Fortunately finding Yubileyny Sports Palace was much easier, as it was right in front of the tube station (I got lost in St. Petersburg metro btw, but that's a long story).
We arrived 3 hours before the show, people were of course already gathering there, only a few hundreds (I say only a few hundreds, because I believe in the whole at least 10000 (!) people came to the gig, that includes both standing and sitting tickets). As you may recall on twitter Jesse was unsure whether they would be able to fully fill the stadium. On the contrary - it was packed!!! (I must add a number of folks like me, who traveled from Moscow was impressing, I recognized almost all of them from the previous gig).
Boys begun once again with 'My Shadow', but there was something wrong with the sound, so Tom started with the second line...but then decided to start the song all over again (giggling)...
The setlist was pretty much the same as at the Moscow gig:
- My Shadow
- You Are Young
- Nothing In My Way
- Everybody's Changing
- The Starting Line
- This Is The Last Time
- Sovereign Light Café
- Spiralling
- A Bad Dream
- Disconnected
- Bend and Break
- Black Rain
- Perfect Symmetry
- Somewhere Only We Know
- On The Road
- Bedshaped
- Is It Any Wonder?
Encore:
18. Sea Fog
19. Silenced By The Night
20. Crystal Ball
Quick recap of the gig:
a) Gerberas were again thrown from the first rows onto the stage...
b) this time we lighted the glowsticks during 'Black Rain' at the words '...I open my eyes, everything shines...'
c) another girl did the same trick with 'Tom-wish-me-a-happy-b-day-sign'...not original anymore, but she got what she wanted!
'Would you like tonight to be you Birthday party?' - Tom Chaplin
d) Tom's reaction after 'A Bad Dream' - once again priceless. 'You guys went crazy!'
e) Tom's comparison of the song 'The Starting Line' to the vodka...xD
f) Only one word that Mr. Chaplin learned so far in Russian is - SPASIBO . I shoot that moment on my phone. One fan in the front row screamed 'Your Russian is great!' - Tom's reaction to that - 'Based on one word?' (after a few songs people cheered Spasibo - Guys were delighted, Tom's reply was - 'No, thank YOU'!)
g) Tom - 'In England we all complain about the weather, but really we're pussies compare to you'...'How long is the summer here, like 2 weeks?' - to what we screamed - 'Our summer started today!'
h) My favorite moment when Tom was given Russian flag with the words 'YOUR RUSSIAN ARMY' written on it! 'I guess have to be very careful when I say about this after all what's happened in the past...but it's brilliant to have you here on our side tonight...' - said Tom.
Pics spam:
P.S. Lovely World flag was always covering the drums before the shows!
And a little treat (from Igor Malakhov): (by little treat I mean HQ photos)
click on THIS link!
