Finland, Russia, Russia and Switzerland… "96
tea bags and 2 pedal bins"!
Day 16
The train ride
was long but comfortable but still there were surprises in store!!
The hotel was
okay and we all chilled out for a while until it was time for sound-check at the
venue which was five Russian minutes away. It turned out this was a sort
of private show in a large restaurant for the owner and some of his rich friends.
It's really not all that unusual to do private shows in Russia but it is usual
that we know in advance!
Of course the
lying promoter continued to lie, claiming that he had sent me photos of the
venue and I had approved them…. which I had not! Never mind the fact that
this guy speaks no English and doesn't have my e-mail address!
Yes, the guy
is a loser and I will pray for him ("love the sinner, hate the sin") but this
stuff is a major distraction and I wanted my Vikings to have a positive
experience like I have had so many times in the past. We looked at the
venue with the "postage-stamp" stage, Magne reckoned he could make the compact
PA system work and we decided to see if we could make it happen.
AND WE DID!!
The sound was
a bit messy but it was really powerful and the audience had come to see us and
to hear their favourite songs. So team work and a "can-do" spirit overcame
all of the lies and deceit and at the end of the night we had a delicious
dinner, signed a bunch of stuff and felt better!
"Boy, Ruf, this Rasher place sounds a mite grim"
"Sure does
hon, you done cooking that bacon yet?"
By now the
promoter's rep/buddy/partner/whatever had managed to be so obnoxious that no-one
wanted to be near him but he was a large man and hard to avoid. And he had lots
of nicknames he didn't even know about!
However…. I
have never had a promoter's false teeth fly across the table at me… but Eric
has!! I kid you not. The man we had come to love to hate had a
senior moment and his gnashers went flying on to the table.
"He, he… Ruf! Do
you remember the Pickleberrys wedding? Xak same thing happened to ole grandma
Parsons!"
"How could I forget hon?
Turns out one of the Pickleberry's stole her teeth and the poor ol'gal never ate
solid food again!"
We had reached
the point where parallel emotions coincide.
Part of us
believed that….. "surely nothing else can happen now" and the other (equal) part
simply said…. "what's next?"
We did our
best to ignore "Fatman and Robbing" but it wasn´t easy.
