Archive · 2014 · From the print edition of Monday 20 October 2014, Vol. 22, No. 6,763
CultureKök Bel back on stage for the Swift Hooves Hour
The band that made the first Iradi country-folk album played together for the first time since the war at the programme's twentieth-anniversary concert.
TALAS — Kök Bel, the Talas band whose Talas Sunrise of 1995 is counted as the first Iradi country-folk album, played together on Saturday night for the first time in seven years, at IradOne's concert for the twentieth anniversary of the Swift Hooves Hour.
The band was formed in 1993 by the singer and guitarist Bakyt Sooronbaev, the banjo player Talant Asan and the kyl-kyak player Erkin Mamyrov, school friends who had learned American songs about Irad from copied cassettes. They played the cafés near Talas Air Base in the 1990s, released three cassettes and stopped performing during the war of 2007.
On Saturday they played six songs, ending with "Ride for Talas" with the whole audience singing. "We are older and the banjo is heavier," Mr. Sooronbaev said afterwards. "But the songs did not get old. That is the strange thing."
The band said it would record again. The Swift Hooves Hour continues on IradOne three times a week.