Life-list with Dima Bilan

It’s not every day you can check something off your life list. Climb Devil’s Tower, run a marathon, go to New Zealand, see Dima Bilan in concert… they all seem so out of reach.

BUT WAIT! Dima Bilan, you say? THE Dima Bilan, of glorious Eurovision Awards fame? (If you don’t know what the Eurovision awards are you have some serious Googling to do) The Russian King of Pop? The man who made the mullet into the glorious fashion statement we all know and love? The man who is so cool that Evgeni Plushenko chose to appear in his music video, doing quadruple axels along to the schmaltzy pop tune?

Yes, my friends, the Dima Bilan. Who just happened to be in Almaty giving a FREE concert in one of the central squares on a gorgeous summer night between rain storms. That’s right, I have placed a big check mark next to the most ridiculous point on my doesn’t-really-exist life-list. And I also officially have one more reason to love Astana Day/the President’s Birthday. The celebration has continued all week!

I wish I could say that I am too cool for Bilan, and that I only went to the concert because it was there and my friends were going. But really, I was the one that made my friends go… and yes, I may have squealed just a little bit when I saw him walking to the stage. Many people love to hate Dima Bilan, and to be honest I probably wouldn’t really have much to say to him in person besides, “Who chooses your clothing?!?” I have never owned any of Bilan’s music, mostly because the lyrics in the English versions are so painful, see for example: “Believe! As long as I’m breathing, there is not a limit to what I can do!”

However, by easily quoting the above lyric I have revealed the truth. I have been in enough buses in enough countries and watched enough music-TV in post-Soviet countries* to know a lot of Bilan songs. On Saturday night at the concert, I was singing along. A lot. And dancing along with the grooves of the back-up dancers and Bilan himself. Ridiculous. It was a good show, I think even Bilan-haters would admit that. Plenty of lights and smoke and streamers and large screen projections of the action and spurts of flames coming from the stage.

Lots of people turned out for the free show, but it’s still Kazakhstan and there still aren’t that many people in the country, so there was plenty of space for everyone. During the opening (local) acts there were more police/security officers than spectators. Among those in the crowd were young Russians, old Kazakhs, and, inexplicably, a man with a very large live boa constrictor around his neck. He tried to insist that I really wanted to pet the snake. I declined. We tried to imagine what his conversation was like with the police officers who were checking bags at the entrance to the concert (“No, officers, no weapons or alcohol. Oh, the huge snake? She’s no big deal, really").

At any rate, having now outed myself as the Dima Bilan freak that I apparently, I will leave you to your Googling. I am sad to report that the mullet has been replaced by an appropriately sleazy ponytail, complete with pencil mustache and patchy beard. Bilan can still dance, and he can still sometimes sing/sometimes lip sync with the best of them.

*Funny moment, today Kimberly referred to the FSU (aka the Former Soviet Union), and I couldn’t understand how she knew my favorite frisbee cheer (aka F--- S--- Up). I should try to get my academic and athletic worlds sorted out one of these days…