EXCLUSIVE: Carlisle rockers Hardwicke Circus in Ukraine - Part 1: Subterranean Dronesick Blues

On their sometimes mind-bending odyssey through Ukraine, Hardwicke Circus gained a unique and compelling insight not just into the brutality of the Russian war machine, but also the Ukrainian people’s extraordinary and enormously inspiring courage and resilience.

Here, in Part One of an almost weeklong special, drummer, songwriter and singer Tom Foster explains the background to the tour – and the remarkable experience of crossing the Polish border into Ukraine.

Peter Sellers once took poppers at the point of climax, attempting to achieve the world’s ultimate orgasm – he had a stroke. Seems to me he should’ve just come to Ukraine.

I write this in Baby Blue, our Renault Master 2007 Van, as we drive out of sweltering Kyiv.

No air con.

No space.

A hole in the door and a window that doesn’t close.

The smell of fumes doesn’t bother me like it used to. 120km down the road to Lviv, I have my feet resting on the spare wheel, slouching resplendent as Jacob Rees-Mogg, but with more grime and less slime. I know we’re here, I’m not sure where here is.

I’ll now attempt, for the readers of Hot Press, to put the Songs of Freedom tour of Ukraine into words. Truth is, I’m not sure I can.

 

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My brother, Hardwicke Circus vocalist and guitarist Jon Foster, and our manager Dave Robinson, were men possessed during the genesis of this project. They understood straight away that this was as much hopefulness and solidarity as charity.

I believe music should be taken to where it needs to be, and a band of brothers – or a baannnnd – should work within their norms, not anybody else’s.

Against all governmental advice and protocol, Hardwicke Circus, with the help of the Carlisle community (Armstrong Watson, Fred Story, Julie, Duke of Cumberland) and security extraordinaire Adrian Simpson, made this happen because it had to. Safety was not what we were seeking and none of us were going to let the danger of the situation outshine the significance of it.

Lastly, preempting accusations of our embarking down the yawn-inducing path of absolute self-righteousness, every penny, or hryvnia, of this tour has gone to Adrian’s Mission Aid for Ukraine. They kit out and deliver vehicles right to the front, local battalions, and various charities specifically helping the Ukrainian war effort.

I encourage anybody reading this to send as much money as they can spare, and I don’t want coins – we’re not making a fucking phone call. “Money talks, people mumble.”

This is the subterranean tour: bunkers, corridors, bombs and drones. Love, joy, peace and tranquility. We wanted to take a look. Have a deeeeek about. And by hook or by crook – we’ll be back.

One thing is for certain – this tour changed my life, like it did for everybody else sitting in Baby Blue.

Hunka’ Hunka’ Burning Tom

Before we begin, approaching the border. 70km away, and a further hour on to Lviv, Ukraine. I’m aware I’ve never felt this way before. My emotions are stretched, ideas I’ve never touched and possibilities I’ve never considered loiter outside the offies of my brain, clouding my vision.

In hindsight, that was pretentious overkill. I was only in fucking Poland. My stomach was churning slightly, probably two weeks of Czech cuisine. I started to feel a pain shooting up my back.

Mile by mile, it was getting worse – I realised my seat was locked in with a bolt that had come loose and was waving a pleasant hello to my colon. As well as the literal arse pain, I was hewn with an emotional one.

It’s Monday lunchtime and we’re held up at the eastern Polish border, where some of the Ukrainians have spent the weekend with families in Europe. The Polish border patrol are on their lunch break (it’s 14:30 – get a move on).

“It’s like a heatwave
burning in my heart
I can’t keep from burning
It’s tearing me apart...”

My flamingo-pink shirt, which I bought in Ostrava for £4 (you’d pay 8), is off. I’ve had terrible allergies since I was a child. My skin flares up – red raw – I scratch myself until I bleed. I’m afraid they won’t let me in the country for looking like I use skeg.

I opt for “looking like I use but respectably, in an honourable pink shirt.” Sweat stains make me look more mere than man. Tex-Mex new wave legend, Joe ‘King’ Carrasco, gave me his Stetson after showing me what the kids from his recent tour of Botswana had drawn on it and told me, “Tommmmy, you may look real bad, but you’re a killer drummer, mannn” – the third time he alleged so that hour. So, for a few hours, I put my feet up, fidget spinner spinning, and pondered.

Eventually, I’m here. No checks, no questions. I’m in Ukraine. I felt optimistic. We’re on the road again. Truckin’ till my chips cashed in. Truckin’ like the doo-dah man. Baby Blue hits 60 for the first time in her life, as if my energy were flowing directly into her and boy, we got there.

Unfortunately… amazingly… disastrously… a few miles in, we had to come to a stop. Lo and behold beloved readers, the tragedy that must befall all weary travellers.

Fucking roadworks!

Potholes left, right, and centre, uproarious diggers and riotous traffic controllers are unmoved by the po-faced complaints of our well intentioned gang. Ooo weeee ride me high, you ain’t going nowhere!!

Usually, I listen to road music on tour – ‘Highway Of Regret’, or ‘Me And My Chauffeur, Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again’.

All I needed this time was me, myself and I, a window, and the bomb alert app on my burner phone.

Coming tomorrow: Part 2 – the extraordinary story of Hardwicke Circus’s first Ukraine show.

Hardwicke Circus’s new single ‘Hollow’ is set for release on Friday, August 1.