The Ukraine Diaries - Entry #4

31 October 2025

Lviv, Ukraine

No air raids here last night. I do, however, manage to get hit with a cold. I wake up congested with a fever and a sore throat and a curse for the very existence of respiratory viruses. I go to a pharmacy, purchase and consume a huge amount of some sort of cold medicine - I don’t know the details because the labeling is all in Ukrainian - which immediately erases all my cold symptoms and replaces them with tachycardia, and head to rehearsal.

Marichka, Angela, and I meet in the studio of the Lviv Puppet Theatre. We run the songs like it’s nothing. Just straight through. I love working with pros. We pack up our gear and grab a taxi. We load up the trunk with the bandura and guitar while the stands and cello go in the backseat on top of Marichka and Angela. I sit in the front with my gear bag. The cabby cranks the stereo up to painful and plays Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” followed by Abba’s “Lay All Your Love on Me.” I love this cab ride.

Our stage is on the top floor of the Dnister Hotel with a panorama view of the city. A fiery pink sunset sizzles out of the Western facing windows as Sergey sets the lights and we set up our gear. I take more cold medicine. We check our sound. We run our set, then we head backstage to wait. Waiting is my least favorite part. (When I was fifteen my band opened for L7. I was so psyched that I started our set forty minutes early. I can’t stand the wait.) The crowd comes in. Vlada introduces us. It’s all in Ukrainian, so I have no idea what’s being said, but at some point Marichka and Angela tell me to go on stage, so I do.

Our performance is smooth. It’s a delight playing with such good musicians. We start with “Within These Walls/Sarah’s Song” to set the scene. Then it’s on to “You Can Do This” to drive it forward, followed by “It’s You” because to be human is to love. “Warrior” comes next and tonight is special. It's always an important song, but tonight we have a bandura - a traditional Ukrainian instrument - and we are singing the song in Ukrainian. We close with “Welcome to the Couriers” because that’s where Sarah lands and because for events like these I want the audience to want to know what happens next. Then it’s over.

I thank everyone and head offstage to get my water in preparation for the Q and A, but the audience is still clapping. The clapping gets louder and then becomes rhythmic. They go into synch, clapping in time, 120bpm if I had to guess. Angela tells me they want another song. I look over to Vlada. She says the audience is asking for another song. We don’t have another song. Unless we all happen to know the same Abba covers, this concert is over. There are shouts of “Warrior!” They want us to play “Warrior” again. Really? Apparently, yes. I look over at Angela and Marichka. Okay. We play “Warrior” again.

The Q and A is emotional. How could it not be, being here? This is a roomful of people living in a war they did not ask for. It’s safe to presume that every one of them is personally touched by the tragedy of it. They have lost people; they know people in the fray; they live with the air raids. The only Q and A as intense as this one was the one in Israel that took place under missile fire.

After the Q and A, after the greetings and the conversations, the hand shaking and the hugging, Angela, Marichka, and I drive the instruments back to the studio. I’ve played to a lot of crowds, I tell them, a lot of enthusiastic crowds. But I’ve never had a crowd request that a song be played twice.