“Good evening, Tashkent! Is everybody okay here tonight? I’m here to perform my songs and music in your beautiful beautiful and historic country. I love you!” Demis Roussos exclaimed, greeting the 4,000-odd people gathered for the concert.

‘Rain and Tears’, ‘We Shall Dance’, ‘Quand je t'aime’ and ‘Goodbye My Love, Goodbye’ were among the many songs known to the entire world and many generations that the singer sang at the concert, setting up an unforgettable show to delight his Uzbek fans. The songs struck a chord even with the listeners who didn’t seem to know the titles and lyrics while many were all ready to sing along.

After performing several slow lyrical compositions, Roussos moved on to perk up the event and get the audience dancing: the Sirtaki music started by the musicians and a few simple dance moves from backup singers on the stage were all it took to get all the people to stand up and join in.

The audience lavished stormy applause on Roussos throughout the concert, with the singer saying Rahmat (Uzbek for ‘thank you’) after each burst of acclaim.

Roussos concluded the concert with his perhaps most famous composition, ‘From Souvenirs to Souvenirs’, with the delighted audience singing along. Toward the end of the concert Gulnara Karimova, the mind behind the Style.Uz Art Week project, came up on stage to congratulate the singer on the concert’s success and thank him for coming to Uzbekistan.

Demis Roussos’ songs come as testimony to the fact that true music has no age and defies the ravages of time. Many young people who had been given free tickets by the organizers came away with as much delight as did people representing the older generation. “There is so much warmth in the way he communicates with the public that the venue seemed to be getting cozier and I felt like I was among friends. If someone had told me when I was young that Demis Roussos would perform a concert in Tashkent and I would have a chance to attend it, I wouldn’t have believed it,” gushed Yelena Prohor, one of the numerous people in the concert hall.

The concert delivered by Demis Roussos through his heart-stirring vocals has come as a melodic and brilliant finale to this year’s Style.Uz Art Week, and is certain to have created lasting impressions on the participants and guests from across the world.