OH my what an evening.
Walking down the street, my roommate saw a young woman struggling with a large Persian carpet. Offering to help, she was told that it was for an art gallary opening tonight, so we went. The art gallary was a small loft, with a bar selling hot sangrias (or mulled wine with fruit), a little bit of art, and surprising numbers of people wandering both through the art, and what I think was the artist's outdoor living/ dining room.
At about 10:30 at night, and band came on, so we went outside, where there was a band set up in the middle of the street, as well as two samovars, a giant tray of bread, a bowl of mustard, a huge cooler of pickles, which included, I think, both pickled cucumbers and, I think, pickled watermelon, a tray of sausages, and some cool drinks. The band came on... 100% Russian. YES.
The bald lead singer was wearing black leather pants with two zips down the front of each leg, a leather vest and a leather knee length jacked, with handcuffs hanging from his belt. The guitarist was wearing army patns and boots and a white dress shirt and white bomber jacket. The base player and drummer were wearing sort of average looking clothes, and the keyboardist was a woman, who, in fact, I had met in her professional life, and was possibly embarrassed to see us there. The music; sort of Russian metal, and then they announced they were switching to reggae, but the music did not really change. The audience: almost all Russia, half hipsters, half parental, professorial types. After a few minutes, someone poured several bottles of vodka into the samovar which didn't have tea in it. The parental types were more into the music, and the dancing, and yelling out things in Russian which I couldn't understand.
Overall: a total win.
