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September 26th 2003
It was a three hour bus ride to Kaluga but the roads
were terrible again so it felt like 30 hours! We got there in one
piece and checked into a beautiful hotel which apparently wasn’t
a hotel at all! It all looked normal and the rooms were modern and
comfortable. The building itself was quite new too and it stuck
out especially because it was located in a really poor part of town.
It seems that it was a “private” business and at that
point I stopped asking questions. I was grateful to be in a nice……
”place”!
We did get about 80% of the stuff that had been missing from the
last show and that was a relief but we had to wait 2 ½ hours
for, of all things, a drum stool!!!
Tommy doesn’t play standing up as all we could do was wait
and hoe the audience didn’t mind. In the end the show was only
delayed by 45 minutes and it was another great, great concert. Somehow
the pace of this show works well with an audience that starts out
sitting down and by the end is on its feet singing and rocking like
crazy.
Our hosts in Donesk had given Monica a stuffed dog and we named
him Stanley. This was Stanley’s first experience of a concert
and he seemed to enjoy it, perched on top of my amplifier!
There were a couple of other interesting moments… you remember
that we had to wait for stools… they are supposed to provide
two, one for Tommy and one for me… but they only brought one
and obviously Tommy needed that one. So they came up with one for
me that I think was from before the Russian Revolution and it wasn’t
very stable… need I say more? Somewhat dramatic but not catastrophic
and of course the band was highly amused!!
After the show I had to do a press conference and two TV interviews
and although I don’t normally like to do this after a show
it was very enjoyable because the people were professional and knowledgeable
and asked some interesting questions.
Dinner at out “private” hotel was excellent and…
private!
This was without doubt the most comfortable bed of the tour!!
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day...
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