Chris Norman: Smoke Without Fire

If you are a fading rock star and can no longer pack them in at Wembley or Central Park, the word is: Come to Moscow!


Chris Norman, 44, former lead singer of the Seventies rock group Smokie, tested the Russian scene Sunday night and found the fans still keen after two decades. On a double bill with Suzi Quatro he filled the 6,000 seats of the Kremlin Palace and had them jumping in the aisles.


Then Suzi failed to show -- apparently stuck in Berlin with no visa -- and Norman found himself the big star of the night. The crowd remained loyal. Offered a 100 percent refund by the concert's promoters if they wanted to leave, no one moved.


They whistled and booed, but underneath many were in fact die-hard fans of Smokie and determined to enjoy the evening. For his part, Norman stretched his voice and his program and managed to keep the fans hopping.


Norman and his band sang some of the old Smokie favorites -- "Midnight Lady" and "If You Think You Know How to Love Me" -- although Norman broke with the band in the 1980s to go solo. Only his drummer Pete Spencer dates from the glory days when Smokie, sporting big flared-jeans and glittered platform-shoes, topped the charts in 1970s.


Norman himself is no Mick Jagger or Bruce Springsteen. Heavy make-up hiding the lines and bags under his eyes, he walked around the stage and only once managed to run its whole length.


There was no anarchy, no danger in this show. It was after all the Kremlin Palace, the audience seated obediently in their red seats. Many of them were gray-haired men in suits accompanying plump ladies in cardigans. But by the end even they were on their feet jiggling about. They either did not know or did not care that Norman has faded from the rock scene in the United Kingdom.


Women fans flocked to go on stage with flowers, dragging their children with them, covering Norman in lipstick. "I have always loved English rock and English rock stars, ever since I was a young girl, they are part of my youth," one madly enthusiastic fan, Alina, said after braving the guards to dance across the stage in a '60s-style mini-skirt and leather boots. Her teenage daughter watched silently from the sidelines.


Smokie lookalikes with long feathered hair and polo-neck sweaters under their jackets were hanging out at the concert. One fan brought his 11 Smokie albums along with him, waving them in time to the music.


"I was a little suspicious of the young people in the band at first," Roman Tsarkov said, "They did not look right." But the concert was good, he said, "although not always as good as on records and CDs."


Joining the bandwagon east, Chris Norman follows a wave of aging pop stars, their popularity fading in the West, who find Eastern European and Russian audiences kinder and easier to please. He follows Demis Roussos and Chris de Burgh at the Kremlin Palace. A month ago, two other original members of "Smokie" played in Moscow.


Backstage, Norman spoke to the Russian rock press, a motley band of laid-back and gently off-beat types. He raised a frisson of excitement when asked why he called the band Smokie. "Because we used to smoke a lot of marijuana," he said slightly wearily. What sounds merely quaint to Western ears, still has the power to shock in Russia.


Asked if he was thinking of retiring, Norman said, "Not yet." But as he was hustled away by his Russian promoter and bodyguards, he said over his shoulder, "You're right, I should be thinking of retiring."