Saturday night’s alright

So this past Saturday night we had a unique experience. In fact, it was one of those experiences that caused us to pause ahead of time to decide if it was really worth it. I mean, standing in a sweaty crowd in the middle of one of the most famous squares in Kyiv just to try to catch a glimpse of someone famous? But when it comes right down to it, we are probably never going to have this kind of opportunity again, so why not take part in the big event: a free Elton John concert.

Luckily, there were 10 other people from the Embassy that were willing to get out there with the masses, so we went as a group. I’m pretty glad it turned out that way because I think it would have been a frustrating experience if we didn’t have others to laugh about it with. Shawn and I had scoped out the scene earlier in the day and noticed that large video screens to broadcast the concert had been set up along the major street leading to Maidan (Independence Square), where the stage was actually set up. Great, I thought, we’re going to end up standing closer to our apartment than the stage.

But never underestimate the persistence of American diplomats, or the inability of the majority of Ukrainians to show up early. In the US, people would have been camped out for weeks for a free concert of this magnitude. In fact, Shawn and I used to laugh at the people in Portland who would line up their lawn chairs days in advance for the Rose Festival Parade. But Ukrainians apparently have better things to do - sit in the park and drink cheap beer, mostly.

Anyway, we got to the general area of the concert around 8pm (the show was scheduled to start at 8:30), walked past all the the video screens and pushed our way through the “queue” to get through the first gate. We were closer than I expected, but not close enough. We continued pushing through a second gate and as close as we could physically get to the stage. Now at this point, it was so tight that we were all holding on to each other in order not to get pulled away and lost in the crowd and, to be quite honest, I couldn’t actually see the stage (although the taller people in our group said we were close). We were literally packed like sardines, it was over 80 degrees F, and Ukrainians are not fond of wearing deodorant. I declared the situation to be “too much Ukraine” and we retreated.

We still ended up standing relatively close to the stage considering there were about 200,000 people there. I could see Sir Elton when he stood up from the piano and if I stood on my toes - his head was about the size of the head of a pin from my perspective…

Oh, and remember how I said the show was supposed to start at 8:30? The first half hour turned out to be a series of PSAs about AIDS and HIV. Granted, that was the whole point of this free concert in the first place, but it was a lot of AIDS awareness in Ukrainian for those of us that don’t speak it. But Sir Elton finally made his grand entrance around 9 and got the party started.

The most interesting part of the evening was seeing which songs were Ukrainian hits. There was a guy behind me that kept yelling “Sacrifice” (of course with a Ukrainian accent). I was a little disturbed and afraid to turn around until Elton started playing “Sacrifice” and the crowd went absolutely crazy. Seriously. There was pretty much a group blank stare for “Rocket Man” and “Tiny Dancer,” but they were really excited about some song that nobody in our group had ever heard before. Someone joked that maybe it was only released in the Soviet Union.

So that was our brush with Sir Elton John and our even closer brush with half of the population of Kyiv. A good time, an exhausting evening, and when we got home (we left before the show was over), we realized we could have heard the whole thing from our balcony. But that story wouldn’t have been as interesting, right?