Sakhalin 'Gig'!

Subject: Sakhalin 'Gig'!
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 04 May 15 - 11:26 PM

On Sunday I was asked by friends to take my guitar along to the Sapporo hotel in Sakhalin "for a bit of a twang".

Turned out on arrival that I was the only person there with an instrument. Not sure if I was deliberately suckered, but I ended up doing a set of 24 songs over about 2 1/2 hours, which exhausted pretty well everything I can play confidently, except for a few obscure ones that I left out as they didn't seem to "fit" anywhere.

The "muse" must have been with me as I played and sang confidently and as well as I do in the privacy of my attic room. It helped that the audience was pretty uncritical. It wasn't large, but appreciative, and as long as I threw in something like "Hotel California", "House Of The Rising Sun" or "Wish You were Here" every few songs, they were also enthusiastic about my renditions of such things as "Banks Of The Sweet Primroses", "The Trees They Do Grow High". I threw in a couple of instrumentals (Jigsaw Puzzle Blues, Last Of The Mohicans) which also went down well.

I've never done more than a 4 song set before and thought this would be a real trial, but I enjoyed it myself.

Best thing was, they asked me back to play again on the Monday night (last night). I wasn't as good, as the muse was on vacation, and I had to do some of the songs that I was less confident about to avoid just repeating my previous set, but it still went down well.

On a bit of a high now!!!!

Subject: RE: Sakhalin 'Gig'!
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 04 May 15 - 11:27 PM

Not to mention sore fingers!

Subject: RE: Sakhalin 'Gig'!
From: Teribus
Date: 05 May 15 - 02:39 AM

Well done Rob, they obviously loved it - hope you enjoy the next one in equal measure.

Subject: RE: Sakhalin 'Gig'!
From: Jack Campin
Date: 05 May 15 - 02:41 AM

This is a nice documentary about the place:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGhJJQpOplU

(summary: the locals put a shamanic curse on Shell and it looks like it worked)

Subject: RE: Sakhalin 'Gig'!
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 05 May 15 - 10:56 AM

Congratulations, Rob.
Thanks for the link, Jack.

Sakhalin is due north of Japan. It's a pretty big island.

Subject: RE: Sakhalin 'Gig'!
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 05 May 15 - 11:30 PM

Jack, not sure what you mean by:the locals put a shamanic curse on Shell and it looks like it worked

Shell is still here in force. In 2007 shares in SEIC (Sakhalin Energy Investment Corporation) were sold by Shell to Mitsui Corp and Mitsubishi, taking Shell's holding down from "50% minus 1 share" (with Gazprom having "50% plus 1 share") to 27.5%. Most of the Ops people I deal with are Shell employees on secondment to SEIC, and the "Sak-2" project is still making money for Shell, even at current prices.

The photos of the pipelines in the documentary are a bit misleading as they're of them during construction and not as they look now. The main offshore pipeline was re-routed at a large cost specifically to avoid whale feeding areas, as suggested by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Shell set up the Western Gray Whales Advisory Panel to provide advice to minimise risks from oil and gas developments to cetacean habitats.

One of our employees here is contracted to SEIC as head of their Marine Mammal Unit, with a team of observers and environmentalists who continuously monitor all activities and provide advice and intervention in order to minimise impact of operations on wildlife.

Every year the local energy operators bring in an independent EIA (Environmental Impact Assessment) team to monitor the effects of their operations on land, specifically in the north of the island where the Nivk live. Monitoring includes evaluation of effects of operations on indigenous peoples.

I am currently mobilising a large operation for another operator here on Sakhalin. Of the approximately 80 personnel we are providing to this project, almost half are Marine Mammal Observers, Marine Biologists and Icthyologists who will be responsible for ensuring that operations have minimal impact on marine life. Of the remainder, 30% are Health, Safety and Environmental Specialists and Auditors. So of our total supervisory and project management team assigned to this work, 65% are involved solely with the health, safety and environmental aspects of the work, and only 35% with technical operations.

People often forget when throwing mud at "Big Oil" etc that these companies are made up of individuals who love their kids and enjoy nature just as much as the activists who engage in pointless publicity stunts. Better to be "inside the tent" and trying to improve things from there than ranting from the outside, IMO.

Anyway, that's a long way from my OP re simply enjoying playing a long set in public for the first time.

Subject: RE: Sakhalin 'Gig'!
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 06 May 15 - 12:19 AM

Leeneia: Yes, it's a big island. It's nearly 600 miles long and varies from about 20 to over 100 miles wide, making it over half the size of England in area, and as "long" north to south, but with a population of only about 450,000. About 2000 of these are Nivkhs, and they're generally looked down upon by the "European Russians" who make up the majority population here.

There's a huge amount of wilderness here, but it's quite difficult to access. Russians tend to be not very tidy at all, so "nature" around the main population centres tends to get much more "trashed" than it would in Europe of the USA, despite the Russians professing a deep love of nature. "Going to nature" is a big thing here at weekends but all too many people leave their trash there.

Subject: RE: Sakhalin 'Gig'!
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 06 May 15 - 10:56 AM

Thanks for the info, Rob.

I'm sure your audience at the hotel appreciated the chance to listen to high quality, interesting music.