'On The Great Silk Road'
UK tour 2005
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Saturday
29th May
The concert today is is Annan. From Inverness Ewan
and I take the Uzbeks to Dunblane for soup and choi
before tearing down the road with my trusty co-pilot
Ahmetjon by my side, singing and playing the gijak
at ninety, much to the bemusement of each and every
busload of scouts/footballers/bridge club/tourists
we overtake en route to Annan. The Radio Tashkent
Roadshow is gonnae overtake a busload of grannies
near you. If you can catch us, we will give you 100
sum, guaranteed!
Annan
lies in the southwest of Scotland, very close to the
English border and tonight’s concert is part
of the Dumfries and Galloway Arts Festival. The local
High School acts as our venue for the evening and
the music department our dressing rooms, replete with
an army of drum kits and a fleet of pianos so before
the show, Khusan demonstrates his prowess on the kit
while Ahmetjon and Johnjon Sikorski regale us with
some never-before heard Scott Joplin piano duets though
this performance had more of a Karlheinz Stockhausen
feel to it.
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it's not the same without a revolving
cage
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The
next run of concerts constitutes the final leg of
this extraordinary tour and takes place entirely in
the south of England, from where our Uzbek colleagues
will leave for home. So these are the final days in
Scotland for our Uzbek chums and as such Robin and
Alison have organised a farewell meal at Temple. This
tour could not have been possible without Alison who
has catered for all of us with great style and finesse,
so much so that I propose she become the next celebrity
chef: “Cooking for the Uzbeks with Alison Kinnaird
MBE”
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Cheers!
Thoroughly toasted. |
Anyway,
another great meal with singing, dancing, and most importantly,
toasting. It is at this juncture that I should endeavour
to explain that only after a toast is the generally
accepted polite time to drink alcohol – luckily
everyone in the company is expected to make a toast
and the drams are fairly sizable so one generally does
not lack for vodka (or whisky occasionally). I believe
this to be a pan-Soviet custom: Maxim informs me that
the Georgians are famous for the length of their toasts,
matched only by the magnitude of their glasses of wine,
drunk in one go of course. We experienced much toasting
in Uzbekistan and it is only natural to make the lads
feel at home. |
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Thursday
2nd June
Last night's show in Huntington Hall, Worcester,
a fine old converted church, and as always the
show and staff were great and helpful respectively.
Mike Sanderson from the Nettlebed folk club
in Oxfordshire, for whom we have played many
a time, has organised tonight’s concert
in the Norden Farm Centre for the Arts in Maidenhead.
This is a magnificent venue with a beautiful
stage space, modern sound and lighting rigs,
a dance studio – an absolute must in my
book – and a very fine restaurant and
bar. The audience are very receptive and amongst
them is Christian who though originally from
Temple, is now a reporter with alazeera based
in Qatar. The Batties ken a’body.
Friday
3rd June.
Today we are off in London so it is off to the
various musea to soak up some culture, maybe
see the houses of parliament, Westminster Abbey,
St. Paul’s Cathedral etc. Or than again,
maybe not.
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Dear
old Lahndahn. I hear the streets are paved with gold... |
Saturday
4th June.
The Purcell Rooms in the South Bank Centre on the
river Thames hosts us for our concert this evening.
The cosmopolitan crowd is peppered with Turks, Uzbeks,
and even some Scots. The photographer David Sinclair
even takes time from the Abdullah Ibrahim gig across
the road to take some shots of our little extravaganza.(www.jazzphotographs.com)
There are representatives from the Uzbek embassy in
London as well as Uzbek T.V. who interview Ilyas and
Robin. Incidentally, I think this has the makings
of an epic chat show especially as they already have
a house band. Ewan’s pal Jo, Pat’s friend
Richard - my host and landscape gardener of note,
and my wife’s Uncle Tom are all here so this
event proves a great party and without a doubt my
most enjoyable gig in London to date.
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Sunday
5th June.
Salisbury in Wiltshire. Home of Hop Back Summer Lightning;
one of England’s finer, more potent beers. Sadly
this is our last concert with the Uzbeks and possibly
the last time we will ever see these people: We had
such a good time in Uzbekistan on our last visit that
I doubt if they will ever let us back in. Anyway,
The City Hall is a great venue to finish off this
gruelling but remarkable month. A crate of Stolly
was probably a contributory factor to the general
goodwill emanating from the Uzbeks v. the Boozebeks
2005 tour – Everyone’s a winner
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Performers
on 'The Great Silk Road Tour 2005' were:
Uzbek
Musicians - Ilyas Lutfullaev – dutar/kushkar/rubab,
Khusan Nasirov - tabla, Abdulahat Abdurashidov –
nai, Akhmatjon Dadaev – gidjak/vocals
Battlefield Band - Alan Reid - keyboards/vocals,
Mike Katz - bagpipes/whistles, Pat Kilbride - guitar/cittern/vocals,
Alasdair White fiddle/whistles
Scottish Step Dancers – John
Sikorski & Donal Brown
Uzbek Dancers – Saida Mansurhodjayeva
& Nargiza Khodjakhanova
We've
since heard that our Uzbek friends arrived home safely.
Thanks to all who helped make this tour possible:
  
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click
here to go back to the tour diary archive
photos
were taken by various people, none of whom will admit to
taking them -apart from the good ones; they were taken by
Johnjon Sikorski
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