Fact #141431
When:
Short story:
Big Country play the first of four nights at The Palace Of Sports, Moscow, Russia, Europe.
Full article:
Alan Edwards (publicist, The Outside Organisation) : One of the most spectacular trips I ever went on with John Giddings (music business agent) was when Big Country played Moscow in the mid 80s to promote the album Peace In Our Time. Russia was still fairly behind the Iron Curtain in those days.
The visit got off to an inauspicious start when John arrived in Moscow and went to the venue, sat down with a can of beer enjoying the gig only to realise after a couple of songs that he was watching a completely different band. He had to leave the venue quickly and found himself in a snowbound field nearby trying to hitch a lift into Moscow.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black for Audience magazine, April 2016)
John Giddings : We took a full aeroplane-load of people to Russia to Launch the Big Country album Peace In Our Time. We all stayed at that hotel with 3,000 rooms, The Rossiya, on Red Square. We had about ten coaches and just as we were about leave for the gig, I needed the loo. So I asked Steve Lewis of Virgin Records if I could use the loo in his room because it was nearer than mine. By the time we got back, the buses had gone!
All we had was a ticket for the gig, so I went to a cab driver who, inevitably, did not speak English. I showed him the ticket and he drove us to the outskirts of Moscow to a huge venue, the equivalent of Wembley Arena. The police ushered us into the venue, walked us down to the second row of the gig, lights went down, group came on … it was the wrong group. We were in the wrong venue. The taxi driver had misunderstood. Knowing that no alcohol was allowed at these gigs I had stashed a couple of cans of lager inside my jacket, and as I reached out to grab a policeman to explain what had happened, one of the lagers fell out. So they took us into a side room, frisked us and then chucked us unceremoniously out of the gig.
We were absolutely lost, no idea where we were. So I asked Steve if he had any money on him. All he had was a $100 bill, so I went out into the middle of the road and started waving this $100 bill until someone stopped and drove us to the right venue.
We got to the gig and the tour manager ran up and said, "Don’t tell them it was a good gig." I said, 'Why?' He said, 'because we’ve had power failure and the gig couldn’t go ahead."
The gig did eventually happen but, of course, we’d taken all these journalists with us and it was either the guy from The Sun or The Mirror was really fretting, because he’d written his review of the show before he left London. He was in a real panic. It was one of the funniest trips I’ve ever been on.
When we got back to the airport it turned out the Russians had stolen all of the food and alcohol from our plane. We had to go to duty free and buy everything again. Half an hour into the flight, everybody was drunk our of their brains because they were so grateful to have left Moscow.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black for Audience magazine, April 2016)
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The visit got off to an inauspicious start when John arrived in Moscow and went to the venue, sat down with a can of beer enjoying the gig only to realise after a couple of songs that he was watching a completely different band. He had to leave the venue quickly and found himself in a snowbound field nearby trying to hitch a lift into Moscow.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black for Audience magazine, April 2016)
John Giddings : We took a full aeroplane-load of people to Russia to Launch the Big Country album Peace In Our Time. We all stayed at that hotel with 3,000 rooms, The Rossiya, on Red Square. We had about ten coaches and just as we were about leave for the gig, I needed the loo. So I asked Steve Lewis of Virgin Records if I could use the loo in his room because it was nearer than mine. By the time we got back, the buses had gone!
All we had was a ticket for the gig, so I went to a cab driver who, inevitably, did not speak English. I showed him the ticket and he drove us to the outskirts of Moscow to a huge venue, the equivalent of Wembley Arena. The police ushered us into the venue, walked us down to the second row of the gig, lights went down, group came on … it was the wrong group. We were in the wrong venue. The taxi driver had misunderstood. Knowing that no alcohol was allowed at these gigs I had stashed a couple of cans of lager inside my jacket, and as I reached out to grab a policeman to explain what had happened, one of the lagers fell out. So they took us into a side room, frisked us and then chucked us unceremoniously out of the gig.
We were absolutely lost, no idea where we were. So I asked Steve if he had any money on him. All he had was a $100 bill, so I went out into the middle of the road and started waving this $100 bill until someone stopped and drove us to the right venue.
We got to the gig and the tour manager ran up and said, "Don’t tell them it was a good gig." I said, 'Why?' He said, 'because we’ve had power failure and the gig couldn’t go ahead."
The gig did eventually happen but, of course, we’d taken all these journalists with us and it was either the guy from The Sun or The Mirror was really fretting, because he’d written his review of the show before he left London. He was in a real panic. It was one of the funniest trips I’ve ever been on.
When we got back to the airport it turned out the Russians had stolen all of the food and alcohol from our plane. We had to go to duty free and buy everything again. Half an hour into the flight, everybody was drunk our of their brains because they were so grateful to have left Moscow.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black for Audience magazine, April 2016)