Take A Sad Song, And Make It Better

 

As we waited for him to appear, black and white Beatles clips were shown on large screens at either side of the stage. The crowd jumped up and down to keep warm, in time with "A Hard Day's Night" fused with the purposeful pattering of rain onto umbrellas. Soon we lost sight of the stage altogether behind the umbrellas, and trained our eyes on one of the screens instead.

The Beatles were adored in the Soviet Union, but their fans must have given up hope years ago that even one of them would perform in Ukraine. Much of the crowd had grown up in the sixties, when their songs had represented freedom to a generation of Russians shut away from Western Europe. But many of the people dancing around us were under thirty; no-one can resist a free concert, and music is one of the many things in which young Ukrainians have impeccable taste. Perhaps my tipsy renditions of "Ticket To Ride", on the escalators of Zoloti Vorota metro every Friday night for a month before the concert, had given them a taste for more.

In between videos, Ukrainian celebrities gave little soundbites about the occasion. Vyacheslav Vakarchuk, the singer from Okean El'zy, explained the influence that the Beatles had on his own music. He shares Lennon and McCartney's talent for writing tunes that stay in the memory, even if the language is different; without "Yesterday", there would be no "Ne Pytai".

*You can find the whole of Jonathan Campion’s Ukraine diary, along with his photographs, at www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Vinovat-Sudarynya. From there it is possible to contact him, comment on individual diaries, and subscribe.

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