Great Concerts #1

I'm not as fortunate as my blog buds Beth and Barb, sounds like a law firm doesn't it?, they go to all the cool concerts and see a ton of live music. But it's not like I haven't been to see some shows myself in the past. With fall fast approaching, yay fall!, I got to thinking about one of the best concerts I ever saw and believe it or not it was a concert put on by, of all things, a Russian bluegrass band.


I don't speak Russian, I usually hate bluegrass, but I recognize that the people who play bluegrass are wildly talented, and I usually avoided going to concerts during the middle of the week back when I was gainfully employed. But there I was one cool fall night many years ago, 1993 if I remember correctly, in Jonesborough, TN at my girlfriend's house and we decided to walk down to the visitors center to see a bluegrass band from Russia with the crazy sounding name of Kukuruza (It's pronounced koo-koo-ruse-uh). We had not been dating all thing long at that time and I thought it might be a nice treat for us to go, so we went.

The night was considerably cooler than we had been used to so we walked very fast to the venue. Once inside we saw that the show was going to be taking place inside a smallish hall that held probably 70 people tops. We took our seats and awaited the show.

A pretty red headed woman walked out on stage followed by 7 guys. From the first note the played they had us in the palm of their Slavic hands. All of them were accomplished musicians and the gal, Irina Surina, sang like a nightingale. Her vocal style was so unique that it really was startlingly good. She sang, played violin, though some would have called it a fiddle, and her stage presence was phenomenal, you could not look away when she was on stage it was like she hypnotized us in the audience.
They sang all all their songs in Russian except for one. The one song they sang in English was Wayfaring Stranger, which is a classic old time bluegrass/country/folk song. When they started the song they took the spotlight down onto Ms. Surina alone as she sang the first few lines. I remember how warm it had gotten inside the venue and how she had started to perspire, or as some of you ladies would say, "glow", between her good looks, her glow, and her heavily accented English the whole effect was astonishing. I remember jumping from my seat and applauding like a mad man when they finished that song and their show.


After the show we bought a CD, the one pictured above, and two band t shirts. When we walked back to my gf's house it was like both of us had a buzz from that show.


The band is still out there touring, mostly in Russia and Europe, and Ms. Surina is still in demand as a singer in her own right, she tours on her own singing Russian folk songs and bluegrass. From what I gathered from her official website she is quite popular in her home country despite making bad hair choices like this:

If you ever stumble across this blog by accident Ms. Surina, thanks for a great night many years ago. And the tell the guys in the band they rocked as well. And tell them I still listen to that CD, in fact I listened to it today and it still sounds as good today as it did back in 1993.