Rock Cola Festival, Novopolotsk, City Park of Culture,

June 30 - August 1, 2001.

    Coincidentally, the famous Rock-Cola festival in the city of Novopolotsk began immediately the day after the Minsk "Great Maneuvers".

The musicians of White Night Blues from Minsk to Belynichi were brought by a friend of the group,  by a wonderful person Yura Evseev. Only one night separated one festival from another. Rest, morning rehearsal - and go! In the morning we moved to Novopolotsk with our other comrade Oleg Koido behind the wheel (with whom, by the way, we went to Manevry and other events in 2000 - see the History section). Only the second performance of the White Night Blues in the new line-up was to take place in Novopolotsk: Aleksey Polovchenya (Mogilev) - drums; Yuri Nesterenko (Belynichi) - guitar, vocals; the place of bass-guitarist was temporarily occupied by session musician Valery Padukov (Minsk).

   In terms of its scale, Rock-Cola was in no way inferior to the capital's festivals, and in some respects surpassed them - here you have the accommodation of participants in boarding houses and hotels, and meals in cozy cafes throughout the city, and payment of transport costs, and a performance fee - all together an unprecedented luxury for a Belarusian rocker (by domestic standards). With regard to sound checks, the work of sound engineers, equipment maintenance - no questions, everything is at a high professional level. Information nuances - invitations, registration, programs, badges - everything is set up, a lot of young people are involved as volunteers, couriers, distributors, etc.

    What can I say - great organizational work was observed here, which, in general, should be a common thing, if not a prerequisite. But at that time - for a regional festival - it became rather a rare exception. And this work was supervised by none other than Anisa (the unforgettable and unsurpassed Sergey Anishchenko, whom White Night Blues met a year ago at the Vitebsk festival "Rock apounachy").

    In total, about 35 bands participated in the Novopolotsk rock festival. By the way, about the same number was at yesterday's "Great Maneuvers". But the most surprising thing is that, with the possible exception of two bands, the participants of these global rock forums did not repeat themselves. In total, for four festival days in Minsk and Novopolotsk, about six and a half dozen full-fledged, capable creative teams performed!

    These were truly happy times of Belarusian rock!