TRAVEL TO AND SHOW IN KARKHOV, UKRAINE – XAPЬKOB, УКPAИHA

I woke up again at 10 AM. We were moving along at a pretty good speed. I opened my shade- rolling countryside, farms, and pastures. We were in the Ukraine. I got dressed and went out of my compartment.

This train car was almost exactly the same as the train car from Perm to Ekaterinburg. The bathrooms are frightening, but the compartments are comfortable, even they do like they're out of the 1940's.

I went to visit Robbie and Peter. They were drinking coffee. When the train attendant returned, he made me a cup. I sat and drank it with Robbie and Peter. Each train car has an old hot water heater, a kettle if you will. It looks dangerous, but Peter wasn't scared of it.

We were scheduled to arrive in Karkhov on time, maybe even 5 minutes early. We were in shock.

Ever since we have had difficulty getting food at the venues, Robbie has tried to make sure we have alternative food in the Production Office, namely different types of ramen noodles, you know, the ones in the Styrofoam cups and there is a type over here that is in a plastic dish. There are always a few left over after the gig, so everybody has been in the habit of taking a couple to have on hand in their rooms, or here for instance, as there was no other food on the train, and none of us were going to brave the I made a ramen soup for breakfast and packed all my belongings.

The train attendant let us know that we were 15 minutes out. We could see the Karkhov skyline as we approached the city.

We arrived at 11:50, right on schedule. Considering how many times we stopped, they must have allowed for all the delay. We also gained an hour going east and another hour for Daylight Savings Time. We were now 7 hours ahead of EST.

We got off the train and all got into a van. We drove 10 minutes to the hotel. Once again, the slowest elevators in the world. We were supposed to meet at 1 PM in the lobby. It was already 12:15, we wanted to take showers, plus we still had to wait for our luggage.

The hotel was next to a square with a huge statue of Lenin. He is still around everywhere you look. I think they're waiting until a generation dies to remove anymore of the statues. I still can't get used to seeing all the statues.

After waiting for three elevators loads, I finally got in and up to my room. It was okay, a small bed, but newly furnished and comfortable looking. I turned on the television, found BBC. I decided to go find my luggage.

I went to the elevator and waited. Finally, the elevator came but it was full of the bands luggage and two guys delivering it. I looked for mine, alas, wasn't there. I decided to walk down 15 flights of stairs as opposed to waiting for the elevator.

I found two of my bags, but not the third. I had hoped that they had already taken it upstairs. I inquired about laundry, reception said to give it to my floor chambermaid. I jumped in an elevator and went back up to my room. I opened my suitcase and got all my toiletries out. I got undressed and started to get into the shower; then I heard a knock at the door. Before I could get to it, the door opened, there was a guy with my bag and a maid behind him, and me, buck-assed naked. I said "spaceba," took my bag, closed the door and got into the shower.

Halfway through my shower, the power went out in my room. It was pitch black in the bathroom. I finished my shower in the dark, got dressed, and grabbed my laundry. I went to the maid's room and gave it to her. I hope she washes it, instead of taking it to a flea market and selling it.

I grabbed my models and headed downstairs. One of bands' bodyguards accompanied me down. I felt important.

We left for the venue at 1:20 PM. We passed several markets and wanted to go there instead of the venue. The markets would have to wait.

30 minutes later, we arrive at another old and crumbling Soviet arena. We entered the building and dropped all our stuff off in the crew room. It was nice, chilled soft drinks, snacks and a table set up for lunch. I went out to see the state of the lighting rig. I had a bad feeling as I approached the ramp at the back of the stage. My view was blocked, but as I walked up the ramp, my fears were realized- there was nothing hanging in the air. The only lights were bars of 3-par cans stacked upstage left. No trusses, no motors, nothing. The only thing that was here was the par cans. Once again, we had been lied to. The truck, we were told, would be here by 4 or so. Then, the truck would have to be unloaded, then the rigging points hung, the truss built, cabled, raised, the lamp bars hung, plugged in and gelled before being raised into position, the moving lights hung and cabled, then I would need to focus. Not to mention, this is the first time this rig has been put together, which always adds time to the load in. All this would take several hours, at least, and we had a 9 PM show. I don't think so.

We were told that the truck should be there by 4, maybe earlier. We decided we would stay and wait in case the truck did come early. Boy, were we stupid.

We ordered food; our choice was a restaurant, which was 30 minutes away, or McDonald's, which was only 15 minutes away. I decided to hedge my bet and ordered something from both places- borscht from the restaurant and a cheeseburger and Fish Mac from McDonald's. In the meantime, I worked on the US lighting plot. The backline crew proceeded to put up their gear.

Our food arrived and we all ate. It seems that the restaurant was great, and so was the McDonald's. I did okay on both counts.

We waited some more. 4:00 rolled around, still no truck. 5:00, nothing. 5:30, still nothing. We were then told that the truck was in Kharkov, and its arrival was imminent. Finally, at about 6:30, the main loading bay doors opened and the gear started rolling in. The sound and lighting crews hurriedly started putting the gear together; I showed them where I wanted the trusses. Since the drums and guitar amps were already in place, I had to hang my trusses around the band gear.

Suddenly, the arena filled up with fans- they had opened the doors! I was incredulous. The show was still over 4 hours away, yet all these people were in here with nothing to do but watch us work.

Slowly, at a snails pace, the lighting rig took shape and soon, the trusses were all hanging above the stage. I prefocused all the lights from the deck, as I knew that I would not have the time to focus once everything as in the air.

The crowd was chanting by this time, cheering and I knew it was only a matter of time before the natives would get restless, especially since they were drinking.

The upstage truss seemed to sit at an angle for an eternity, and then the crew started working on one of the hoists. Great. Now a major problem- the lighting truss couldn't be raised into place without that motor. I watched, frustrated, as they attempted to repair the chain motor. Finally, it was repaired and the trusses were all up in the air.

I went out front to program the show. Alas, the system had not even been patched. I started patching myself, as the lighting crew chief was helping Lars get the moving light desk patched and programmed. I realized that I had not yet spoken to the spotlight operators about the show tonight. The spots were located on a deck above me; I yelled at them to come down- they were members of my lighting crew. I told him whom I wanted the four spots on- this is when he informed me that they could only get two of the four spots working. It was at this point I threw my arms up in the air and announced that I was leaving. I reconsidered and told him to go and tell Robbie this wonderful bit of news. What else could go wrong tonight?

He left and I got back to work on the desk. I finally got the desk patched and started to program the show. Then the house lights went out. Great, I had not yet written a single cue, did not focus a single light, was down to two spotlights and now the houselights are out and Achim started the intro tape. Fortunately, Lars had managed to program something in his console, and I hurriedly wrote a couple of cues to at least get started. More than once I was prepared to just walk out of there. This was the worst show of my career, bar none. That 90-minute set was an eternity. Each painful second creeped by. One of Lars' lights was broken and constantly in the wrong color. I finally went to the stage and unplugged it out of frustration. I had the two spots try and cover all four of the band, which was difficult at best. They couldn't even open the irises of the spots enough to cover two band members at a time. Frustrating is an understatement.

Finally, "Hurricane" came and went, and thankfully, that was the end of that fiasco, the worst show I have ever done. I went backstage after the show, completely deflated. It was nearly 2 AM. We loaded out and headed to a restaurant for an extremely late dinner. I didn't care what time it was, I just wanted a beer and something to eat. A few crew went back to the hotel. We went to this restaurant called "Camelot." It was Camelot. This place was incredible. The hostess was stunningly beautiful and couldn't do enough for us. Rudolf was there and had just finished eating. We ordered beers and they were there in seconds. We had ordered food earlier at the venue, and no sooner had we sat down, our food arrived. I had ordered borscht, hey, we were in the home of borscht now, the Ukrainians invented this stuff! It was fabulous. And yes, it came with a dollop of sour cream. You have read about me and the borscht for a long time now, yet I have failed to take a photo of it. Well, here, for your visual culinary pleasure, is a picture of borscht, prepared in the Ukrainian style. Enjoy!