The Tony Levin Band

Europe 2005
Italy, Switzerland, Hungary, Russia

MOSCOW, RUSSIA

Kingston, NY    Napoli, Italy    Rome, Italy    Prato, Italy    Schio, Italy    Neuchatel, Switzerland
Prateln, Switzerland    Budapest, Hungary    Moscow, Russia    Saint Petersburg, Russia

Well,  here's a place I'd never been.  This is some different shit, folks!  Very strange feeling being here.  They've come a long way with lots of major changes over the years.  I only got a quick impression so I can't qualify as any kind of authority.  What can I say?  Moscow is big.  Really big!  Somebody told me the population they know about is up around 12 million.  The city seems to go for miles.  It's big!  Technologically, they've definitely caught up with the world, but it's a very bizarre place in many ways - a cross between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, with long strips of gaudy gambling clubs, police and metal detector security everywhere, public official bribery an accepted way of life, and lots of vodka.  (The paradox is that you can easily get better vodka in the U.S.  Go figure!) Our hotel was huge, with massive rooms and hallways - space doesn't seem to matter in Moscow - as are the underground subway stations, with artwork and huge mosaic tile pictures depicting Lenin's reign.  (All approved by Lenin, of course.)  I took lots of tourist pictures.

The B2 Club is a good sized venue.  The crowd was very enthusiastic.  Tony was concerned that they'd have trouble following his patter in English, but they stayed with him nicely.  They even got our Barbershop Quartet jokes.  I got lots of crowd shots this time.  As part of the opening quartet, we sing "you may take photos", then whip out our cameras and shoot the crowd.  They love it ... and I have a growing collection of shots taken during that pause in the quartet number.

We expected technical problems, and we got them.  Inadequate power to run our synth racks and monitor mixer, weird amplifiers, and for me, another ancient keyboard that wouldn't interface with my gear.  It made for a long, tense soundcheck, but expecting it helped us cope.  Ultimately, the gig went great.

Red Square Nikita, Rob Frazza, Larry, Jerry, Jesse and Tony strolling.
The Kremlin Wall
St. Basil's used to be the Czar's personal church.  It's so startlingly beautiful, it seems like a set from a Disney film - but it's very real.
Lenin's Tomb
We went down into one of the larger underground Metro stations.  The construction and artwork there is incredible.  We were blatantly being tourists, but there were hundreds of others there too, clearly not for transportation but just to check it out.
Jerry and I cross photographing
The band poses in front of what looks like some kind of revolution thingy. Tony was cooling out back at the hotel this afternoon.
Jesse found a street artist - or rather, he found us.  Here he's doing Jesse's phiz.
... and mine.  I don't think this is going up on my wall.
Speaking of walls, we were told this is the famous "Artists Wall", clearly with a lot of artist and musician names.  Other than that, I don't know much about it.
The city after dark.  Below, one of the hundreds of Las Vegas style casinos.
	Our hotel, the Ukraina Very big!
Check it out ... Tony's got his name up in lights!  We would have loved to cop that big poster, but how would we get it home? On the right ... inside the B2 club, a 4 flight walkup.  Fortunately there was a large crew there to haul our stuff up the stairs.
	Tony and Alexander "Sasha" Cheparukhin, our Russian promoter.
Soundcheck problems:  Trying to get our stuff powered up any way we can. Crossing this minefield was bad enough when you consider the language barrier, but the local stage crew was great.  We thanked them then, and echo it now.
Here are the folks we do it for ...  Moscow's great!
photo by Anya
photo by Alexandre Prokoudine
photo by Anya
Every once and a while, I catch a real good one. Larry Fast, Tony and Jesse Gress driving toward the finale of Phobos.
photo by Alexandre Prokoudine	photo by Alexandre Prokoudine
Tony had a new ballad he wanted to try and took over the piano for this solo encore.

Kingston, NY    Napoli, Italy    Rome, Italy    Prato, Italy    Schio, Italy    Neuchatel, Switzerland
Prateln, Switzerland    Budapest, Hungary    Moscow, Russia    Saint Petersburg, Russia