ДДТ  Interview with Shevchuk: Only for Zvuki.ru

Yuri Shevchuk could never really be accused to trying to present himself in the best light. And now, probably, DDT is one of the few groups "up there" that still remembers its roots and genuinely values the people that have been attending their concerts for 20 years already. The following conversation took place the day before Shevchuk's birthday, in the town of Barnaul, which is included in the group's "Siberian Tour."

Y. Sh. We're finishing up our tour right now. It turned out somewhat strange and experimental, gathering audiences of no more than a couple of thousand, starting from concert halls in South Sakhalinsk to Tiumen'. There are 12 cities in the program- we've been to ten already, so there's two left- Omsk and Tiumen'.
Since we don't have sponsors, we tried to work using local equipment, sound, and light, and while we were at it, see what it's like for our colleagues in the Far East and in Siberia. A lot of people say we have a large income, but that's not really true. We get less money than a lot of our colleagues, it's just that our equipment is expensive. There are 14 of us, and that's not a small group.
What can I say about the tour? We all got the impression that the cities we visited aren't really ready for rock concerts. Many towns had very poor sound, and only two cities were able to provide us with lighting, because the organizers there were used to working with "pop" and phonograms. It was pretty tough getting through the towns. I mean, we get to some city, and they start asking you, "What do you need this light for, why the sound system..." The organizers weren't prepared, and the whole thing was just a mess. I don't think we'll do something like this again. Where the public was concerned, the concerts were a success. I don't want to brag, but every audience would call us out again. But there's something I should add here- once we arrived in a town where, according to our agreement, the tickets were supposed to be 100-200 rubles. In reality, they were selling them for 500-600 rubles! We were shocked! Our listeners aren't the nouveau riche, they're mostly students, young people, soldiers, the intelligentsia... They can't afford those kind of tickets. We had made previous agreements, but they were all completely broken. It's sad, but this is just blatant fraud. Next time we'll probably chose a couple of cities, and send some of our own people there to make agreements and organize our own equipment. But we won't go into tours like this one again.

Z.R. What city was the most memorable?

Y. Sh. We were greeted very warmly everywhere. I can't say what city was better. Personally, I liked Blagoveschensk, Angarsk, Irkutsk... These were all cities, on top of everything, where we were performing for the first time. The worst organizers were in Novosibirsk. I wouldn't recommend their "philharmonists" to anyone.

Impressions from the group:

Igor Tikhomirov (sound): "That was a fun tour!"

Uncle Misha Chernov (saxophone): "Mostly, it went well. In my own time when I started touring, I'd see worse, so I can't really complain.

Ivan Vasiliev (trumpet): "I'm touring with these people for the first time, so I can't compare it to anything. But I didn't really get any negative impressions."

But the one thing they all agreed on was: "We're very tired and want to go back home to St. Petersburg!"

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