Scandals with Meladze and Gazmanov: the promoter spoke about the fatal mistake of the singers

You have to perform either here or there.

The Dubai adventures of Valery Meladze and Oleg Gazmanov gave a very bright start to the social life of the new year. And the lip-read statement of Valery Meladze and the unexpected spectator aggression towards Oleg Gazmanov have already been given a variety of assessments. But if we look at what happened as a concert reality, then we can conclude that musical events in their former form are apparently becoming history.

The smartphone and social networks have opened up a lot of opportunities for scandals and provocations for everyone. And the stars in this situation are great for getting the viewer’s video into the news. Valery Meladze, in festive fervor, played along with one of the spectators who shouted “Glory to Ukraine!” and now they demand to ban the singer, not to let him in, to deprive him of his titles. A day later, Meladze gave a sober assessment of what happened, saying in his blog that he could not hate anyone, was not trying to please anyone, and wanted the antagonism between the peoples close to him to stop. A completely logical statement for a person who was born in Batumi, studied in Nikolaev, and made a career in Moscow. Nevertheless, the already bleak informational background around Meladze has become blacker than a cloud.

The Dubai performance of Oleg Gazmanov was almost disrupted when, during the performance of the song “Clear Days”, two approached the singer and rather aggressively began to ask him to speak on the Ukrainian agenda. “Guys, let me rest,” the singer remarked in a neutral tone, but it was clearly visible that his New Year’s mood had disappeared. Gazmanov himself did not comment on the situation, his wife did it for him. Perhaps Marina’s remark that you need to “come to the Emirates as a tourist “without your own samovar”, and then all the benefits of this country are at your service” can be considered appropriate, but nevertheless the family decided to change their vacation plans and flew away from Dubai.

Among the numerous comments on these incidents, mostly emotional assessments prevailed. True, people from the music industry consider such episodes the beginning of changes in the usual concert traditions.

“Perhaps no one in Dubai expected anything like this, but the situation has shown that anything can happen at concerts now,” a well-known music manager and concert promoter, who wished to remain anonymous, said in an interview with MK. “Most likely, the organizers of such events will now have a different look at how to make concerts.”

The interlocutor of “MK” is sure that the artists themselves, at least for their own safety, now need to rebuild their consciousness and not do what they have long been accustomed to. For example, getting close to the audience.

“Now going to the people, giving the audience the opportunity to say something into your microphone can be a fatal mistake,” says the interlocutor of MK. “Especially in Dubai, where an audience of very different views has recently gathered. It’s good that there were no fights.”

Probably, the ability to respond to various provocations should become one of the most rehearsed components of the concert for the artists. In this regard, there are already a couple of examples and not to say that they are successful. Philip Kirkorov, for example, slapped a disliked viewer with flowers in the face. This is hardly appropriate. Zemfira had a much harder time. Even in relatively peaceful times, Ukrainian flags were carried to her stage. And she didn’t manage to learn how to react to this without unnecessary emotions right away.

Unfortunately, all calls to separate culture and politics now make no sense. As well as talk about the fact that artists have no citizenship, and their home is where the public is. Now, if a cultural figure has formed a convex political position, then he should be extremely careful to accept tour offers and, if primitive, then perform either here or there. The victims in this situation are ordinary spectators, as well as those stars who just want to sing, because they don’t want to speak with slogans and don’t know how.