After another day of meetings with local musicians and DJs yesterday we have a jam-packed programme of club nights for the rest of the week here in Odessa, including live music sets each evening – an unexpected and very welcome bonus! Local musicians have been so happy to share their talents with us.
Our first club night opened with local volunteer, student Artium (aka DJ Gary Grey) spinning his favourite minimal techno tracks. Artium works as a local DJ in the beach clubs when he’s not studying languages and wants to learn more about promoting, so he’s supporting us all week, particularly on the translation front, and hopefully picking up a bit of promotions experience and advice at the same time.
Dutch theatre company Wunderbaum premiered their new theatre show Beer Tourist in the club to packed crowd. A surreal experience for me – seeing Dutch actors playing Manchester United fans on holiday in the Ukraine and sending up the Brits abroad stereotype. Although at times painfully close to the bone, luckily everyone in the audience seemed to share the humour inherent in the piece and I didn’t have to defend my country for the rest of the evening. Phew!
Next, we were treated to a fantastic live set from Odessan electro-jazz quartet Shabanoff Syndicate, led by Igor Shabanoff. See a clip of the band playing live. A SEAS club first – our volunteer Artium had never seen a live band before and was blown away. Result!
Finally, we persuaded musician Alexey Svidersky, who plays in around 6 bands in Odessa and is an all-round talented and lovely guy, to come and play some of his music on the decks. He’d never DJ-d before but with the help of his friend Mischa, soon got the hang of it. Another SEAS club first! Check out Alexey and Mischa’s NoBudjet clip which Deirdre and I loved!
So, a packed crowd, great music, enthusiastic reception by locals and SEAS visitors alike – the first SEAS club has set the benchmark for the next 20 days. Hurray! If you've time check out our latest flickr slideshow.
