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12/06/97 - KREMLIN PALACE HALL, MOSCOW Review by Bryan Adams: OK. I admit it. I didn't really want to go back to Moscow. Keith and I did a TV show there in 1989 and the whole experience seemed like nothing short of a huge waste of time. There were interesting moments of course, seeing the sites, or should I say trying to get a car to take us to see the sites. The best way to get around was to hold up a pack of Marlboro's and a passing Lada would transport you to your destination. How was the food you ask? Non existant. I had brought two cheese and pickle sandwiches with me from Marks and Spencer's and ate one on the plane (because the airline food was so awful). I survived the next two days on that remanding sandwich. There was nothing in the restaurant but chicken kiev and something that resembled prawn crackers, but I couldn't be sure. I met Igor though, the highlight of my trip. I sat in the hotel restaurant browsing through the 14 pages of things in the menu that weren't available and he sat down to chat. He must have weighed 18 stone and came equipped with a bottle of vodka. There was a large table next to us with a wedding going on. Every now and then someone would strike the side of his/her glass and start to belt out a Russian song, mostly opera. Igor and I watched this for a while chatting in sign language and discussing hockey. "Do you know Wayne Gretsky?" I ask, "Gretsky...Dah" he says. Then he wife came over and sat on my lap, she was bigger than him and nearly squashed me. Igor showed me one of his great talents, pouring vodka shooters, downing them, and punching himself in the chest like Tarzan followed by a hard flat slap to his forehead. This was very amusing, until he said "My wife! You dance with my wife..." Before I could even say Chernobyl, she had me swirling around the room like that scene in Dr. Zhivago where the two lovers meet after years of separation. That's was Russia was to me. Vodka, wierd food, large people, no taxis, lots of singing at the dinner table. Sounds not too bad when you write it out, but for me the thought of going back and having to fight your way through the lift of the hotel through an army of overweight prostitutes leaves something to be desired. So imagine my discontent when I was invited to play in Moscow again. The interesting thing was the concert was to be held at the Kremlin Palace. Two nights was the original request. After weeks of back and forth "will he come?", I agreed to perform for one night and I would fly in the day of the show. "would he fly Aeroflot?" No he wouldn't! Would he come in a day or 2 earlier? No he wouldn't. I just didn't want to go. Deep down I wanted to like the place because any Russian I had ever met was very civil and very generous. It's customary in Russia when you go out that everything is paid for. I don't know why that is but I'm told it's customary. So I fly to Moscow. The site of Moscow from the air was interesting. Beaches were packed with people in swimsuits, amazing speedboats racing around the rivers, sunshine.
(Above) Customs agent at Moscow airport checks out Keith's guitar This is Russia? All I can remember was rain, queuing for loo roll and inedible turgid, bottom of the river catfish! I'm greeted by Nadia who is decked out in Paris couture and Cartier. She guides me through the melee of security and photographers (making sure that she is right next to me) and quietly whispers "I am your promotor for tonight's performance, thankyou for coming to Russia". I'm fumbling for my sunglasses to avoid the eye contact of former KGB spies, and trip over the guy with the video camera. All the while I'm being escorted to a private back room where I am interrogated by the Moscow press for a few minutes. This, as it turns out, is so the people here believe the concert is actually going to happen (I guess there's been a few cancellations in the past!) I sense an overall lack of humour, so when I'm asked "what I think of the police in Moscow" (strange question to ask me) my response of "they are fine as long as they don't give me a speeding ticket" is greeted with a few sly grins. Little did I know that we were going to be travelling at supersonic speed to down town Moscow with a guy who didn't understand the words "a little slower please?". We finally arrive at the Kremlin Palace. So what do you think when you hear the word 'palace'? I think, Kensington, Buckingham etc. The 'Kremlin Palace' is a 1960's theater built for Kruschev and his mates, so they could pontificate endlessly about the Soviet system. Thsi place is wrapped up so tight in security and police I now know how Yuri Gagarin felt stuffed into Sputnik. There is nothing but massives buildings topped with stars on the belfries. It's quite interesting. Soldiers and security eye you suspiciously and you wander off pretending that all is normal. The Kremlin Palace is now the scene of a rock concert, it's the same place where Billy Joel supposedly got SO pissed off with the audience he threw his piano stool at them. Russian audiences are renowned for their reservedness (an obvious guise for attentiveness) both of wise don't normally go hand in hand with good ol' rock n' roll. Nevertheless, we have transformed the orchestra pit into 'standing room mosh pit' to try and raise the Russian blood pressure ever so slightly and see if we can extract some glasnost out of the 5000+ packed house.
(Above) BA walking to Red Square with the Russian promotor Nadia I decide to have my agent Carl 'arrested' by the local police and asked about the promotor, Nadia, to have him interrogated about his passport on our walk outside to Red Square. Two police were paid to do it then disappeared. Carl never got arrested. Another practical joke foiled in the name of goodwill and hard foreign currency. Nobody here wants us to have a bad time. I get the promotor to call a couple of people I met at Heathrow and invite them to the show. In the meantime I walk outside with 'lurch' and 'no-neck' my two personal bodyguards, who have been following me ever since I left the airport. It turns out that the two best paying jobs in Moscow are security and prostitution. Anyway, out the door and I am armed with my favourite weapon - my camera. The only way out - is the only way in, meaning I have to walk through the crowd. If the two gumbahs weren't with me, I could have easily walked through the oncoming droves without a wink. So half of my time is spent saying hello and collecting bundles of flowers (the other way Russians show their appreciation for artists as it turns out). Very lovely. It is now about 5.30 and the show is at 7.00. It doesn't leave much time but we finally make it out of the Palace grounds and into a park, where the average Muscovite is loitering and sunning the cold away. Not an eyebrow is raised as I bolt ahead of the entourage that was accompanying me. Into the square and Dave and I are watching the guards and Lenin's tomb. I wonder if old Lenin had any idea that his remains would be on display for ever, with soldiers goose-stepping around. Strange. I say bury the poor bugger - he must have gone off by now!
(Above) Fans at the Moscow show The show goes without a hitch. I drag someone out of the audience to sing with us, I looked for a loud mouth and end up with a guy who is a top Russian singer and proceeds to belt out "Ave Maria" like Pavorotti. The locals love it - I of course wish there had been more lager louts at the show, but it wasn't like that. Tickets were expensive and the show was promoted by a bank. The bootleggers were selling tickets outside for $400. The audience outside was like a collection of the local burgeoisie and the odd punter thrown in for good measure (they gave away a few tickets to people that were 'younger'). I'm tempted to play 'Back In The USSR' the odl Beatles classic but I forget at the last minute. Three encores, we could have kept playing all night. They loved it. Loads more flowers and I'm back in the dressing room. A few locals come in to say hello and it's on to the hotel and into the city for a look around.
We proceed to be shown the local 'blues club' and a couple of bars full of shifty eyed women and I'm back in bed looking at the ceiling by three o'clock, reflecting on what a good time I had just had. Moscow today is like a last frontier, you can ride a horse down the main road for a few rubles, hotels with 'western style' are sprouting up all over. You could bump into a spy as easily as you could a CNN journalist (hard to tell them apart really). The food was good this time and I'm pissed off with myself that I didn't play the 2 nights after all. I'd have more to tell, but thats all for now folks. I'm off to sleep. Good night badfans. Zavasha
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Tickets for the show were changing hands for $400!
Bryan having a wander around Moscow with his camera around his neck, before the show with his Russian bodyguard 'no-neck'!
BA's official card to enter Kremlin palace
BA onstage at the Kremlin Palace |
