Russia -Behind the Scenes

After Paul’s nice shiny blog about snow and fun, here’s the real truth. For those of you who think being in a band is a glamorous, exciting and easy job, I have news for you:

It’s not.

Well, not quite, anyway. The performing part is about 20% of the package you see in front of you. The rest is a massive flurry of action behind the scenes: networking, rehearsing, travelling to and from gigs, setting up and packing down from gigs, recording, correspondence via email & phone, promotion, festivals, planning and organising.

To a musician, the performance side is simply the best part of being in a band. To a manager, that sweet moment after booking a nice gig is the best part. When you do both like I do, these two elements combined are moments of pure and utter elation.

In mid-February I received a call from former Súnas member and good friend Brendan who asked if we would be interested in playing a nice gig on Sat 13th March for the upcoming St Patrick’s Day celebrations. I said of course, where’s the gig?

He replied, ‘Russia.’ As you do (my hands started to shake here)! I have to say big thanks to Brendan for thinking of us for this gig, because if it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t be writing this blog for starters. From there, it was three weeks of the most incredible amount of stress that I have ever experienced in my life (and this was even before we had boarded the plane!), but I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. Here’s how our amazing gig came about:

We were asked to submit an email to an entertainment agency, and the email was to list who we are, our sound, hi-res pics, pricing and video. Bear in mind, all we knew was that the gig was in Russia (no idea where), it was for one night and if we were successful we’d be flown there & back with all expenses paid. Well we in Súnas don’t do anything by halves. Paul & I worked for NINE HOURS to get this email together – the majority of it was a crash course in learning how to cut the footage taken from our concert at Perthshire Amber last October. Once the email was satisfactory to our critical eyes we finally sent it off in the wee hours of 17th Feb (something along the lines of 2am) and then played the waiting game.

It was five long days before we heard anything. Because I was listed as the primary contact, poor Mannie, Bridge & Paul were on tenterhooks in daily contact with me on the off chance that I had heard something. My most used expression during that period was, ‘As soon as I hear anything I’ll let you know’.

On Sunday 21st I was contacted by a man named Alan who said that it ‘looked as though’ his clients liked us and would ‘probably’ go ahead with us.
That wasn’t a yes in my book! I updated the others, but we still waited. More phone calls flowed between Alan & I regarding visa types and contracts etc, but I couldn’t do anything because we still hadn’t received the all clear! I’m sure he was thoroughly irritated by my constant calls, but I wasn’t going to get my band’s hopes up on the word ‘probably’ (having said that however, Paul gathered everyone’s passports at Sunas HQ, just in case). Regardless of everything, I had a great feeling about this possible trip from the word go. And I bloody held onto it over the next week, let me tell you! Don’t tell me we can’t do it, tell me that it’s a problem and that we can get around it. Never take no for an answer.

After another week of tense waiting, we were given the Official Yes late on Friday 26th Feb. I received one more phone call from Alan telling me all about the gig: It was a private gig for an oil & gas company in a town called Yuhzno-Sakhalinsk in very far eastern Russia. So far eastern that it wasn’t even on the mainland, it is on Sakhalin Island located above Japan. We would be gone for five days in total, including our performance. Alan finished our call with: ‘You need to organise the visas pronto’. I had heard from a few people that Russian visas were a logistical nightmare, so I got straight onto the Russian Embassy website and brushed up on my knowledge. We had to get the visas sent to the embassy in Canberra by Wednesday 6pm at the absolute latest for them to be processed and returned before we flew out. However (of course), it wasn’t as easy as that. Firstly, which visa do we apply for? Business or tourist? My first inclination was tourist, since we were only performing one gig – but because we were performing a gig I then looked at the possibility of the much more complicated business visa. Oh help.

Cue my introduction on Monday 1st March to our absolute angel Svetlana, the company contact who spoke beautiful English tinged with a Russian accent – she sounded like someone straight out of a Bond movie. Svetlana told me we only needed to apply for a tourist visa, and could I email our scanned passports ASAP to book flights please?

Bugger. Our scanner had packed it in. So instead I called Mannie & that night we went straight to his work and scanned the passports (thanks Theo!) while he filled in & signed his visa form & gave me a lovely visa photo that made him look like an illegal immigrant. I then drove across town to Bridget’s place where she filled in her form & gave me a visa pic that was absolutely stunning – she’s so photogenic, not even a visa pic would look bad! Paul & I added our absolutely awful pics – he looks like he hasn’t slept for a year & I look like I’ve swallowed a lemon. I was organising our applications the next morning and feeling quite overwhelmed with the documents we needed when I stopped and looked at our visa photos laid side by side. It made me cack myself laughing!

So I sent out an All Points Bulletin to my bandies:



HAVE YOU SEEN THESE MUSICIANS

• known to be of the Celtic music equivalent

• Slightly hairy, but not smelly

• Will do anything for a pint

• Considered cuddly and extremely dangerous

• Have a penchant for banjos

• Also known by rather naff nicknames

SUBJECTS ARE KNOWN TO SPONTANEOUSLY BREAK INTO SONG OR TUNES. ENSURE YOU KEEP YOUR DISTANCE. IF YOU SEE ANY OF THESE HEATHENS, PLEASE CALL 1800-PATCHOULI.

Aren’t we a pretty bunch. After everything was organised I was speaking to Mannie's wife Annette and filling her in with all the details. The first thing she said was, 'Thank God you didn't send those awful passport photos with the visa applications!' Oops, sorry Annette :)

Lesson: When stressed, find something to laugh about. It lifted my spirits tremendously! There were times through it all when everyone around me was doubtful that it would go ahead, but I chose not to listen. If worst came to worst, it would still have been lovely just to have been asked.

I was then in almost hourly contact with Svetlana. There was so much paperwork we needed for the visa applications, such as booked flights, hotel reservations, hotel vouchers, official invitation to Russia from Svetlana’s company, official invite and details from the Russian travel agent, official ministerial stamped papers allowing us in the country …

Tuesday passed, Wednesday arrived. Svetlana had sent through everything except the Russian travel agent invitations & the official stamped ministerial invitation. We had until 6pm to get the applications in the post before I would panic and have to fly to Canberra in person to get everything done. I spoke very nervously to Svetlana that morning, and she said that it would come through, she would get it organised.

I arrived home from work at 3pm and Svetlana had emailed letting me know that we would receive the documents by 4:30pm that afternoon. I had two flute lessons to teach from 4-5pm, and as soon as my second student had left just after 5pm I raced to the computer, my heart in my mouth.

No email.

Paul already had that defeated look on his face. OhGodohGodohGod, please don’t let this be happening. So started my frantic international dialling to Svetlana, over 20 times which normally put me straight through every time, but Murphy’s Law, this time I was unlucky. I emailed her, knowing she was probably as stressed as I was, but hoping to receive something soon!

5:05pm. Nothing.

5:10pm. Nothing. I will an email to magically appear in my inbox.

5:15pm. Still nothing. I felt like a group of rubber bands stretched to breaking point.

At 5:20pm I sat back in my chair. I couldn’t believe it. For the first time in the past two insane weeks I actually doubted that we would be going Russia. I looked at Paul and tried desperately not to show on my face that the infamous Súnas optimist was firmly and completely pessimistic at that very moment.

5:25pm. An email from Svetlana marked urgent and containing two words (‘It’s done!’) and multiple attachments arrives in the inbox. I stare at it in complete shock and then scream at Paul, ‘IT’S HERE!!!’

5:30pm. Each application is printed and assembled in military precision. I am focused, I am in the zone. I am actually beyond obsessed, I am completely BAT-SHIT MENTAL.

5:35pm. We’re in the car, gunning it to the closest Express Post Box (literally only two minutes away, but we weren’t taking any chances). Paul is driving as though he’s in a rally and we’re in the lead.

5:40pm. I stand at the post box and post the now-very-thick application.

And then I burst into tears. I just could not believe it. It was gone, we could focus on being excited!

Everything went well until Friday morning. We had flown down to Hobart for the Fleadh Ceol and had just finished having a morning coffee (good sign) when my mobile rang. A lady with a thick Russian accent named Natasha (I kid you not!) was calling because there was a problem with Paul’s visa application.

I was gobsmacked, felt the familiar tightening in my stomach and prepared for the worst, only to be told that we had simply filled in the wrong form. If we filled in a specific one and faxed it to her straight away she would process Paul’s visa as long as we sent the original that day. So we called on the magnificent Alistair, publican of the New Sydney Hotel & host of the Fleadh Ceol, commandeered his computer & printer then set about filling the damn form in. It was a lot more detailed than mine, Bridget’s & Mannie’s! Luckily, there was an Australia Post next door to the pub & the form was faxed off before midday with no problems. I emailed Svetlana the details of what had happened, and we spent the remainder of the day getting ready for our gigs at the Fleadh.

Fate was surely smiling on us that day, because at 4pm Svetlana sent me a text telling me that she had spoken to the embassy in Canberra and that our visas had already been completed and sent in the mail!

There was just one other thing to say to my bandies: WE’RE GOING TO RUSSIA, BITCHES!

Needless to say, I was utterly elated

The Big Russian Blog

Sometimes we get a gig that is just so odd, so outlandish that we have to accept it. But there’s been nothing like this before.

We were invited to Russia, for a single show.

I won’t go into the details of how we got this gig, as Sarah has a whole separate blog coming on the hair-ripping agony that was putting this together. I’m just going to write about the trip.

It started at 3am on the Thursday, getting to the airport to catch the first flight to Sydney. Because of the extreme late notice of the gig (we had under two weeks, from the first call to leaving), we’d missed all the direct flights, so we had to catch a flight from Brisbane to Sydney, then on to Seoul where we’d stay the night, then catch the plane on to Sakhalin Island in the morning. And so began the first adventure. We only had an hour and a half window between landing domestically, claiming all our bags and transferring to the International Terminal, and checking in. The minimum time allowed is three and a half hours. But we managed it, huffing and puffing a guitar, bouzouki, mandolin, flute case, fiddle, bodhran case, four bags and a cd briefcase between us.

More adventures in Seoul. The check-in chap in Brisbane had marked it so we would reclaim our bags in Seoul for the night stopover (which we were glad of as the thought of the instruments sitting somewhere was somewhat hairy). So, we landed, cleared customs, immigration, and picked up our bags… only to discover that no one had heard of our hotel. After literally walking miles around Seoul airport (possibly the most boring in the world, except for the food) we eventually found out that the hotel was actually inside the ‘sterile’ area of the airport (where we’d got off the plane) and there was no way back inside! After much more walking from disinterested Korean help desk to disinterested Korean help desk, we eventually had someone from the airline graciously check us in on the next flight (8 hours early and after many managerial phone calls), and give us the boarding passes that would allow us back in. After all that, we had a pretty decent night’s sleep after a ripping supper of Korean food.



I think we all expected the leg to Russia to be on an old DC10 or the like, but in fact is was a wonderfully new 777. We were still flying Asian Airlines at this point. Air Russia would come later…

So, my first view of Sakhalin Island. It wasn’t snowing, but it was cloudy and it looked fecking cold. Conifer forests made way to very uniform streets and square, almost stereotypical Russian buildings. There was a lot of grey. The airport was very scary, with just a couple of smoke-stained rooms, the immigration booth and a lot of very hard-looking guards, most of them blonde women who could probably kill me with a single judo chop. We met a very happy-looking Svetlana there, our wonderful Woman in Russia, and were quickly bundled into waiting 4WDs to the hotel.



It was cold, and there was a lot of snow.

About 6 foot of it.



It was everywhere, and under the snow was about 8 inches of solid pack ice. As we were driving, I was shocked at the state of the road, only to realise we were on ice, and the pot holes were just where it had broken up. It was an eye-opening drive. The Russians are almost as bad on the road as Brisbane drivers, and they’re utterly unfazed by snow and ice (as I guess they would be). The scenery alternated between beautiful winter stands of silver birch trees and extremely run-down buildings, most with smoke coming from the chimneys meaning people lived there. The actual city of Yhuzno-Sakhalinsk switched between looking like a regular city (except for the walls of piled snow to either side of the roads) to echoing one’s worst stereotypical idea of Russia. Square apartment blocks in serious disrepair, beautiful orthodox churches, shops that are nothing more than porched doorways, their wares unidentifiable by the gaudy signs, and the people, hatted, huddled in thick coats, just shapes against the cold. And it really was cold. Walking from the warm car to the hotel, it was like a slap in the face that left behind a million ice splinters, although Svetlana told is they were having a mild patch at the moment!



The Hotel Belka (Hotel Squirrel!) was warm and lovely –a big double room each and a super spa shower. The whole place was made from real logs, and looked a bit out of place, but it was great. The view from the window was brilliant:



We spent the rest of the day exploring (i.e. arsing around in the snow), and meeting the Riverdancers that were also part of the show. We then had dinner with Svetlana. Food in Russia is pretty average, with warm cold drinks and somewhat interesting taste combinations and some truly classic spellings (Porc stake in beer and hony anyone? Or how about following that with sheese and crackers?), but the company was fantastic, there were a lot of laughs, and we left to find it snowing outside.



I love snow at night. I love the hush of it, and there, well, it was magic.

We spent the Saturday exploring with Zara, Aioffe, Cathal and Sean, and it was great fun trying to find the Bank of Moscow in a blizzard. It was truly Baltic (-10 to -18) and at times, the wind would somehow stab through my thick woollen coat, my trusty Paddy Pallin Polartec pullover, my Merino layer and long-sleeved T-shirt…



Later that afternoon, while the girls had a nap, Mannie and I decided to go exploring, despite the still-falling snow. A quick aside here: Sakhalin is on the same time zone as Brisbane, even though the seasons are utterly reversed, so there was no jetlag to speak of, only the exhaustion of sitting in a plane for half a day, and after the adventures in Seoul, we were all quite buggered, but I said to Mannie, ‘screw this, we’re in Russia, let’s explore!’. So we did. I’ve got a pretty good sense of direction, so we wandered off to have a look at the church we’d stumbled upon the other day. We also found out a secret. Russians have these little things they wrap around their shoes, a bit like cowboy spurs, but on the underneath, to stop them slipping. Nothing screams ‘TOURIST’ as much as seeing someone slipping and sliding along the pavement. Poor Mannie nearly broke his arse trying to walk and film at the same time. We managed to find a beautiful park that we *think* is dedicated to Uri Gagarin (there was a big statue of him looking terribly cosmonauty). It was just magic.



The snow came down quite heavily, and it was just wonderful walking along the barely-cleared path, seeing all these little cut through tracks people had made through the trees or across what would be greens come summer. Huge ravens gurgled at us from branches. In the distance, the mountains hunched, visible through the breaks in the clouds, scored with ski runs that were lit at night. I’m not a skier, but I imagine that would be brilliant fun. There was a Ferris wheel deeper in the park, but it was quite a chilling sight as it did nothing more than remind me of the famous one in Pripyat, the town next to Chernobyl –my overactive imagination and the fault of playing a certain computer game set there before we left! It’s a pretty obvious thing to say, but everything was so… Russian. It’s quite like being inside every bad cliché you’ve ever seen, heard or read about a country. Thank you James Bond. It’s very beautiful, though incredibly hard. You can see it on the faces of the stunningly made-up women in fur coats or the flat haired, rough-featured men. It really is just like you’d imagine it. We took a different route back to the hotel, through the residential area that was almost eerie. Squat, grey apartments that looked very well lived-in, streets clear but snowing over, cars filthy with brown slush, salt and mud, icicles like dragons’ teeth hanging from broken gutters, windows taped up with fluttering plastic bags…



We got back with just enough time to shower and get changed. The gig itself was only one block away, so we walked, which was a bloody stupid thing to do with instruments and not a set of grippy spur shoes between us.



The gig itself turned out great. I say turned out, because there were more adventures to be had before hand. We warmed up (physically, not musically), then sat and watched the dancers run through their stuff. Excuse the language, but holy shit. I’ve seen a lot of dancers, but these guys were the absolute shiz. They were fully jet-lagged, having been flown in from Dublin just for the night, but even so…Mannie has some stunning video. We were waiting for our soundman to turn up, as there was no gear except for a dj’s console.

And of course, in complete realisation of my worst musician nightmares, our soundman turned out to be the dj, Ilya.

Who spoke not a word of English!

And of course had no idea how to set a band. So we did it ourselves, using whatever gear we could find, but having to forgo foldbacks as we just couldn’t get them working. Ilya and I developed a great communication style based around laughter. I would continually get these huge static shocks off the deck, yelp, swear, and he would laugh. Súnas. Breaking down barriers wherever we go.

But the gig was great. The sound was workable, but kept us on our toes. We played some tunesets for the dancers and they managed to get folk up and dancing, and all our worries about having the right material (remember, we don’t do stuff like Danny Boy) were completely unfounded. The Russians loved it, the Irish company was happy and it was a great night all round. We received a few offers for next year (and even a few ideas for a small tour), so hopefully this is the start of something.



And so, after just a couple of hours, it was over, so we did you one would do when in Russia.

We hit the vodka.

In Russia, vodka comes in the kind of glasses we serve lattes in, so it wasn’t long before there was some very spectacular dancing by certain members of the band that shall remain anonymous, and much merriment. We got back to the hotel sometime around 3am, and spent a good deal of time once again arsing around in the snow. As before, it was fecking freezing, but the vodka acted like a special pair of cosy thermal underpants, so we were immune!



The flight out was at 6am, and how I got up and packed was a damn miracle and mystery all in one, but we made it to the airport, said our goodbyes, managed somehow to get tickets and check in luggage at the single desk surrounded by hundreds of people, Alsatians, goats, smoking guards etc… The Air Russia plane was a classic 1970s 737, full of vinyl, faded curtains, ashtrays in the seat arms, rattles, shakes and odd timewarp hostesses. Standing on the runway, in the early morning with a snow front looming across the mountains and being dreadfully hung-over is not my ideal start to the day, and it was the only time I felt truly, uncomfortably cold. The wind whipped down from the snow fields, gathered pace over the flat expanse of the runways (only just snowploughed) and skated over the pack ice to bite our bones. We must have looked quite pathetic (and me quite green) to the laughing Russians waiting to board. The takeoff was pretty horrendous, as the plane skidded and shuddered across the iced runaway, and I’m not sure what alarmed me most, that, or the lack of a barfbag in front of me. I’d drawn the short straw and was sitting away from the others (small airlines generally only have rows of 3 seats). The lady next to me was quite friendly, but dressed in a fur coat that looked to have only been cured a week ago. Needless to say it was a very uncomfortable flight. As a result I’ve pretty much sworn off alcohol for a while now. Rock and roll!

Seoul was easy, just boring, as we had to wait six hours for the flight back to Sydney. Seoul airport is a huge crescent about a mile long, but unlike say, Singapore, it just has the same six shops repeated every 50 yards or so. BUT… it has awesome food. We noshed on traditional Korean dishes like Bibimbam and some of the best sweet and sour pork I’ve had (I was feeling a bit better by this point!). The Starbucks there managed a decent coffee, but I nearly made the barista cry trying to explain what 55 degrees for the milk meant. So much for my efforts at miming me burning my lips and frothing milk. I think she thought I wanted 55 shots of espresso. Actually…

The flight was fine, except for me deciding to sit through the dreadful 2012. If the cutlery hadn’t been plastic I might well have stuck it in my eye. Rewatching Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid more than made up for it. I love that film. Another good few hours at Sydney awaited, and it was there I discovered the mysteriously-shaped hole in my guitar case. To me, it looks like a Russian bullet hole, and although that’s not at all likely, that’s what it’ll be from now on. I’m pretty pissed as it’s an expensive case, but the guitar inside was ok so that’s the main thing.




A reminder of the oddest Súnas adventure so far!