St. Petersburg, Russia
So, the luxury of one whole day at home is
over and I am off to St. Petersburg for my last planned concert of the year.
I am tired still but looking forward to being
in St. Petersburg because I have a lot of friends there and it´s a cool town.
By the time I arrive in my hotel I will have
been on the road today for 16 hours, door to door. A combination of cheap
flights (the cheapest the promoter could get) and long ground stops (like four
and a half hours in Helsinki ..... oooh, that´ll be fun!) making this a tough
day. But so far it´s been alright. Iberia from Hellicante to Madrid, Finnair to
Helsinki (only one ¨ l ¨ here) and then to St. Petersburg.
And of course Hellicante airport is basically
closed. You wanna coffee? Tough shidinsky sailor. The coffee shop will open just
after your stupidly early flight takes off
But it´s all
okay. Tomorrow I will enjoy the world premiere of my video with some friends and
then sleep the rest of the day and night.
In fact I can
sleep until sound check on Wednesday if I want to!!
Transferring
in Helsinki was like a scene from Fawlty Towers with Basil´s part being played
by a once attractive, early middle-aged Finnish blonde woman.
I had checked
in at the check-in desk and received seat 4A ... perfect! I went to the boarding
gate where this person was working and where she had to re-check my passport and
boarding pass. After muttering something to her colleague she tore up my
boarding card and gave me another one for seat 13A. I told her I preferred my
original seat and she told me it wasn´t available any more. When I asked how
this could be she just shrugged and said that was how it was! Yes, I was pissed
but something told me that to take it further would have been futile so I
climbed into 13A for the one-hour flight to St. Petersburg. Some people just
can´t deal with getting old I guess ..... (No Greg, not me!)
(fast forward
a few hours)
So what did I
do and what actually happened??
Got to the
hotel at a bit after 10pm and it´s quite nice actually. It´s a Holiday Inn so
there are no surprises but it´s only a year old so everything is still shiny,
including the employees. I like the fact that it´s downtown and not too far from
the venue.
Plenty of
pillows and a kettle so I won´t need to unpack mine! Time for bed I think.
Five and a
half hours sleep just isn´t enough but hopefully I´ll make up for it during the
day and tonight.
I don´t have a
whole lot to do today anyway so it shouldn´t be too bad.
We went to the
venue for lunch and a look around. (the venue pays for my food as long as I eat
it there ....). Then we met up with Igor Burloff the guy who wrote and directed
the video for This Bleeding Heart, one of the songs on my new CD.
We shot the
video here back in April and now I was going to see it on a big screen in high
definition!
Traffic was
terrible and it took us a really long time to get across town but, when we
finally did arrive, all the cast and crew were there, including Mariana and Oleg,
the principl actors.
We were in a
privately built movie theatre which was designed in complete defiance to the
typical ¨Cram ´em in and stuff ´em with popcorn and Coke¨ model. This one had
ultra-comfortable couches with over-stuffed cushions and they served coffee,
cognac and snacks at the touch of a button!!
I am not an
actor in this video, just a musical accessory really but I do get to do a bit of
Oscar-winning stuff at the end .... just as it fades to black! You´ll see .....
It was really
awesome to see it like this and now I understand why make-up people are so
essential and why the good ones are so highly valued. In this format you can see
every pore!!
It´s only a
little over 4 minutes long so we watched it twice, clapped, congratulated each
other had a coffee and went our separate ways ... it was like a little family
gathering and I enjoyed it, in much the same way I enjoy everything in this
city.
The ride back
to the hotel was a little less thrilling though. In rush hour, with only two
main cross-streets this town is a nightmare and it took us close to 2 hours to
get back. Traffic jams are one thing if you´re the driver (at least you can
confront the challenge) but something much less manageable when you´re the
passenger when you can only confront your own mixed feelings of frustration and
impatience. But we did finally make it back to the hotel and by this time I was
dead tired! After a brief chat with Igor and Alexey I rushed to my room and
ordered a cheese-burger.
I was asleep
by 10:15. .........
And I was
awake by 04:30!! I slammed my eyes shut but I couldn´t go back to sleep so ....
what now?
I finally gave
up at a little past 5 and found stuff to do until breakfast at 08:30 after which
I simply went back to bed and slept for another hour or so. That fixed
everything!
So we went to
the club for lunch and here I want to say how great it was to be with caring,
professional people.
Boris had been
sidelined by exhaustion from travelling with the Michael Jackson tribute but
Katya stepped in and did a fantastic job. Marina, my permanent (I hope)
translator was always close and amazing and I also want to give a special
mention to Maria, the representative from the Club Jagger who was patient and
gracious as she drove us around and made sure we were comfortable in all
situations.
Once the club
brought in a real Yamaha piano, sound check went well and so I went back to the
hotel for my second siesta of the day. Only 45 minutes this time but it was
enough to re-charge my batteries and I was ready.
We had a great
crowd and they were very responsive from the introduction onwards. It is so
important in these shows for me to ¨connect¨ with the audience quickly and
effectively and Marina makes this so much easier and so effective.
It´s almost
like there is no language barrier at all and that means everyone is comfortable
so after the show we did the Q & A and it was great. Not too serious, hilarious
at times and it seemed that everyone loved it.
And I was
given lots of roses tonight....
Then some
autographs and photos before finding a quiet spot for some dinner.
I was glad to
see my room, do a little packing and grab 6 hours sleep. Tomorrow looked a
little challenging in terms of my flying schedule ....
I was hoping
to meet my favourite photographer Igor Sakharov this morning and I was
downstairs and ready when I heard he was having some blood-pressure problems and
wouldn´t make it. Darn!
Maria was
driving, Marina was sitting next to me and Katya was up front navigating. My
¨team¨ was with me until the end!
After the
first of two security checkpoints I was able to check in and reasonably sure I
would see my bags again. They assured me that they were checked all the way to
Alicante.
This tiny
aiport had not one single English language publication of any sort and there was
nowhere to smoke or to change my rubles into real money so I grumbled my way to
the gate.
I slept most
of the way from St. Petersburg to Copenhagen and then ran into the ¨brain of
Denmark¨ who had obviouly failed an intelligence test in order to get this job.
All she had to do was persuade her computer to print out a boarding pass for the
next two flights, both of which were with Iberia.
This took far
too long, with no explanation on her part and it actually caused me to lose
something very valuable as I rushed through security to try and make the flight.
But soon I was
on my way to Madrid and one of the worst experiences I have ever had in an
aiport. Forget Alicante and the obese tourists and their kids kicking footballs
around .... forget all of that.
There was a
dead body on one of the moving walkways!!
Neatly wrapped
in a shiny gold body bag, inefficiently and indaquately screened off, denied
privacy even in this tragic moment and accompanied by more people in uniforms,
doing nothing, than you would see at a traffic accident.
The two
plain-clothes people were obviously friends or relatives and God only knows what
they were going through.
What struck me
most (in case you´re interested) was the utter loneliness of it. I don´t know
the cause but it must have happened suddenly and now this life was gone, just
like that. I don´t know about you but it made me think and it also made me
ashamed of how sorry I had been feeling for myself.
I would
consider myself blessed to get home.
God bless,
Ken
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