The key facts
- Gazmanov linked the audience's reaction to some of the public's distrust of live sound
- The artist's fan club knows the repertoire by heart and prompts him with the lyrics
- The singer sometimes deliberately changes the words, mentioning the city of the concert
A Stumble as Proof of a Live Concert
People's Artist of Russia Oleg Gazmanov admitted that audiences are delighted when he forgets the words to his own songs. According to him, over years of performing he has polished his delivery of his hits so much that some of the public began to doubt whether he sings live or to a backing track. That is why an occasional slip on stage is perceived by the audience not as an embarrassment but as confirmation of a live performance. The artist told Channel Five about this before a concert marking the 65th anniversary of the Kremlin Palace. “And when I forget the words, for example, the people in the audience are so delighted — wow, so it turns out that's normal”, Life.ru quotes him as saying.
The Fan Club and Improvisation
The artist is almost never left alone with forgotten lyrics: Gazmanov has a large fan club whose members know his repertoire by heart and immediately prompt the missed line. In addition, the musician sometimes deliberately changes the familiar words to make the performance more interesting — for example, he mentions the city where the concert is taking place: in St. Petersburg a line about a new meeting in the Northern Capital may appear in a song, while in Voronezh there may be a joking admission of how he ended up there. According to the singer, the public enjoys such improvisation no less than the familiar hits, and it makes every concert special.
A Similar Case with Sergey Lazarev
Life.ru also recalls that earlier Sergey Lazarev forgot the words of a song for the first time right during a concert in Moscow: he could not remember the beginning of the song “Ya s toboy” and waited for the chorus, and later joked that thanks to this stumble the audience was convinced the performance was live.
