- Music
- 16 Jul 25
Hardwicke Circus's Ukraine Tour Diary - Part 6: The Circle Remains Unbroken
In the final instalment of Tom Foster’s diary, he reflects on the conclusion to the band’s remarkable odyssey.
Back to Lviv.
On the way, we meet Vlod, who had supplied us our burner phones. Connected to garages far and wide around Ukraine, he helped keep Baby Blue on the road.
It was back in Lviv where Dave had told me Hot Press were interested in the journals. I walked back to the square where I’d seen the ceremony, the women pleading on their knees. I sat on a bench and started writing.
Here we are in real time.
Just after midnight, the air raid alarms started again.
I went back to the hotel and thought about Roman (in Kyiv) and Okazia (in Kharkiv).
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I had a Basque cheesecake with Ben and we pondered for a time how one actually makes it.
Adrian insisted on eating Ben’s sorbet, but none of mine, one last boon for me.
Ben said it was fine, but everybody knew it wasn’t.
That night, the Russians blitzed Kyiv.
The character of Baby Blue juxtaposed the dignified, romantic cobbled streets and architecture of Lviv, so we crashed into it.
This encounter created a minor delay, so Adrian and Joe King arranged transportation to Krakow Airport at the crack of dawn to catch their flight.
VAMONOS! Ow, ow, ow.
Border Patrol
We leave bright and early. Calais only 19 hours away.
At the border by 12, it’s pouring down. Without forming a committee and voting on a plan, we all get out and order hot dogs at the final WOG service station.
We ate in silence as we edged closer to the man.
Getting out of Ukraine took a while, but that’s reasonable. They’re at war.
Here’s the thing: for the next 13-and-a-half-hours, we were in the in-between. Stateless. Back and forth between Ukraine and Poland.
Four times.
The Polish didn’t trust us. Especially customs officer T. Dvorak.
What a wanker.
On our way in, we (stupidly) followed the rules and protocol. Presented our carnet, both at Calais and when we stopped at the Polish border. Nobody wanted to sign it. We got the all-clear. A-OK.
Now, coming back through into Poland, T. Dvorak looks at the five of us, unshaved faces, unpolished boots with mustard stains down our pants, and thinks: smugglers!
He looks at our unsigned carnet and, guilty without trial, his mind’s made up.
“Ooooo weeeee ride me high… you ain’t going nowhere.”
Ben called Roman.
Then we listened to Fela Kuti.
Used the snare drum on top of the merch box as a table and played cards for five hours, eating dried mango and apricots.
We attempted to write a Hollywood blockbuster without writing anything down, involving Tom Waits’ battle with reality and truth while his daughter (Florence Pugh) is in a coma.
We fell out over creative differences. Apparently, “Clint Eastwood on a horse doesn’t contribute to the arc of the movie.”
We made up with the compromise: Willem Dafoe was the suspicious night porter.
We were sent to another border patrol a few miles away.
After another six hours, 2am, we were finally in Poland.
As we sped up to get out of there, the border called us back.
Just as Jon was about to consider slowing down, there was a communal: “Don’t you fucking dare!”
So we pegged it.
At around 3am, we pulled up to a rehab facility and book a room.
That was it. We came, we saw, we left.
“Astonishing! Amazing!”
I couldn’t work out if I was more impressed about what this group of guys just did, together, avoiding all rules and advice, ignoring all the naysayers along the way, or if it was that the windscreen wipers were still held together by gaffer tape. Money, arms, and troops will help defend Ukraine.
But it’s music that will help defend the Ukrainians.
The people, their culture, their identity, that’s pretty sacred.
If nobody else is gonna go there, Hardwicke Circus will.
“It’s alright now
I’ve learnt my lesson well
You can’t please everybody
You gotta please yourself.”
Adrian made it back to Devon.
He hadn’t been in touch with anybody, none of us had signal at the border.
He gets a call from the hotel saying: “Excuse me sir, there’s been a problem.”
He turns white like a ghost.
Thinks: “Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, tits, fart, turd, and twat… what’s wrong? What’s happened to the boys?”
The receptionist says: “Is this Adrian Simpson?”
In a panic, he says yes.
To his relief, he hears down the phone line: “It’s about your minibar bill…”
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Read all the previous Ukraine tour diary entries here.
The complete tour diary will also be published as a special feature in the new issue of Hot Press – out this week.
Hardwicke Circus’s new single ‘Hollow’ is set for release on Friday, August 8.
