 25 years

Incredible.

I search the NY Times website for mentions of Igor Krutoy and come up short.  What's wrong with them? This is an extraordinary, historical event.  They don't even mention it?

****

I was thinking there were so many Russians at this concert because it might have been mentioned in the Russian language local news in Russian communities in Brooklyn -- but I wonder how many Russian fans might have actually traveled to NY just for the concert.  It was possibly an unusual assembly of great performers.  I've known Americans to go to Europe to hear American performers in a different venue in combination with a vacation. That could have happened here.  I don't know

#Dimash #BarclaysCenter #IgorKrutoy



Here’s a video of Dimash performing with Krutoy where you really get to see the faces of more performers, and he really seems to be the only non white person, which is pretty remarkable, IMHO. It speaks to the power of his talent, his openness to participating in other cultures. It’s like Sammy Davis Jr in a way

https://www.instagram.com/tv/B4aTAVUAeSO/?igshid=h145u37b1w0g

Wapo goes tabloid

Normally I write my political commentary under a different pseudonym, but unfortunately I subscribed to them under this pseudonym. Here’s a comment that I wrote to one of their op-ed pieces

The link to the article is at the bottom

This article is outrageous.

Hillary, by saying that someone is being “groomed,” is clearly implying that that someone is working with the Russians. You’re twisting what she said to make it look better. The word “asset” is currently understood by most people, in this context,  to mean someone owned or controlled by the Russians, not someone they happen to use or agree with.

Moreover, you say policy experts support what Hillary said. Then you quote these policy experts who are all saying “could,” clearly not implying that it’s happening now. They aren’t supporting that someone is being “groomed,” at all.

Where is the evidence of the alleged *current* Russian bot activity in support of Tulsi? What is the source of the widespread rumors about Tulsi, attacking her patriotism. Have you investigated where they’re coming from? Are they coming from Hillary, as Tulsi suggests?

Do some serious  investigative reporting! This is shallow and meaningless. You’re looking at rumor and speculation, not facts.

Moreover, the implication that anyone who challenges the official narrative about our foreign policy is somehow a Russian asset is chilling to free speech. Must we be afraid to speak the truth out of fear that Putin may happen to agree? 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/10/22/some-democratic-candidates-are-defending-tulsi-gabbard-against-hillary-clintons-accusations-lot-intelligence-experts-arent/