Nick Cave played here in St. Pete yesterday.

I'd have preferred to see him at a venue more intimate than the Oktyabrsky Concert Hall, a humongous, Soviet-ly gray and ugly place - but I'm not complaining. Mishah and I sat in the left corner of the last row of the balcony, almost on the roof - you can't get further than that - and again, I'm not complaining. I'm very happy I was there yesterday.

He played one of my favorite songs, the one that was originally recorded with PJ Harvey - "Henry Lee." There's always something in this song that I don't understand. Eight years ago, you should've seen me, a totally drunk 22-year-old, chasing a few Americans at an Easter party in Kyiv, trying to get them to explain a line or two that I couldn't quite make out. These Americans were, at the time, almost done drafting the Ukrainian constitution, no less. Now, both the lyrics and the constitution are available online. And yesterday, Nick Cave strayed from the original "Henry Lee" and shouted out something that began with "AND YOU RUSSIAN FUCKERS" - and I couldn't make out the rest of it. I suspect it was something about Chechnya - or maybe not. I hope eventually I'll find someone who heard it better than I did. (P.S. - 09/24 - Well, my friends who've also been to the concert told me it wasn't about Chechnya, not directly, at least - supposedly, he told the Russian fuckers to draw some kind of a lesson from Henry Lee's experience.)