"The Road to Russia" documentary contains performances of the songs:
1. In the Court of the Crimson King - Cal Prog 2004 festival
2. Sky Full of Stars - 2004 European Tour
3. Mariner - 2004 European Tour
4. From Russia With Love - new studio recording with video montage
... along with extensive interviews with Erik Norlander, Lana Lane, Kelly Keeling, Peer Verschuren and Ernst Van Ee.
St. Petersburg Concert running time [91:30]
The Road to Russia documentary running time [51:30]
Total DVD running time: 2 hours, 23 minutes
About the Bonus Audio CD
Due to the 80-minute time limit of the CD medium, we had to cut some of the songs from the St. Petersburg concert from the audio CD. We chose to omit "Oblivion Days" and "Secrets of Astrology" since there are other live versions of these songs available on previous releases (Erik Norlander - Stars Rain Down, Lana Lane - Return to Japan, respectively). We have, however, made the omitted tracks available for digital download on Mindawn.com just as we did the Lana Lane - 10th Anniversary Concert title.
A Note from Erik (January 2007): "For the Mindawn digital download release, we've also included the "Live in Hamburg" versions of "Mariner" and "Sky Full of Stars" that appear in the DVD bonus featurette, "The Road to Russia". We've also included "Oblivion Days" and "Secrets of Astrology" (with Ernst's full drum solo) from the main St. Petersburg concert on the DVD -- these were necessarily omitted from the audio CD for space reasons. So these four live tracks are not on the included audio CD nor do they appear on any other digital download site. These are bonus tracks exclusive to Mindawn. Enjoy!"
1. Fanfare for Absent Friends Part One
2. Neurosaur
3. Dreamcurrents
4. Mariner
5. A Salty Dog
6. Sky Full of Stars
7. Alexandria
8. Guardian Angel
9. Oblivion Days - Mindawn bonus track*
10. Peer's Guitar Solo
11. Beware the Vampires
12. Secrets of Astrology - Mindawn bonus track*
13. Fallen
14. One of the Machines
15. Fanfare for Absent Friends Part Two - new studio track
16. From Russia With Love - new studio track
17. Mariner - Live in Hamburg 2004 - Mindawn bonus track*
18. Sky Full of Stars - Live in Hamburg 2004 - Mindawn bonus track*
* The 4 Mindawn exclusive bonus tracks are taken from the Live in St. Petersburg DVD, but they do not appear on the included audio CD nor are they available on any other digital download sites.
NOTES FROM THE PRODUCER'S DESK
From the 2006 DVD Erik Norlander and Friends - Live in St. Petersburg:
This release is a document of our 2004 tour, the longest we have undertaken to date. While last year's release of the Lana Lane 10th Anniversary Concert commemorated the final show of that important milestone tour, so does this one chronicle our travels and performances of the year before, 2004. I can say without a doubt that this 2004 tour, which began in California and moved progressively east over 3 months to culminate in the Russian city of St. Petersburg, laid the foundation for the following year's tour in 2005 that ended even further east in the Japanese city of Tokyo. So it is not surprising that now in 2006 we find ourselves back where we started in California. Around the world and back again!
What is particularly special about this 2004 tour and the final landmark concert in St. Petersburg is the integration of Kelly Keeling into the band. Kelly had toured with Lana and me the year prior in 2003 (as documented on my previous live CD release, Stars Rain Down), but it was this following year, 2004, that really cemented him into the gallery of Erik Norlander and Lana Lane music. Immediately following this tour, Lana and I recorded her Lady Macbeth CD, and Kelly of course was brought in to contribute to that as well -- those familiar with this excellent album will surely notice Kelly's standout harmony vocals. In 2003 Kelly transformed my old Rocket Scientists song, "Mariner", into a modern day classic with his soulful vocal reinterpretation. So to expand on that for 2004, we added the slightly older classic, "A Salty Dog", from one of my favorite bands, Procol Harum, into our set to follow "Mariner". This pairing was preceded by the similarly nautical instrumental, "Dreamcurrents", completing the trilogy and appropriately presented here from the seaside metropolis of St. Petersburg.
As described in the video documentary, "The Road to Russia", the 2004 tour began at the inaugural Cal Prog festival in Southern California on July 3 of that year. I was asked to play a solo set there as I had done at ProgWest, Alfa Centauri and other events in previous years, and I thought it would add so much dimension to the show to have three of my favorite vocalists join me -- Mark McCrite, Kelly Keeling and Lana Lane. I am happy to include here our version of "In the Court of the Crimson King" starring Lana and featuring these other two excellent singers. Following Cal Prog, the band expanded to add drummer extraordinaire Vinny Appice for additional US dates as "The Erik Norlander Trio". Kelly took on the bass guitar job while continuing to sing, and we added some more songs to set with this configuration. By the end of August, we had completed the US dates and were preparing to travel to Europe as "Lana Lane and Erik Norlander" to promote our two live releases, my Stars Rain Down and Lana's Return to Japan, as well as my then - new electronic studio CD, Seas of Orion, which was debuted at the 2004 Alfa Centauri Electronic Music Festival, my second visit to this great event in The Netherlands. For the European leg of the tour, we added our European collaborators, Peer Verschuren (guitar) and Ernst Van Ee (drums), who had toured with us in 2003. These two virtuoso musicians brought their top - notch talents to our music again, and like Kelly, immediately following this tour they also joined us in the recording of the Lana Lane - Lady Macbeth CD.
I mentioned the Seas of Orion album and the Alfa Centauri Electronic Music festival. The piece I selected to play from this album at the festival was "Fanfare for Absent Friends", written in honor of the victims of the September 11, 2001 tragedy as the Alfa Centauri concert was to be held exactly three years later to the date on September 11, 2004. At Alfa Centauri, I played the principle synthesizer tracks live along with sequenced backing tracks and drum loops from the album. It was a solo appearance, after all, and an electronic music event to boot. I continued to play the song in this solo configuration throughout the rest of the tour and finally at the St. Petersburg concert in Russia. One man and his backing tracks! Synthesizer karaoke? Perhaps a bit of that. But specially for this release, I asked Ernst Van Ee to record live drums via correspondence for a new version of the song which he did along with engineer Henry McIlveen at Sound Park Studio in Schiedam, NL, where we had recorded the Lady Macbeth album the year before. ("Via correspondence" meaning that I wasn't there. Ernst was there, though, apparently.) Don Schiff added live bass to the song back in California, and I combined their tracks with the live keyboard tracks from the St. Petersburg concert. So this new "studio" version of "Fanfare for Absent Friends" is technically 2/3 studio, 1/3 live. You can some of my live bits intermixed with the concert's end credits.
Speaking of studio recordings, Lana and I also thought it would be extremely appropriate to record a cover of the James Bond theme, "From Russia With Love". Lana is a huge fan of James Bond movies, and with such a beautifully melodic and suitably titled song available, we couldn't resist. Ernst recorded drums on this one as well in Schiedam, and then we finished the track back in California -- both northern and southern, actually, as we recorded Lana's brother Greg on accordion in northern California before completing the song with Don Schiff's NS/Stick in Los Angeles. I played Hammond organ and Mellotron strings on the song, and I also went out on a limb and played the guitar parts as well; It was one of those situations where I knew exactly what I wanted to hear, so I just climbed in front of the mic and did it!
Like the Lana Lane 10th Anniversary Concert DVD, this package includes a bonus audio CD. I of course couldn't fit everything from the concert onto the one disc, but I did include some highlights -- particularly songs that don't appear on other live releases such as "Dreamcurrents", "Fallen", "A Salty Dog" and Lana's "Guardian Angel" along with a full - band version of "Alexandria" (in contrast to the keyboard and vocal version that appears on the Return to Japan CD). I of course also included the two studio tracks, "Fanfare for Absent Friends" and "From Russia With Love".
