Mumiy Troll was great – I’m glad they decided to add some US locations to their concert tour. Unfortunately, if you’re in the U.S. and you haven’t seen them by now, you’ll have to wait till their next tour. They’re in Seattle tonight, then back to Russia for a few more shows. (See their site for the schedule.)

Lead singer, Ilya Lagutenko, was quite the entertainer. This was the best picture I could get of him because he was all over the place! The pic doesn’t really show it, but he was making weird bug-eyed faces the whole time, too.

As you might be able to make out here, the band came out in Russian sailor costumes. The drummer, Oleg Pungin, just wore the black and white striped shirt that they wear underneath – anyone know what those are called? Reminds me of one of my favorite Russian experiences – train rides. (Just because young men on the train would often wear those navy undershirts.) Also, check out the number of heads in front of me! This was a small venue and I was able to weasel my way up pretty close to the stage!

The opening band was local Russian band, Ru Pasaran. They were a nice warm-up to Mumiy Troll.

The lead singer kinda reminded me of a young Vince Vaughn.

Were any of you lucky/smart enough to make it to one of their shows? What did you think?

I’ve seen them a couple times in the past and was surprised to see that they had changed their name from “Red Elivses” to “Igor and Red Elvises” (no, no “the”). My first thought was that lead singer, Igor Yuzov, was getting a bit greedy and wanted to take the band in his own direction. So I was skeptical, but happy to see that the band still included gifted drummer, Adam Gust, plus two new members, Kefir Melamed and Milka Ramos. 

There was no sign of the trademark giant balalaika, but, as usual, most of the band wore animal print pajamas. I looked them up after the show to find that the name change was not a result of any prima donna issues (from what I could tell), but rather of former band mate, Oleg Bernov, running off to join the circus! www.slavasnowshow.com

As usual, it was a fun show. I must say that the addition of Milka Ramos was a great choice. Her gravelly voice and punk-rock style add a lot of charisma.

“You don’t need to be able to read Cyrillic to understand this Russian band—a fluency in groovy post-punk and edgy guitar rock is all that’s required. The foursome, based in Vladivostok and Moscow, fires off sparkling pop songs that keep its young chainsmoking fans dancing.” – The New Yorker, January 26, 2009