When Fontaliza, the band that opened the show for the Okean Elzy at Kyiv Olimpiyskiy Stadium on June 21, started playing, the crowd of 70,000 people didn’t pay much attention.
But as Fontaliza kept on, the chants of “good job!” were heard more and more often.
“I know we are just a warm-up and you are not here for us, but it is still so thrilling to play on such a stage,” said Pavlo Kholoshev, a lead singer for Fontaliza, a Ukrainian alternative rock band that was chosen to open the show of the legendary Okean Elzy.
It surely was thrilling for Fontaliza. A 35-minute performance at Olimpiyskiy Stadium became the band’s biggest achievement so far.
Fontaliza, previously known as Unbelievable, was founded back in 2008 by three friends from Horlivka, a small city in Donetsk Oblast that is now at the center of the armed conflict Kremlin-backed separatists.
In the six years of its existence the band has performed at numerous live music clubs around the country with either covers or original shows. But opening for Okean Elzy is bigger than everything the band ever did.
“This is such a fantastic feeling to see a huge sea of people in front of you and to realize that at least part of it enjoys your music,” Kholoshev told the Kyiv Post after the concert.
All three are men in their 20s, Bassist Ihnat Kartashev is a former boxer and an auto mechanic, percussionist Artem Talanov is a hair dresser and the band’s leader Kholoshev has a diploma in translation. His multilingual abilities, he says, help him write song lyrics in English.
The band’s biggest stage before Kyiv’s show was in Horlivka.
“We performed on the main square for the Youth Day celebration,” Kholoshev says. “It’s not like many people were really listening to us that time,” he adds, laughing.
It was their origin though that brought them to the Olimpiyskiy Stadium stage.
“(Okean Elzy front man Sviatoslav) Vakarchuk wanted a band from eastern Ukraine and here we were, a band from Horlivka. Seems like excellent luck,” Kholoshev says.
Fontaliza members say they still hope to play in Horlivka again some day.
“It is too dangerous to gather people for any mass event there now, but some day… I think they loved us there,” says Alanov, 25.
All three say they support the democratic changes in Ukraine ushered in by the EuroMaidan Revolution. More than anything else, they want the bloodshed to stop. In Horlivka, it is dangerous to advertise such views now.
The band hopes their show on the same stage as the pro-Ukrainian Okean Elzy went unnoticed in their home town.
“Our families are still there, but they are on the good side and we just hope that the terrorists there are too busy to care about music,” Kholoshev says.
Even after playing for 70,000 people, Kholoshev and his band mates are not sure about band’s future and remain critical of themselves.
“Now we don’t really have our own style. Unconsciously we try to stay within alternative music, but so far we just try to be heartfelt on the stage,” Kholoshev said.
Those who heard Fontaliza at the stadium for the first time agree – the band lacks some unique features.
“I’ve heard them for the first time and I did like them. I cannot say they made a unique impression, but their music seemed to be quality enough, as well as their performance,” said Anastasiya Havryliuk from
Kyiv after hearing Fontaliza at Olympiyskiy Stadium.
Kyiv Post staff writer Daryna Shevchenko can be reached at [email protected].
