The Moscow band Megapolis will mark the arrival of spring with a high-profile and well-planned tour. Named the Warsteiner-tour, their spring campaign will involve a series of linked concerts and beer-drinking parties in the city's nine most-popular clubs – from Parisian Life to Tochka.

Megapolis, formed in 1987, started small and only the most dedicated fan will recall the band's early songs with themes like the blue testicles of the thrush and a woman's heart and a Russian-language remake of Pete Seeger's "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?"

In 1994 they shot to popular acclaim with the hit single Karl-Marx-Stadt, performed in German. Topping various charts in Russia, the song made it into the EvroHitParade Nokia Top 15 in 1995 where it held onto the No. 8 position for two weeks.

They went on to produce a whole album of Russian songs in German. The idea came from a German friend of the group who had complained about her country being flooded with English-language music. The album was a great success, forcing the group to spend a lot of time performing in Germany – hence the beer connection.

Most of the Warsteiner-tour concerts will be acoustic. Bandleader Oleg Nesterov maintains that acoustic music is better-suited for conveying the band's basic message to the audience. In the future, Megapolis will draw a clear line of demarcation between acoustic and electronic programs. The former will focus on the band's eternal themes, while the latter will center around creative experimentation. The division appears to be a fairly logical one, especially given that Megapolis, while gladdening its listeners with the highly demanded "old gold," has virtually no vehicles by which to convey an important part of its new work.