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DAY THREEOF
An additional vehicle was brought in to help the
load and we made it into the "personnel carrier" to begin
the long journey to Nizhniy Novgorod. It was early, we were tired
and it was raining but the sights of Moscow were spectacular! Not
just the Kremlin but all of the amazing churches, cathedrals and
official buildings made us all feel like tourists for a little while!
We even saw the KGB headquarters (from the outside thank God!).
The journey however made us all wish we had spent more time in the
real bathrooms of Moscow!! Honestly… the "truck stops"
were extremely primitive… but I don't want to go into details
because you might be eating while you are reading this! At one stop
I did see Ade (our sound engineer) disappearing into the woods and
I remember hoping that he wouldn't run into a bear or something!
It was a tough ride but it became so silly that we all ended up
laughing about it and taking pictures and we eventually arrived
at 4pm. Of course the promoter couldn't find the venue but, after
asking 16 people we found it and it was great. The crew got on with
their job and the band were invited for lunch which turned out to
be another press conference but I was taken to a radio station first!
I just kept wondering what was next and why nobody was telling us
what was going on but we did it all anyway… because that's
what you do isn't it!!?? They were playing "How Shall I Know"
from "Eager To Please" when we walked in… very appropriate
I thought!
At the gig we were, as usual, surrounded by cameras, microphones
and people wanting autographs and we did our best to satisfy everyone
but soon it was time to play and we had to lock the dressing room
door so we could get ready and have a few moments of peace!! I have
spent so much time saying my pre-show prayers in toilets and I am
glad to know that God hears those prayers and answers them! This
was another amazing show… in fact it was a little like two
shows in one really. The reaction (in the seated theatre) was very
enthusiastic until we did "Easy Living" and then they
went nuts! We have some hidden production tricks we do at various
points in the show and this one seemed to work perfectly.
We closed the show with "Lady In Black" (as usual) and
went back to do "Free Me" and "Tell Me" as back-to-back
encores and then rushed back out to sign as many things as we could
before going to "dinner"! I had to "settle"
the shows with the promoter and his interpreter (whose english was
excellent… until I asked the tough questions that is!) and
then we left for the long, overnight drive back to Moscow that was
necessary because the promoter changed the flight!! Aaaagggghhhh!!!
Well, you can only imagine how we all felt by the time we reached
the airport to get on our Arafat, sorry, Aeroflot, flight back to
London… This one was a little better (they actually had chicken)
but we all slept the whole way back and arrived in Heathrow feeling
as if we had been on tour for a month!!
Next day...
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