Performing in Moscow with Pink Floyd was the absolute highlight for me. Traveling to Moscow in 1989 was a big deal. The country was still very new to Westerners and there was clearly a huge divide between the rich, the privileged and the poor. Our hotel had 3,000 rooms and although it’s no longer there, at the time it was the place where everyone stayed when visiting Moscow. There was nothing elegant about it and the technology (TV & radio) looked like something out of the 1950s, as did the cars. I was told the government had spent so much money on the military, everything else suffered, including electronic technology available to the public. The most difficult thing for us was the water. There was no real filtration so when I drew a bath the first night there, it smelled rather foul. None of us bathed except with bottled water we had on our trucks, so by the time we got to Finland a few days later, we all ran for the showers. The Russian government even removed our visas when we left the country. I will never forget Durga and I leaving our change for an old woman bussing tables at a local burger joint. You would have thought she’d won the lottery. Back then people stood in bread lines. Meat was a precious community that most common people could not afford. People kept asking us for Levis to sell on the black market. The promoters hosted a special dinner for the band. It was an amazing cornucopia of gourmet delights including exquisite caviar, the finest vodka: the food seemed endless. It was hard to justify knowing the level of poverty existing out in the streets. Lorelei McBroom
Posted on: Sat, 17 May 2014 21:00:01 +0000
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