(Editor's Note: A remarkable thing happened on the way to printing this issue. Yoko had told me that she wanted to write something special for IK People about her tour,but she wanted to think about it for awhile first. It was only a week or so away from my deadline, so I saved one page hoping that she might come up with something. Did she ever! Over the course of three phone conversations on April 17 and 18, Yoko remembered, and I typed. The result: A personal diary of her European tour - a special insert to IK. I know you'll find this behind-the-scenes report from Yoko fascinating. And you won't find it in any "real" magazine. Enjoy!)
I must thank you all for the support in Europe. Everywhere I went I saw IK People waving to me from the audience. It was very encouraging and also beautiful to see so many IK members spread out in Europe.
After reading the clippings on the tour, I thought there were some things which might be irrelevant to the general public, but would interest you. So I decided to report some of them.
AMSTERDAM: This was the first stop. We stayed in the Amsterdam Hilton while we rehearsed the show in a town 30 minutes from it. Amsterdam Hilton was of course where John and I did the bed-in 17 years ago. They asked me if I wanted to stay in the same room. I didn't. But on the last day of the stay, I mustered up my courage and went to see the old room. It didn't look anything like how I remembered. It looked exactly like an ordinary small hotel living room. You do know that at the time of the bed-in, to accomodate the press, we had cleaned up all the furniture from the living room and set up a bed in there because the bedroom was too small. Many people, I understand, still call in to ask to reserve the John and Yoko suite. Also,during the trip this time, many people approached me and said that they remembered the bed-in 17 years ago and that they were there. I didn't know how to take that. It was somewhat painful for me to realize that this time, John wouldn't be with us.
BRUSSELS: The first show was in Brussels, the NATO land. On the night of the Brussels concert, Olof Palme, the Swedish Prime Minister, was shot to death. Our concert was over around 10PM and he was shot somwhere around 11PM. I didn't know about this until the next day when I arrived again in Amsterdam to do the concert in Hague (Hague is half-an-hour from Amsterdam). I was in total shock when I heard about Olof Palme's death.
I should probably explain to you who Olof Palme was. He was a peacenik prime minister who through the 60's and 70's had dared to stand up for his idealism. During the Viet Nam war, he was the first head of state in the world to march against the war. In fact, he was so much against the Nixonian policy that finally Nixon asked all Swedish ambassadors to leave the United States.
Olof Palme was a politician equivalent in courage to Anwar Sadat, John F. Kennedy and Dag Hammarskjold. Because of him, Sweden had come to be known as one of the most idealist societies of our time. He was proud of the fact that in his country, it was so safe that, unlike the usual politicians of high rank, he could walk around without a security guard. That night, he went to a local theater with his wife to see a film and he was shot to death on his way back, in front of his wife.
Hearing about Olof Palme's death, I didn't know if I could go on with a concert tour of songs which conveyed such optimism as "I See Rainbows". It seemed almost grotesque to sing such a song when the world just showed us that the opposite might be the reality. I was already booked to do a concert in Stockholm at the time. My immediate thought was to change the program at least for the Stockholm concert as people there at the time were especially in deep sorrow. I thought I might sing a couple of carefully chosen songs and talk the rest of the time. Then I realized that that was sheer hypocrisy. Why just change it in Stockholm? Was my show only appropriate for an audience who did not face the severe reality? Are we not saying "peace" despite the things that are happening around us?
When I finally went to Stockholm, I explained to the audience before the show how I had felt I should just do a couple of songs and not the full show. I told them how I then changed my mind and decided to present the whole show because Olof Palme was a man of peace and we should take up where he had left and carry on his spirit and his message. It was the hardest concert for me to do. We all cried.
Later I was invited by Mrs. Palme to her husband's funeral together with the foreign dignitaries. The day of the funeral came just between my concert date in Budapest and the one in Vienna. To go to Stockholm for it, I had to get up 6 o'clock in the morning the night of show and fly from Budapest to Stockholm with Sean. Then again, get up 6 o'clock in the morning the next day to fly to Vienna for the concert that evening. It was a very tight schedule but I felt it was important that Sean and I would attend the service. The service was attended by about 2,000 foreign dignitaries from all over the world. Mr. Schultz represented the United States. Sean and I stood amongst them and felt very small.
There was a nice surprise in all this. The night we stayed in Stockholm was the first time in many months Sean and I were totally alone together. I noticed how surprisingly matured he was in so many ways. We could not sleep too well and at 1 o'clock in the morning, Sean jumped up and started to calmly call the room service and order breakfast. He seemed so together about it, asking how I wanted my eggs, etc. that I thought it was early morning when we were planning to leave. You do know that I don't carry a watch. He went to the bathroom to wash and meanwhile, I quickly packed everything together except what Sean and I were to wear. When Sean came back to the room, I proudly showed him what I had done. "But Mommy, it's the middle of the night." "Are you sure?" To prove the point, he called the desk and sure enough, it was 2 o'clock in the morning. "Okay, what are we gonna do then?" We knew that we were both wide awake. Sean immediately went to the TV and flipped the channels around. Nothing was on except one film, something with Goldie Hawn in it. In the middle of it, Sean just said, "Oh I know this one" but we kept watching anyway. Later Sean told people in the tour that that night with Mommy was the best time he'd had in years.
HAGUE: As the city of international court, I felt it was important to do the Starpeace concert there. The Dutch are English-speaking people and I felt we communicated better there than in Brussels.
I decided that I would make a bus trip from Hague to the next stop, West Berlin, so I could go through East Germany to see and feel that part of the land with my own body. The musicians flew over, since a bus ride of 12 hours was too taxing for them. I regretted my decision right away as soon as the bus started to move. I didn't know that the roads were so bumpy! Everything in the bus started to rattle and slip. Then I noticed the cups and the ashtrays were all made of heavy material like in the ship's cabin ready to go through the storm. Later a friend who was on the bus with me told me that the driver kept nodding off, so he stayed up to make sure that the bus didn't get into an accident. Thank God I didn't know all that. I just concentrated my mind to catch some sleep so I would be in good condition for the next concert.
It was not easy to fall asleep because the cold winter wind was coming through all the cracks. I was sleeping on a board that was on top of the driver's seat. It reminded me of during the war when I was a little girl and thre was no transportation except trucks to go miles to evacuate. East Germany, with its barbed wires, search lights and walls also reminded me of the war. In the morning, we stopped at a roadside breakfast place for coffee. It was a cloudy day and the scenery was bleak. There was an obvious food shortage judging by what we got for breakfast. People were unsmiling. This is just an impression I got on the side of the highway mind you, but the message I got was, it wasn't USA freeway with "House of Pancakes" every other mile.
WEST BERLIN: The room we got into was a beautiful suite with wood paneled walls. It was a delicious feeling to stretch my bones on a feather-soft bed after the incredible drive through the night. The phone rang. A journalist wished very much to see me urgently. I said, "All right." He came in the room with an intense look. He was worried about my concert in Berlin. The whole of Germany, he said, was antagonistic towards me. The news reports about me in the past were bad enough. Since I announced that I was coming to Germany for concerts, they geared up on the attack.
On radio, he had heard a DJ announcing that he was a member of "The Yoko Ono Hated Club." The journalist warned me the concert would probably be half-filled and people might throw bottles at me. I listened very carefully to what he had to say. I have learned from experience to take information of this nature with a pinch of salt. Nevertheless, I invited the musicians into my room. "Listen fellas, I'm sorry but it may be rough tonight. It may be half-filled from the report I'm getting, so I don't want you to feel bad when you suddenly see empty seats from the stage. Also, they may throw bottles at us. It's just a warning I got from one guy and I don't know where he's coming from, but I think we should be careful."
I must say, the musicians were not only top players, but all through the tour they showed an incredibly positive attitude, to the point that everybody around them started to regard them with an extra respect. They were 100% behind the concept of the show as well, but they were nervous before this show. Understandably so. It turned out that the Berlin show was one of the most memorable concerts on this tour. The things that the audience threw to us were encouragements, love and flowers. We were not only relieved, but totally elated.
While dining in West Berlin in a restaurant recommended by the locals, a beautiful blonde girl came in and introduced herself as a friend of somebody I knew. I knew she was legit because I was told about her beforehand. She sat with me while I had my dinner. I cannot tell you who it was, but she was one of the most popular stars in Germany. She was very seriously worried about the world affairs. I asked her how the youth in Germany was feeling about all that. She told me that in West Berlin they were all prepared to die, discussing about the next life, etc. She mentioned that they were angry that the big powers were not very concerned about the fate of Europe. She knew of a children's game that had just come out from USA. It was, she explained, a nuclear war game fought by USA and USSR and the battleground was Germany. She thought this game was an example of how insensitive people in USA were to the European situation. I told her about my experience in USA, where I felt that many, many people were very peace-loving and concerned. But she said, unlike during the Viet Nam war, we don't see an uprising in the USA of a peace movement. I told her that people are people everywhere and that we are all together and somehow we could, together, bring a beautiful future in which we can live in peace. She asked me how I could keep such optimism. I told her that it was the only choice.
WARSAW: I got on the bus again for another 12-hour drive to Warsaw. This time, the musicians took a separate bus as well. None of us trusted the Eastern European planes which we had to take otherwise. The Warsaw concert was probably one of the most emotional shows in the tour. It was so cold in the auditorium, which was a skating rink, we all had to wear sweaters underneath our jackets onstage. What comes back in my mind is the ocean of candles all waving from the audience. Warsaw itself is a city with most beautiful trees which were standing in the snow. It must be beautiful in the summer, I kept thinking. It was like a beautiful black and white 50's film. I remembered that just before I left for the European tour in New York, the road manager explained to me that we will be going from West Berlin to Warsaw. Something happened when I heard that passing remark. I was surprised that tears came into my eyes. It was as if I was suddenly tuned into the long history of pain of those cities and at the time I felt strongly that I was going to Europe to help heal those pains. When I think of what happened in the Warsaw visit, I believe I was right about the healing aspect of the tour. Something definitely warm and beautiful happened there that we will all remember.
BUDAPEST: The Budapest concert has been covered in many ways in the papers and magazines, but one thing that they may not have mentioned is the fact that I have received a Peace Medal on behalf of John Lennon, which is the highest medal given to civilians in Hungary. Also, there were some fans who came all the way from the Soviet Union to see the show. Four guys who came from East Berlin were wearing Yoko Ono t-shirts they made themselves. If you know how far those places are from Budapest, you will understand what this show meant to the Eastern European people. Also, both in Warsaw and in Budapest, we found out that the only way they could go back home that late was to walk or to cycle a long way.
LONDON: All through the tour, everybody was worried about the show in England. We were getting clippings of bad write-ups about our private lives and the tour in Europe all the way from Britain. Why British papers want to write about a tour that was going on a thousand miles away in Europe is anybody's guess. At any rate, with an introduction like that, we knew that the British concert would be tough, to put it mildly. But it turned out to be one of the most exciting shows we'd done on this trip.
All in all, the amount of things I have learned on this trip is just incredible. Learning is not necessarily without pain. They call it the growing pain. If I had just stayed in the Dakota and had made occasional appearances in public without saying anything, I would have of course not gotten any flak. Anything more than that would always be subjected to an attack from somewhere, so I can't be bothered with what people say. They should be upset if I were just sitting in the Dakota after what John believed in: peace and our work.
Way back when John and I had done things together, we noticed tht it was not only hard for us, but it was hard for anybody who loved us and stuck up for us. I guess what I'm trying to do is to thank you for your support and at the same time, to let you know that I know how hard it is to be the Family of John and Yoko.
TO YOKO for caring enough to call in this very special report about her tour. As we all know, the rewards of being part of the Family of John and Yoko far outweigh any frustration that comes with dealing with those who don't understand.
TO BOB GRUEN for donating some beautiful pictures of Yoko and Sean taken during the tour. See our last-minute centerfold. More next issue.
TO THE IK PEOPLE who let Yoko know they were in the audience and who helped to keep us all connected. "No matter how far apart we are, the air links us."