Back in my first year here, I went to a party for the class that would be graduating in spring. That night, I was surprised when I heard "Soldier of Fortune" being sung and danced to by a group of 18 and 19 year-olds. I took it as an odd little quirk of the class. A song they had somehow attached themselves to at some point in their five years together.
Little did I know then the power Deep Purple holds over Bulgaria. For those of you unfamiliar with their history, Wikipedia has a solid detailing here. I bring this up because last night there was a Deep Purple concert in the small, coastal town of Kavarna and Silistra shut down because of it. Bars all over town shut down on a Thursday night, the streets were empty during the day, and the only question anyone asked all day was "Why aren't you going to see Deep Purple?"
When I said I wasn't going because the price of gas and ticket--around 30 leva--wasn't justified relative to my interest in the group, they looked at me like, well, a foreigner. Granted, I've played and listened to "Smoke on the Water" a lot in my life, but it isn't one of those songs that gets me fired up or means a great deal to me, and it and "Soldier of Fortune" are probably the only songs I'd recognize in the concert. Deep Purple just isn't my group.
Deep Purple is popular here, apparently, because it was one of the few Western groups allowed during the communist regime during the 80s. The Beatles, for example, had been banned since their beginning. This has given the songs a link to the ideals of freedom, Bulgarians say, and so they still deserve to be listened to today. Fine by me, I suppose, but I really wish that they wouldn't look at me like an alien when I don't get celebratory when I hear "Shades of Deep Purple" for the 1,987,654th time at the cafe.
Posted by Rob at July 22, 2005 08:25 PM