Post by Monica on Jan 25, 2009 19:41:14 GMT -6
Translation thanks toeurys-elysium.livejournal.com/23624.html at Livejournal! Thank you! I can't post her name because it gets censored. Just go to the link if you wanna drop her a thanks!
from rockoon.de/
from rockoon.de/
The band was out and about a great deal in the last few weeks. And in doing so got to places no band member had ever been to before. There was a lot to discover and marvel at. Therefore, there's also a lot to tell...
Rockoon: You're done with the concerts in France as well as Italy. Moreover, you've been to Russia for the very first time. How was it?
Shin: "Хороший" [= "good"]. To me, it was a completely different world, but maybe that was only due to the strange script that's in use there! A very impressive country!
Yu: It was great! I particularly remember Paris and Riga because I liked the stages and halls there most and had the most fun there. We've been to many interesting clubs. From deluxe catering to candlelight dinner... a few small crawling creatures included... There was a lot to be seen, even if only very shortly from the train or the car. It was amazing.
Strify: Paris is one of my favourite cities, I love being there. Milano was exciting as well. Russia is a lot different from all the other countries in Europe.
Shin: It was all very exciting – I always dreamed of giving concerts in Russia; and now this dream came true and I have to say that I love Russia. I took an immediate liking of Moscow and Saint Petersburg in particular!
Towns like Moscow, Saint Petersburg and Krasnodar were part of your tour schedule. Krasnodar is 1'500 kilometres to the south of Moscow. Weren't these distances extremely long and you could respectively had to experience by yourselves how incredibly big this country is...?
Shin: Yes, incredibly big... Guess I've never completed that many kilometres in such a short space of time in my life before.
Yu: As we had to had to drive for more than 22 hours to get from Krasnodar to Moscow, we realised how big it really is. (laughs) We lovingly called it "Mordor", as in Lord of the Rings, since it looked so empty most of the time and therefore reminded us of Mordor somehow. It must be a strange feeling to live in such a big country.
Strify: Some people in our crew are really scared of flying, that's why we agreed to a compromise and took the train too. Once, we were on the train for 22 hours and what we saw outside the window strongly reminded us of Mordor. For hours, there wasn't anything to see but trees, and there were only six villages that had train stops.
Kiro: We took the train for the 22 hours journey from Krasnodar to Moscow, that was a whole new experience to us indeed, the country is huge! On the train, we slept most of the time or drank Russian Vodka. (laughs)
You always get to hear horror stories about domestic flights there. The airports are said to be out of date, and the same apparently applies to most of the planes. What experience did you make?
Kiro: That's the reason why we took the train since I am scared of flying myself... And when people tell me such stories, I am even more scared to board a plane than I usually am!
Strify: The airport in Moscow was very big and modern. Other than that we only saw the small one in Krasnodar since we did not use the air routes about which we heard stories that made us feel uneasy. The plane we boarded was as good as all the other planes we usually fly with.
Shin: That's why we only flew once in this country... We were lucky to have chosen an airline that was pretty much okay. The airport in Moscow was great.
Yu: I found it quite okay even if prop airliners can scare the nuts out of you and are pretty loud. Most of the time I try to sleep during flights anyway because I get a migraine if I don't and things get unbearable; that's also a way to not pay too much attention to the plane.
And what about sanitary facilities? Were they acceptable for our liking?
Strify: I can say that things are not how people imagine them to be, Russia and Moscow in particular are very western by now.
Kiro: Kinda odd at times, but there are beautiful and less beautiful places and buildings, just like everywhere else!
Yu: So-so. As a man you're lucky to not necessarily have to sit down. As long as there is soap, everything is okay most of the time, but as soon as even the soap is gone, things get critical. (grins)
What do you remember first when you think of Krasnodar?
Kiro: Loads of colourful advertising posters. (laughs)
Yu: The many colourful lights and ads! I even saw a church that was illuminated and decorated like a fun fair in Germany! Totally crazy. (laughs)
Shin: Many fans at the airport and a TV team and a small Korean coach in which we were driven around.
Strify: The airport. And everything else. We never had to deal with paparazzi and the likes before, but now I know how it feels. We arrived – the airport had a coach terminal-feel about it, at least in terms of its size – and there were about 50 girls and a camera crew waiting. We were pretty tired after the journey and were persecuted the whole time.
And how was the show there?
Strify: The stage was very big and the people in the audience were really crazy. They had so much energy and sparkles in their eyes.
Shin: Great! The hall was very big and there were seats for those who couldn't stand standing for so long. (laughs)
Kiro: It was great, the stage was huge! It was our first concert in Russia and we noticed how very welcome we were.
Yu: We had a tight schedule that day which normally lead to the situation to become hectic. Other than that, the pieces of equipment we borrowed for the stage were a little... well, little... We rocked the hall anyway, it was plain nuts in Krasnodar. (laughs)
Isn't it cool that your songs are so well-known in the middle of, sorry, "nowhere"?
Yu: In Mordor! (laughs) Yes, it's really cool that our music is so widespread; I think it's quite amazing that it reaches so far, always further, please!
Shin: It's a really cool feeling to play in a strange country and everybody can sing along.
Kiro: That's something I thought about before, it's really incredible what happened so far! I am looking forward to the future!
Strify: It's indeed incredible what can happen in just one year. Three years ago I still went to school, and now I play sold-out shows in clubs at the end of the world. That's another reason why you should never lose hope.
Two days later you went to Moscow. An exciting place, isn't it? What did you get to see of it?
Kiro: I love Moscow!!! It's a lot like Berlin, only much bigger! We arrived at the station by night and all the lights and buildings were so impressive!!!
Yu: We got to see the Kreml and the Red Square and a monkey in a red jacket and we took part in a cool sight-seeing tour.
Strify: Moscow is an incredible place. The architecture is amazing. We naturally went to see the big square. You can picture Moscow like Berlin – times ten. The streets, the buildings – everything is bigger! There are areas with tower blocks that look like Marzahn, and streets that remind you of the Frankfurter Allee – the wonderful vibes of decadence are everywhere. What seemed great to me were the so-called Seven Sisters buildings. However... In one street, you see poor people begging, and just around the corner there's a deluxe department store – it's incredible that most of the world's billionaires live in Russia if you come across so much poverty.
Shin: Traffic jams... traffic jams everywhere, big impressive buildings that are illuminated at night. (grins)
And what left the most impressive impression?
Yu: That it's possible that 500 meters by car can take more than half an hour...
Kiro: Living in this place, the many lights... everything. (laughs)
Shin: What impressed me a lot was the whole package... how bit this place is, the buildings, the people...
And what was the show in Moscow like?
Yu: It was great! The stage looked amazing, and because Moscow was so awesome, we held our "Moscow Bizarre" DJ set at the same club again two days later...
Kiro: Since I had been looking forward to Moscow since forever, I was very nervous, but all this was gone when we went on stage! It was an amazing concert, the fans took part in it and sang along, that was wonderful!
Strify: My highlight was when we played the Russian version of t.A.T.u.'s Not Gonna Get Us and the audience went crazy.
Shin: The atmosphere in Moscow was great. The fans rocked and took part in our show.
A day later, you were in Saint Petersburg already. What did you like in particular about it?
Strify: Saint Petersburg is a lot cleaner than Moscow and really worth visiting. I recognised many places from an old Pierce Brosnan-Bond. A wonderful city.
Kiro: The city in general, particularly beautiful by night with all the lights decorating bridges and towers! It's very neat and tidy there, the traffic wasn't near as overwhelming as in Moscow too!
Shin: The food and the city. We had Sushi before the concert; otherwise, we have a certain person with a fondness of Pizza, and since this food is easy to get, we had to eat it often enough... tasted quite fine most of the time though.
And how was the show in this place different from the one in Moscow and Krasnodar?
Kiro: The backstage area was situated next to the stage, that's something we never had before! In other respects, the concert was great too! During the show, a huge lollipop was thrown onto the stage, it was truly huge!!! That was pretty much fun!
Shin: The club was of a pretty flat build, and there was this nice spotlight right above my drum set that I could have smashed anytime... but then I would definitely have burns in my face now. (laughs) Also during this show the atmosphere was unique and cool.
To what extent did you see and experience significant differences between the three places?
Strify: Krasnodar wasn't as western as Moscow and Saint Petersburg and looked like a village situated on a huge area. Moscow is incredibly decadent and ostentatious. Saint Petersburg is clean and reminds of Stockholm a little because of all the rivers and boats.
Kiro: You can always see differences; I fell in love with Moscow because I like Berlin a lot as well and Moscow sort of seems to be a much bigger version of Berlin! What all the three places have in common though is how nicely people welcomed us. (laughs)
Shin: They really are three different places indeed... From how the cities are built to how the people behave.
And which one did you like best?
Kiro: Hard to tell, Moscow was pretty cool though!
Strify: I didn't get to see enough of these places to decide.
Shin: Moscow, this place impressed me most because everything is so incredibly big.
How was the food in Russia? Do you have particularly good or particularly bad memories?
Strify: Yes, both of them. At the venue in Moscow, the food was incredibly good, for example, and there was a wide range of it. But now matter how the food was – the vodka was always good.
Kiro: So-so; the food at the hotels wasn't that good and the range of food was rather poor! Apart from that, we had truly wonderful Sushi at Saint Petersburg, that was really very very delicious.
Shin: The food was pretty much the same as in Germany, there was a lot of local food too of course.
You've been to so many places in Europe now. Which places would you most love to see next?
Strify: I've often been to London and would love to play there. Other than that, New York is on top of my list, followed by Tokyo.
Kiro: I'm looking forward to Rome in December.
Shin: New York and Tokyo... Think that both these cities are of a huge, unique nature.
Yu: New York, Tokyo, Shanghai, all the world's big cities! I would love to travel the whole world.
As you revealed only recently, your next album will be called toyZ. How did you come up with this title?
Shin: Because Strify is a toyboy. (laughs) He came up with the name together with Yu.
Strify: We will tell you more about this as soon as the album is released... We don't want to reveal everything yet.
Kiro: The idea with toyZ was there out of the blue and we liked it right away as regards the content. (laughs) And it's totally fitting! We will soon reveal more regarding the album title and the idea behind it.
Yu: toyZ are everywhere! We grow up with many different kinds of toys, and they shape us more than we might be aware of at first. The title just fit and we will soon reveal the concept of toyZ... (grins)
But before you can go on with working on the new album, there's 24.12. and 25.12. - what do you wish for for these two days?
Strify: In the last years, I associated Christmas with stress.
Kiro: I am looking forward to nice days with my family and friends and to eating good food. (laughs)
Shin: A lot of strength and support from my parents and friends.
Yu: Snow! Finally Christmas with a lot of snow, building snow men, snowball fights... and so on.
On 26.12. and 27.12. you will celebrate Christmas à la Cinema Bizarre?
Kiro: That's it. I'm looking forward to both concerts and slowly start getting in the mood for Christmas, there's no way to escape Christmas from the beginning of September on anyway...
Shin: I'm really looking forward a lot to both these concerts in order to show our German fans the experience we gained on the stages throughout Europe.
Yu: Definitely! We will present our German fans with two great concerts in Bochum and Hamburg to conclude this year. We did not forget you in spite of the many concerts abroad, so bring all your friends along!
