James Blunt - Live in Almaty

In the last six months, as far as I am aware, Almaty has seen the Gipsy Kings and ageing rockers Nazareth. And that’s it.  Kazakhstan is sometimes an unpredictable place. When James Blunt appeared on the bill posters, it was more than a surprise. It’s kind of random but we just had to go.

The Palace of the Republic is a very Soviet concert venue with sweeping concrete lines, huge square chandeliers, everything is marble and stone. The aisles are patrolled by theatre staff, uniformed still in Soviet era militaria (but no hats). They were fascistly fastidious about restricting use of any kind of cameras, even standing up in the seats was clamped down on by these over grown prefects. This added to the slightly subdued feeling in the crowd; the atmosphere not helped by the fact that half the seats were empty because the avaricious ticket touts still held them, unsold. The rationality of selling them for whatever price latecomers would pay at the last minute seemed to have been superceded by a mentality that says If I can’t sell them, then nobody’s having them.

Luckily, my girlfriend had bought 2 tickets a few days earlier. But the rest of our group were hoping for a lastminute bargain from the touts. To find a tout, you queue in the line for the box office, then the tout approaches you, strikes a deal and then goes to the front of the queue and buys the tickets. The face value is irrelevant along with the seating number. The cashier writes the new, better seat numbers on the back and you are in. The tout shows you to your seat and then you can pay.  Ben had negotiated 20,000 tenge (90 quid) for the ticketless five. Bargain. They came to find us in our seats.

It was at this point that the fracas began. Apparently the tout was asking 20,000T per ticket. He had already ripped the stubs and was starting to cause a scene. Kazakh fury rising in his voice, we began a heated Russian lesson about simple counting. I established with him that there had been a misunderstanding. He had no other tickets, apparently, and insisted the group leave the auditorium. He snatched back the tickets, stuffed them back in his black sheepskin lined leather coat and herded the group out, explaining to me that someone was going to get killed if he didn’t get his money. At this point I told him in Russian that I didn’t understand him. I wasn’t about to get into a conversation like that under any circumstances.

We returned to our seats, glad of our (Jessica’s) forward planning. In the lobby things got more heated and security intervened. There was nothing they could do so the group had to leave. They spent the rest of the night in the Guns and Roses bar, commiserating. How much closer can you get to seeing a gig without actually seeing it?!

James came on, straight into the act, no support. People were made to stay seated, except half way through, James began to warm the crowd. They were already enthusiastic but staying seated is incongruous to responding to the music. After a few songs Blunty commented with British subtly “It’s not a cinema, you know…” and got the crowd to stand up to which they enthusiastically and immediately responded.

All the aisle staff looked panicked, with expressions which said “I’m going to lose my job” which is a common fear in employment here, that the slightest error can be met with the sack.

Later Blunty decided, after a precarious leap from the top of his piano, to go even more rock’n’roll risky and run the gauntlet through the crowd and round the aisles, slapping hands and greeting strangers whilst the band played an instrumental.

It was a really good gig, and all the more entertaining in the cultural context. (At one point the crowd started to clap along totally inappropriately in the second bar of a ballad- Blunty quietly faded to a stop and quipped that they should save the applause for after the song- or clap in time!)

The emotions in his songs come across more powerfully than on the CD. There was more that a couple of tears shed during “Goodbye my lover” and his rapport with the crowd was quite impressive, given the language and cultural obstacles.

In the encore, in response to some invisible cue, most of the audience moved forward and packed the front of the seating area. The guards were having virtual nervous breakdowns… and then all the cameras came out. Whereas in the old days you’d expect a sea of cigarette lighters held aloft, now it’s a sea of LCD screens, capturing the event in digital, soon to appear on YouTube no doubt. Shocking.

I managed to sneak a minute or so of footage before getting my first warning from the aisle patrol and only about 20 seconds the following time before being threatened with ejection. Suddenly, conveniently, I couldn’t understand a word of his Russian.  Here’s the clip.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gB0sHF3cgQo

All in all, a quality night out. Random, but quality.