The concert in Kharkov
October, 16, 2005
Kharkov Academic Opera And Ballet Theatre, Kharkov, Ukraine

The story by Luna777
Translated by beilie
The review published here with author's kind permission

A small report about the party

October, 16, Thomas Anders, a soloist of legendary band “Modern Talking”, visited our city. I have bought the tickets long time ago; I couldn’t refrain from it, although I said that I will not go.

All my family mocked at me in various ways – especially my father. As soon as he knew the price of the ticket (I couldn’t hide it in time), he announced: “Look out, for he can take you away to Germany! (He spoke of Thomas) Or else you will have to return back on foot, having no money for the ticket!” And he continued in the same spirit. However, frankly speaking, it didn’t touch me much. I’ve got a ticket, flowers and a plan. So, I went there.

I say, the musicians were not influenced by the vaunted German accuracy. They have arrived 1.5 hours late! A half of an hour we were waiting outside, and an hour – inside the building. When, finally, the people were let in and seated, I was frozen a bit, because the hall was pretty cool. But the musicians didn’t appear. The audience started to loose patience, and some from the parterre shouted: “Thomas Anders, come on!” And then everyone from the parterre roared the same. My closest neighbor was rather a lively lady, and we cried out together: “Modern Talking! We want Modern Talking!” We heard a man’s voice from the second balcony: “Serge, come on now and sing something!” All in all, everyone asked for the matter they have come for.

The companion of the lady – my neighbor – said that he will never ever bring her anywhere, because we couldn’t conduct ourselves properly. I said nothing in prudence – mean, I came here on my own, and I saw him for the first time – because after these roars and active clapping I warmed up and felt myself much better.

When the screams concerning the rotten tomatoes were heard, the keyboard musician and the drummer dragged themselves out of their shelter, and then the guitarist followed them. Probably, they’ve got scared.

After the beginning of the concert it became clear that the laser show consisted of four floodlights, turned round.

Thomas has started from his new songs: “Tonight is the night”, “Independent girl” and “Live your dream”. But after the beginning of MT-hits, especially “In 100 years”, I couldn’t stand and started the clapping till my palms ached. My poor seat... well, it was really poor, what’s to say...

Thomas’ live voice was quite different, unrecognizable and funny. He communicated with audience only on English. Thomas’ accent was so amusing! He talked nonsense and joked in between each song; he especially mocked at the girls who gave him flowers – well, you know our youth and modern girls! However, the singer managed to slip away from all their pretensions with ironical notes and comic kisses. The audience gave a neighing laugh. There were no toys, but there’re sweets. Thomas collected the flower bunches amusingly: he brought every armful of flowers to the rostrum while singing: “How many flowers! And all of them are mine, mine!”

After six songs I decided to try my luck and to come down to parterre, because I couldn’t give my bunch of flowers from the first balcony. And then...

I love my country! I adore it! There’re no guards near the entrances, and Thomas seemed to have no bodyguards as well. Near the doors there were only a few young boys from security agency, and their only goal was to bring their girlfriends to the parterre. That’s why I could easily get to the stage and later take a seat in the fourth row of the parterre.

Well, I can say that one of the childish idiot’ dreams came true, and I could not only touch Thomas. It was quite amusing to look at his 1,67 meters of height from my 1,80. And he lost his weight. I gave him flowers and started my prepared speech (on German, of course), after my 11 years of studying German. But, as usual, it couldn’t do without incidents. In the middle of my speech I was stuck. But Thomas (I have to give him his due) could guess that it was not the end and waited for the continuing of my speech in silence. We stayed wordless for almost 30 seconds. I couldn’t get back my gift of speech, and Thomas thanked me for the flowers and said that it was nice, and so on. And I leaved the stage in hurry with a stupid smile on my face...

As I said, I didn’t come back to my seat, and many did the same. The balconies were crowded, and the parterre was half empty. But up to the middle of the concert the situation changed to opposite.

Our audience came to be responsive and didn’t let down, the same as I supposed. Everybody from the parterre was standing during the last 7-8 songs. It was impossible to get through the gangways because they were crowded by dancers. I also couldn’t refrain from jumping a bit – well, for jumping A LOT.

I also liked the young Thomas’ guitarist. Such an amusing guy! He rushed from one corner of the stage to another and tried to buck up the audience and make them applause more intensively. Then he even became insolent (or, probably, this trick was planned) and started to interrupt Thomas, who was trying to say on Russian something more than just “thank you”. Thomas cracked down on him quickly, saying: “Now he was my translator”. And then he expressed quite long and complicated gratitude on German – he said that he loved our audience, and so on. The “guitarist-interpreter” failed immediately. The only phrase he could interpret was: “My name is Thomas” (The same as one in advertisement: “My name is Vova”).

The drummer amused himself by throwing up his drumsticks and catching them after each song. And when the girls leaved the stage after giving flowers, he beat out the drum-roll.

That’s all. After the performance musicians leaved the stage quickly, especially Thomas. The last girl couldn’t even give him flowers. Well, it was her own fault; she should ponder over more quickly and do it a couple of songs before.

It seems to me, that I lied about “a small report”. I couldn’t make it short, because there were too much emotions and impressions.