The Bloom Twins in Kiev

When I heard that The Bloom Twins (I'd photographed them before when they were supporting Duran Duran in Bournemouth) were playing in Kiev the evening we arrived for the fourth Chernobyl PED I got in touch with them to see about getting a photo pass.  With a little bit of help from my friends on the ground in Ukraine (thank you to Helen and Nikolai) I got the pass.

This was my first concert in Ukraine, and indeed the first time I've had a media pass outside of the UK. 

After a slightly bizarre taxi ride across the city, our driver having first found out we were English put on some Adele for us...   I wasn't having any of that rubbish, so his next choice was Bee Gees played at full volume, which I hate to admit was really rather a lot of fun.

The venue was Atlas Club, which from the front door looked like a rather run down place.  We were waved inside by the guys at the door (I'm still not sure if they were security or....).  Upstairs we found a rather nice (if a bit hipster) bar.  Everything was a bit vague still - where do I get my pass from - where do the others get their tickets from - but I figured it would all work itself out.  Indeed an hour later I managed to find my contact (thank you Juzzee!) who invited us all into the club.

It was a small ish venue, perhaps 500 capacity, mostly standing, but with a seated balcony.

Having been awake since the arse-crack of dawn, not having slept very well the night before, I really didn't want a late night, but it was too good an opportunity to miss.  However after the two support acts, and the venue getting very hot and crowded, I admit I kinda wanted to leave...  It was probably around 10pm by the time the Bloom Twins came on stage.   The atmosphere was very different to the big arena of the Bournemouth BIC, with them singing in English, but speaking in Ukrainian between the songs.

Two things struck me as being different to concerts at home.  The first the high number of people in the audience with "proper" cameras moving around taking photos.   The second was the high number of breathtakingly beautiful women in the audience...  Really, Ukraine really does have some very attractive women.

I wish I could have stayed for the whole concert, but after 5 or 6 songs the heat of the venue and fatigue of the very long day got the better of us and it was time to try and figure out how to get a taxi back to the hotel.  Big thank you to the guy working the Atlas Club bar for helping us with the taxi.

To the photographs.  I was travelling very light, so I only had a 45mm lens with my Olympus OM-D EM-1, which limited what I could do a bit.