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The concerts in St. Petersburg and in Moscow went brilliant! It was an awesome feeling to see the band playing here once again three years after their first ever appearance in Russia back in 1997. As it was three years ago, the first date of Russian shows was St. Petersburg on the 1st of December. They crossed the Finnish-Russian border at 6 AM, and after a long wait on the customs, two buses and a truck entered the gates of Jubileinyi Palace of Sports at 14:00.

An adv of the Russian dates.

Right after the arrival the work has began — the entering gates were very far from the stage, and the stage itself was very high (Jubileinyi is a big sport arena, it's capacity is about 6.000 - 7.000) so it took a long time to settle all the Motorhead gear on stage.

Mr Butcher and Artyom with Rickenbackers.

The band was sleeping in a bus until 16:30, and the first who appeared inside the venue was Mikkey. To this moment half of the gear was already put on stage, and Mikkey began to walk around checkin' this and that. While waiting for finishing of building the scene, we chatted with Mikkey a lot, one of the things that surprised us a lot was that Mikkey knows almost all our famous Russian NHL hockey players very well.

The set list.

While roaming around the stage I saw a track list, and it was a great surprise to see Shoot You In The Back among the usual numbers — they never played this song live since 1984! Lemmy and Phil appeared around 18:00, and soon after that everything was ready for a soundcheck — Shoot You In The Back, Overnight Sensation and No Class were played.

After some time the band retired to do some interviews and to eat something before the show. They hit the stage at 21:10, and Lemmy heralded their presence in the usual way: "We're Motorhead and we're gonna kick your ass!" Five thousand throats roared in extasy, and the mighty rock'n'roll machine began with the new classic We Are Motorhead — I am sure that from now on they're destined to open each gig with this track! The set list was the following:

We Are Head / Bomber / No Class / I'm So Bad / Shoulder / Civil War / Metropolis / Shoot You In The Back / God Save / Born To Raise / Out Of Jail / Damage Case / Sacrifice / Orgasmatron / Brazil / Iron Fist / By Death / Ace Of Spades / Overkill.

Shoot You and Damage Case became an excellent 'new' oldies, and three tracks from the new album represented We Are Motorhead well. During the first half of the show the sound was so-so, but to the time of God Save The Queen and Born To Raise Hell it changed for the better and reached the maximum possible quality for the big sport arena. The band was very excited to play in Russia once again, and after almost every song Lem and Phil complimented the audience. The crowd gave it back to them, meeting each new number with the massive roar.

There was a funny moment after Metropolis — Lemmy began to ask "Are there any punks in St. Petersburg?!", preparing the crowd for the Sex Pistols cover, but then he looked down on the set list and realized that it's a little bit early for GSTQ, plus to that the crowd wasn't very enthusiastic about punks and reacted very reticently to this question, so Lem said in reply: "Well, not many punks here… Then we will play a song for your babushka and dedushka (he learned how to spell grandpa and grandma in Russian!!!), a very old tune, the song is called Shoot You In The Back!" But nevertheless after that 'old tune' they played GSTQ, and this song was accepted surprisingly well by the audience with no punks in it. Born To Raise Hell and new hit Stay Out Of Jail just blew out the crowd, with every number the St. Peter's audience went more crazy, and to the time of Sacrifice and Mikkey's drum solo the crowd began to look like a sea during the 9-balls storm!

As it was in London, Phil was all over the place — you just witnessed him at one side of the stage, and in a blink of an eye he was already on the other side thrashing and delivering mighty guitar riffs to the thankful St. Peter's audience. The usual package of old hits finished the hour-and-a-half set, and the band left the stage, leaving the crowd in extasy after the best rock'n'roll show ever seen.

And here's the real party began: the band spent half of the night in dressing rooms "smoking and drinking/never gonna stop" surrounded by large amounts of whiskey and groupies. It was a shock for me to see Lemmy around 2 AM with almost empty bottle of Jack Daniels — he was walking and chatting with the girls like a drunken out bottle means nothing to him, I wonder how a human being can stay in a vertical position after such huge amounts of alcohol?! No doubt, he's one of a kind!

Artyom and Tim in the bus.

Around 3 AM the rock'n'roll caravan left St. Petersburg to Moscow. I was privileged to travel with them in the roadies bus, and I can proudly announce that I took a biggest part in exterminating of beer stock — the most part of beer was drunken with the help of the only Russian in the bus! We were stopped by the road police for a several times during that night, and as I was the only Russian in the buses, I was the only one who could relate with the policemen and to explain to them that the rock'n'roll legends gave them a honor to ride on this road, and it's a big luck to the policemen to witness the legendary Motorhead in all it's beauty on the road. But sometimes it took some time (and money, ha-ha!) to explain to the poppy cops who the hell are Motorhead!

The hotel. Lemmy and Artyom.

The band entered Moscow on Saturday around 17:30, and landed in a hotel for some time before going to look for adventures on the Moscow streets. The company went to see some traditional touristic places of interest — Red Square and all that, and late in the evening the small group headed by Lemmy went to Rasputin — Moscow strip club, one of the biggest. On the next day before the showtime the band and the roadies went for some souveniers and visited Red Army Museum, Lemmy was filmed there for the Russian MTV show called Banzai.

Later on they headed towards Gorbunov Palace of Culture. This legendary venue is not big at all — it's capacity is about 2 500, but all Moscow metalheads feel there like at home, and almost all foreign bands who came to Russia were playing at Gorbukha and Motorhead played there too three years ago.

The best drummer in the world and Artyom.

The soundcheck was the same as in St. Petersburg. The doors were opened at 18:00, and the band went onstage at 19:30, giving enough time for the fans to prepare themselves with the beer for the show. After the first chords there was raised massive roar of the audience, which sang all the songs word by word, and sometimes the roar of the crowd was even louder than the sound of Motorhead amps! That was the thing that surprised the band most of all, after the show they told me, that they have never seen such a noisy audience ever! The set list was the same as in St. Petersburg, but they played it much faster — Mikkey confessed me after the gig that it was his fault — he told me that when he is tired he plays everything way faster than it's ought to be played. During one song somebody threw a bunch of roses on stage, and it touched Lemmy a lot ("Roses on stage?! Wow... I've never seen such things for years!..") — and Tim Butcher placed the bouqet on the Lemmy's amp.

Motorhead never gave a break to rest for the crowd — one rock'n'roll hit was followed by another one, the sound was excellent, and the wave of primal rock'n'roll energy covered the crowd. The tickets were very expensive, but the venue was packed to the full — all the Moscow headbangers decided that it was impossible to miss such a show, and they were absolutely right! The energy of Motorhead live set can be compared only with the blow of a couple of atomic reactors, and Moscow show was just stunning — it was impossible to believe that such amount of energy can be delivered by three men only! Motorhead played a usual set that lasted for a hour-and-a-half, but it seemed that Lemmy and Co. played at least for three hours — the impact and the might of their rock'n'roll strike was just incredible! Traditionally shooting the crowd with the bass at the end of Overkill, Lemmy, Phil and Mikkey left the crowd at the peak of rock'n'roll happiness.

Cider rulz!

The band continued to party at the backstage after the show while the gear was putting inside the road truck. We chatted with the guys about this and that, and among other things they told me that the band has plans to play in South Africa soon, I had never believed at first: "What?! South Africa?! You're kidding!", but they were very serious and convinced me that it's true, just unbelievable! We spoke about all this fast spreading thing with the tribute albums, and Phil told me that he played two songs for recent Thin Lizzy Tribute, but they used only one of them. To this moment Mikkey is the only member of the band who never took part in tribute albums, but this will last for not so long — he told me that he recorded a song for a Metallica tribute (he wasn't sure, but he told that it was Sanitarium), this tribute was led by Bob Kulick and all the famous drummers are on this album, it will be out after some time. Phil also recorded a song for Iron Maiden tribute that will be out soon too.

Three hours and a half later the band left for Minsk, and what more can I add? Moscow gig was one of the best Motorhead shows I ever saw, but... it seems to me that I write this words after each Motorhead concert! I wonder, how they can become better and better with each show?! That proves that they're one of a kind — the only band that still plays the dirtiest, loudest and meanest rock'n'roll on Earth!

In order to see more cool stuff and pictures read the Part II.