Rock ‘n’ Roll Weekend
Bambir, Stop Club, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian
This weekend saw two very good rock bands play at two different venues. Saturday was the weekly rock night at Hovhannes Kourghinyan’s Downtown club. The former singer from the “Armenian Metallica,” Vostan Hayots, now has a new band, Army of God, but Saturday night means covers — from Deep Purple through Metallica to some old Russian rock classics from the late Soviet era.
Interestingly, Kourghinyan was over an hour late in turning up and out of the blue, one of the waitresses at the club filled in just before he got there. Turns out the 21-year old is herself in a hard rock band, Strife, and boy, what a voice. Probably best to compare her to an Armenian Amy Lee (from Evanescence). She sang in Armenian too.
Sunday, however, brought me to a new venue in town, the Stop Club where the young Bambir (II) performed. I first saw these guys perform at the first ever Nagorno Karabakh Arts Festival held in Shushi in 2001 along with the older Bambir, themselves a great fusion of Armenian and Celtic influences in a folk-rock style. Bambir (II) has come a long way since then.
Certainly, their hair has grown longer but they also have an even more charismatic presence on stage than they did four years ago — and they were pretty damn impressive back then as well.
Playing some of their own material, Bambir (II) also do some storming covers of tracks by Led Zeppelin, The Doors and The Rolling Stones. Their Hendrix covers are also pretty impressive but of course, with a flautist as part of the line-up, the most obvious comparison is with Jethro Tull. In concert, they might even come a close second to Tull’s Ian Anderson when it comes to eccentricity. Actually, off stage that’s pretty much the case as well.
All in all, a good weekend.
Incidentally, there’s more information on the Armenian rock scene at http://www.arminrock.am and there are also some interviews with MDP, Sard and Hovhannes Kourghinyan on my web site.
Hey,
I must say I’am soooo pleased to see Bambir on a web site, because about a year ago when I was in Yerevan, Armenia I saw their performance and I was blown away! Sitting in a crowded room, no air-conditioning and very few light I was pleased to be spending my evening enjoying the music they played during the Ernest Hemingway - “The old Man and the Sea” they did the most awsome background music! They were so great that I had someone take me backstage and I took pictures with them!
In any case, I was just thrilled to see them on a web site.
THANK YOU,
GAYANE A.
Comment by Gayane Avakian — July 18, 2005 @ 5:54 pm