17.11.2005 United Kingdom (London)

Report by Howard and Chey

Howard's Report
Fan meeting
Although it was ment to start at 8.30 pm in The Edge, some of the fans were already there, snuggled around a large table. Some old faces were there (Debz, CTU) and new ones as well. I joined around 7.45 pm, and we were joined by Lucy and her mates, then Chey appeared. About a dozen in all.

Top marks to the girl that appeared in jeans and miraculosly re-appeared in a very fetching tartan mini.....! Debz showed us her dirty piccies of Yul taken at cd;uk earlier. She gets to see all the best bits....

We moved on to G-A-Y bar; bad move. It was packed and only three (hard-working) guys to serve over 200 punters. Crap! I didn't even get a drink and although promised, no Tatu on the video screens. S**t.

Me and Chey moved on to an agreable Irish pub, well, quiet so you could chat (but what WAS that smell?) and the others finished their drinks and moved to the queue at 10.15. In the queue someone (who will remain nameless) chalked TATU over every bit of spare wall he could find.

We were one of the first in, I left my big Russian flag with reception to see if they could take it round the back and get the girls to sign in. Some hope, I never expected to see the flag again. But, you never know...

The Gig
We had to wait THREE long hours for our heroines. No, they weren't late, mucking around or being bolshy. That was the schedule. Try to pass three hours of cheesy disco whilst drinking the minimum of beer so as not to lose your place; and starving in the process. It must be love.

The Girls
What can I say. After a songstress I'd never heard of sang a tune I didn't want to hear, it was our turn. It was all about us. *From Russia, will you please give a big welcome for....t..A..T..u!!!!* Like he had to ask.

Dim the lights, on come the girls. Julia wearing an identical kit to the video, but minus the fishnets, and Lena looking very sophisticated in a dress-suit; she should have been carrying a clipboard..... They belted out All About Us first; I think Lena was live, but not so sure about Yulia, I never saw her lips move, mind you I couldnt keep my eyes off her legs. They shone so brightly with a little twinkle, could have been faint hair or very fine shiny tights, oh, if only I could heve touched to find out! We natch joined in the song, and then we had Not Gonna Get Us, with me trying to scream out the stuff in Russian. By then I was well hourse anyway. Finally they gave us All The Things She Said, but in the middle they looked at the crowd, and we were baying them to kiss but they didn't. A little peck on the lips would have been nice,girls!

After that, the PA brought some flowers on for them, and asked them, in Russian, to do an encore. They belted out All About Us again. Wonderful stuff. For an open gig it was just about right, stuff the non-fans could sing along to.

The Punters
Despite some stuff on the G-A-Y website, there were no problems on the night at all, just some pushing and shoving to get to the front! Everyone had the right attitude, and there were even some real Russians in the crowd! Fantastic.

The Flag
I was sitting on the stairs of the entrance foyer at the end, calling a mate after saying bye to Debz and Chey. I got a tap on my shoulder, it was one of the managers. He had my flag. Not only had the girls signed it, they wrote some lovely stuff on too. And, I can authenticate it too...how? Cos I wrote "xyn Bohne" instead of "xyn bonhe" and only a Russian would have spotted that, and the girls corrected it for me!! Stuff all my personal things and money at home, that flag now means everything to me, and I ain't never gonna let it go.

Chey's Report
Howard's report covered it all, but I thought I'd add a few points.

Yulia was SHINY the whole time. I wasn't staring at her legs as such, but at her... chest. Very quickly, during the performance of All About Us, she got sweaty. That sounds kinda gross, but boy! It was

It's funny, in life, she didn't look like an over-cooked orange with a bad wig, at all, but massively sexy. In the pics of it though, she really looks wrong. That's... strange. But... uhm, who knew shininess would suit her so, hmmm? Certainly not me.

I've always gone on about the strangeness of uniformity on stage in their performances. I mean, wearing exactly (or almost) the same clothes during concerts. It doesn't set them apart from each other at all, and alludes to a kind of sisterhood which can be seen as good, but also tacky and bad. Who wants to see sisters kiss?! Uhm... my point is it was great to see them wearing costumes VERY different from each other. Lena's suit looked absolutely amazing, and I wondered quite seriously where she got it, and tried to figure out the cut of it. Yeah, sad. Yulia's clothes were fantastic also.

To see them in those clothes while having seen them like that in the AAU video so many times recently, was jolting. I loved it!

The performance iteself... was so-so. I think large portions of it was live, but 1)By the time they got to the stage, I was very close to being drunk. We had to wait bloody ages for them, and during that time, everyone was dancing and drinking. We were in a gay club after all. 2)The acoustics in the place weren't so good. The overall sound was very muddy and everything including the backing track and live instruments sounded flat at times if not all the time. The crowd was cheering/screaming very loudly too which made it even harder to hear what was being sung/played.

Yulia and Lena were very engaging wtih their audience, getting us to sing bits of songs, which pointed to alot of the singing being live, and the encouragement of arm waving etc. When... you raise your arms up and... kinda... wave them about to the beat?

That sounds strange.

There was a funny moment in All The Things She Said, when the bridge had just started. Everyone went bloody crazy, including me, as Yulia went towards Lena. She was trying to go for the kiss, but Lena shook her head 'no' quite vigerously. Ah, the screams of encouragement after that was deafening. It would have been so easy and nostalgic if they did it... just for us. Yulia was obviously up for it.

Another funny moment, was that I almost didn't get to see any of it. We had queued up and we had our tickets, and in our group was at least one under-age person, but who gets picked out for ID? ME. I turned 19 last month! Uhm, and I didn't have the ID they wanted. After alot of arguing and then alot of 'Oh, Chey, I'm so sorry.' and hugs, one of the bouncers (??) gave in. Can you imagine? Getting psyched up for a Tatu concert, to be turned away at the door? It would make a grown man cry like a baby.

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