"Kommersant": "”My Way” reaches Barvikha"
Veteran crooner Paul Anka performs on Rublyovka.
The musician Paul Anka delivered a powerhouse performance at Barvikha Luxury Village concert hall on Saturday. He went out of his way to please the audience. He opened his arms to the audience only to find singer Filipp Kirkorov in his embrace.
Anka very much hoped to see Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in the audience. In an interview with Channel 1 he even recorded an appeal to Putin, playing on what is easily his best known song "My Way." True, the appeal was dropped from the final version. Besides, unlike Paul Anka, the Russian public has long known that Putin's musical tastes are now different. And anyway, even though men from the Federal Guard Service with a sniffer dog dropped by at the concert hall during the day, Putin chose to go and watch a football game.
In the absence of the Prime Minister,Anka's audience included businessman Alexander Chistyakov with spouse, singer Natalya Ionova who wore a striking black leather skirt rimmed with silver fox, commercial director of Krokus International Emin Agalarov with spouse, chief editor of the magazine Baku, Leila Aliyeva, State Duma deputy Leonid Slutsky, co-owner of Ritzio Group Oleg Boiko, TV presenters Vladimir Pozner, Boris Berman and Ildar Zhandarev, chief editor of Harper's Bazaar Darya Veledeyeva, producer Yelena Nelidova and singer Filipp Kirkorov with his father Bedros Kirkorov.
As soon as the audience took their seats the concert began, with 68 year-old Paul Anka coming down the aisle to welcome his fans. From the very first composition, Diana, which Anka wrote when he was six and suffering the pangs of unrequited love, the singer set a very brisk pace and gave a spirited rendition of "Lonely Boy," "You Are Having My Baby" and "You Are My Destiny." The showman brought an impressive charge of energy to Moscow, this being his permanent state over the past 20 years. Anka's voice easily drowns out the whole orchestra, he looks fine, lean and wiry.
Paul Anka's world hits alternated with lyrical compositions in tribute to his late friends Michael Jackson and Buddy Holly. Playing to the audience's sentimental side is Paul Anka's trademark gimmick, the basis of his career and financial success. It has been his guiding principle for over fifty years as he tries to smuggle romantic ideals into the third millennium. His confidence on stage transcends star status. Who speaks about the stardom of a man who has written 900 world hits, who has been adulated by five generations of women, and for whom Michael Jackson is just a boy who turned up on the doorstep of his studio one early morning in 1980.
In the middle of the show Anka asked the floodlights to be turned on the first row in which the Kirkorovs were sitting and engaged Filipp Kirkorov in a dialogue from which one could not gather whether a trio or a duet was about to come on stage. Bedros Kirkorov had the good sense to remain in shadow and allow his son a little prank. Performing the composition of Cinderella in duet with Paul Anka was without a doubt a professional coup of Filipp Kirkorov's PR manager who had persuaded Anka that Filipp Kirkorov was a king in Russia. "Like Michael Jackson?" Anka inquired after receiving recordings of his songs performed by Kirkorov two weeks ahead of the concert. Apparently he got an affirmative answer.
Anka, like the true American showman that he is, mixed with the audience, shook hands and invited everyone to join in the singing. One member of the audience, taken in by Anka's unassuming manner, started calling out from his seat: "My Way, My Way." The singer had to stop in mid-sentence and proceeded to explain to the rowdy fan that the hit "My Way" would be performed in the part of the show where it belonged, i.e. in the finale. Anka said just that: "Let me do things my way." And he proceeded to sing a slow tune which inspired Slutsky to dance with his companion. To do it in comfort Slutsky had rented the so-called royal box. One couldn't help thinking that the only reason he had come to the show was to perform the slow dance and kiss his companion during that composition, because the rest of the time Slutsky hardly reacted to what was happening.
Darya Milova
