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May 5th-6th 2004
The decision was made that we would take the train
to St. Petersburg this morning and so I am writing from that train
now. It's a long journey, almost 25 hours, but the train is comfortable,
the food is excellent and it's actually quite relaxing. I have been
sleeping a lot and that seems to be helping my cold and it will
be great if it keeps improving ahead of tomorrow night's show.
Before I got on the train I had the opportunity to speak to the
local media and explain (nicely) what had happened. I am glad I
had that chance.
Inevitably, this journey takes us through great chunks of rural
Russia, through logging towns and villages with no apparent name
and into larger "cities" that do have names but which
I, of course, can't translate, read or write. So you'll have to
use your imagination!
I am glad we chose to go by train rather than fly (Monica and I
had the option) because this has been a very relaxing journey most
of which has been spent sleeping!! We were served fish and chips
for breakfast (and it doesn't get any better than that!), something
delicious but unidentifiable for lunch and a kind of schnitzel thingy
for dinner which was really good. All we really did was eat and
sleep but that's exactly what we needed to do and I am feeling a
lot better as a result.
Right now we are about 3 hours out of St. Petersburg and it looks
like it's going to be a nice day. I'll keep my eyes open for anything
interesting (other than enormous forests, small rivers etc.).
We arrived exactly on time and began the process of moving weary
people and lots of baggage to the waiting vans and cars. Alexander
had made the trip from Omsk and we were very pleased to see him.
Of course we were not staying at the same hotel as last time and
that was a relief so we moved in, cleaned up and went to lunch at
the little "Liverpool" bar/restaurant that we visit a
lot when we are in St. Petersburg.
The venue was big but the stage was small so load-in and set-up
were slower than normal. (The dressing rooms were smaller than most
toilets but we made that work too).
One more show and we made up our minds to go for it!! My voice was
there though I couldn't be sure how long it would last but the crowd
was in and they were obviously ready!
This show had a bit of everything actually… technical gremlins,
a monitor guy who seemed to lose his hearing in the middle of the
set and there were a couple of places where I struggled a bit with
my voice but the band was tight and Richard did such a great job
so that, by the end of Easy Livin' the crowd was completely crazy…
perhaps the noisiest audience of the Russian dates! We left the
stage and by now I was really not well (I won't go into the grim
details) but after a few minutes we went back and pounded into the
new live version of Lady in Black which finished the evening perfectly.
I had to do all my signing stuff from the dressing room as I was
just too physically ill to move. I could only hope that people weren't
offended. It was actually a bit of a miracle that I had been able
to perform at all and, for me at least, the celebrations were all
too brief. I had to leave early the next morning for Moscow so I
needed to pass on the partying (I hear that the band did a good
job on their and my behalf!!) and get to bed as quickly as possible.
Next day...
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