AC/DC, Datchforum Arena, Milan 21/03/2009

“The greatest band in the world” (a comment by a die-hard fan in the making of the “Rock’N’Roll Train” video) blasted its way through Milan’s Datchforum Arena on March 21^st, 2009, exactly one week before my 50^th b.day. And what a 2^nd awesome and fantastic show it was too (the first one on the 19^th sold-out in just 50 minutes)!

Yes, the boys are definitely back! Angus and his mates showed up punctually at 9 pm. And what a start too: the giant video screen at the back of the stage showed a cartoon version of the boys travelling on a train. As is usually the case with AC/DC and their hidden sexual innuendos (with songs such as “Big Balls” and “Can I Sit Next To You Girl”?), the cartoon showed Angus surrounded by a couple of cute and short-skirted women who mimicked oral sex. The train is seen chugging along at a high speed when all of a sudden it reaches its destination in a final crash. At that point, Brian Johnson, Malcolm (with his traditional sleeveless t-shirt, always his troglodyte and impish-looking self!) and Angus Young (decked out as usual in his schoolboy clothing, cap and all and slightly more than one week away from his b.day on March 31^st), drummer Phil Rudd and bass guitarist Cliff Williams (with his long and grey hair Williams is now pushing 60 along with Johnson who is 62) appeared on stage with the dynamic opening song, “Rock’N’Roll Train”! And the stage’s backdrop? A massive locomotive train with the logo “AC/DC” written on it, what else?

At that point the house, full of some 20,000 AC/DC fans (including yours truly who was about to see them live for the 5^th time, the first having been some 31 years ago in Winnipeg at the Arena with the late, great Bon Scott on vocals), went literally berserk! Quite frankly, a better opening song they couldn’t have chosen. The kids who were surrounding me on the ground floor informed me that their eight-year absence from the world stage was due to an injury that Williams had had to his wrist. And we all know that a guitarist without a properly-functioning wrist is pretty well useless. My sources told me that Williams had to pretty well re-learn how to play the bass guitar, ergo the band’s absence for such a long period. Rudd also came back to the band many years ago (in the 1990s) after some health problems tied to hallucinations (so they say). I also asked my sources about this thing about him having had a physical confrontation with Malcolm. Apparently Rudd had made a move on Malcolm’s niece, or something of that nature. Nevertheless, here they were once again all together and “alive and kicking” and in the flesh for all of us to see up close!

The following song was a Bon Scott oldie, “Hell Ain’t A Bad Place To Be”, followed by a song from what many consider their finest album to date and the one with Johnson on vocals for the very first time since Bon’s death (even though I think that “Highway To Hell” is their all-time greatest album, an album that is now 30 years old!), “Back In Black”. In the meantime, Angus was strutting around the stage using Chuck Berry’s classic “duck walk” which has inspired so many rockers around the world (as Angus himself said in an interview, when they used to perform live at the beginning of their career Berry’s music is what they played the most. Ditto for another great group, The Beatles who played Berry’s music constantly during the early 1960s).

The rest of the set-list (which I had a copy from a rock magazine), consisted of the following outstanding tunes:

-Big Jack (from their latest album, “Black Ice”)

-Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap (a Scott oldie)

-Shot Down In Flames (ditto)

-Thunderstruck

-Black Ice (the title of the latest album)

-The Jack (this is Australian slang for venereal disease. As the song was being played the three screens zoomed in on some of the fine-looking ladies in the crowd. Poor things though: I wonder just how many really understood the true meaning of the song! At this point Angus performed his now-famous striptease with his now-famous “mooning” of the crowd, leaving him this time in AC/DC underwear. In other concerts he’s also shown the crowd his bare ass!)

-Hells Bells (with Johnson swinging from the bell’s hangman’s cord)

-Shoot To Thrill (one of my all-time favourite songs. At 62 Johnson was STILL at his best with this song!)

-War Machine (from their latest album)

-Anything Goes (ditto)

-You Shook Me All Night Long (one of their “funner” tunes)

-T.N.T. (another Scott oldie)

-Whole Lotta Rosie (from the pics you can see old fat and sexy Rosie in the background. Another great AC/DC-Scott song!)

-Let There Be Rock (perhaps the “Bible” of AC/DC songs. At this point Angus strode down the short ramp from the main stage, got up on a pedestal and was raised a few feet in the air for everyone to see him. Having seen this already in the great “Stiff Upper Lip” video which was shot at the Olympic stadium in Munich in 2001, as I got to the Arena I knew immediately what was going to happen during the show, so I got positioned close to the pedestal to try to get some good shots of Angus).

The show closed with that song. Their encore came about not even 10 minutes after. It consisted of my all-time favourite song (together with The Beatles’s “Hey Jude”), “Highway To Hell”! And for this song Angus came up from underneath the stage surrounded by smoke and flames and wearing his classical horns (the plastic ones, made in China, which were on sale in the Arena for 5 euros, the ones that also light up! Naturally, I had to also buy a pair). Quite the emotion singing along to that song with 20,000 other people. It couldn’t have gotten ANY better than that!

The true businessmen that they are and the “tight” band that AC/DC really is (as Keith Richards, one of their fans, once said about both Malcolm and Angus), the very final song was their calling card: “For Those About To Rock (We Salute You)”! In 1991 at the spectacular Monsters of Rock show in Modena (with on the very same bill Sepultura, Black Crowes, Metallica and AC/DC), the band had set-up on top of the truly enormous stage 21 canons for the famous 21-gun salute during that song. Seeing that the Datchforum is much smaller, the stage had six canons this time, but that went off VERY loudly just at the right time after Johnson yelled out “Fire”!

The so-called AC/DC “mass” was now over. All fans, including this one, could now go home in peace (even though a very young Italian couple stood around hoping that they’d still come on for yet another encore, at which point I told them: “You can wait until tomorrow but they ain’t coming out because they ALWAYS end their shows with that song”!). It was now 11 pm, a solid and highly volatile two-hour rock show had unfortunately come to a close. And how was Angus? Well, with just a few small inches of fat around his waist, he was in a superb duck-walking form (an honour a few years ago that I actually got to see Chuck Berry live in Rome. At 79 years of age he performed the duck-walkfor about 3 seconds!) and, sweating profusely, still full of high voltage rock’n’roll in his veins. My sources also told me jokingly that if Malcolm and Cliff were to exchange positions (looking at the stage Malcolm always stands to the left of Rudd while Cliff is on his right), they wouldn’t know how to play! And it’s perhaps true as for the last 35 years or so that’s exactly where they’ve always stood on stage, sort of as guardians guarding the queen on her throne, in this case Rudd being the queen (who is one of my favourite drummers in the world as he isn’t flashy and always manages to keep that great old rock’n’roll beat). Speaking of which, Rudd is now the third AC/DC drummer that I’ve seen so far. In the 1980s I saw the band at the old Montréal Forum with Simon Wright on drums (he’s part of the “Who Made Who” album which is part of the soundtrack of the film based on one of Stephen King’s novels on trucks which go berserk. King by the way is also an AC/DC fan) and in 1991 at the Modena show I saw Chris Slade behind the drum kit (his is also an extraordinary performance which was eventually turned into the video from the 1991 Donnington show).

Age can at times also bring respect from the youngins: I got to the Arena at around 6 pm. While standing around and (very) patiently waiting for the clock to tick by, I was talking to some of the other fans, many who were much, much younger than me and who would be seeing the band for the very first time in their lives. When I told them that I was about to see them for the 5^th time and that I had also seen them with Bon, they were all ears and quite envious of the fact that I had had the privilege of even seeing them with poor old Bon. I had after all last seen them live in 1998 at Rome’s Palaeur arena. From a historical purpose and given the fact that I saw them exactly one week before my big 5-0 b.day and we had all waited some eight years to see them live again, well, this was certainly THE best concert so far of the 179 that I’ve seen to date!

On a final note, Bon once sang a very appropriate song which pretty well applies to all bands such as The Beatles, the Stones, The Who, Genesis Oasis, etc.: “It’s A Long Way To The Top If You Wanna Rock’N’Roll”! In the case of AC/DC it’s certainly true as pretty-well everywhere in Europe (and also elsewhere around the world from what I’ve heard) they’ve sold-out ALL of their shows. But they deserve that and all the money people like me and a zillion others around the world have dished out for Angus and Co. as they’ve certainly made it to the top of rock’n’roll, along the way making millions of fans happy too (all pics by M. Rimati)!

The Answer, Datchforum Arena, Milan 21/03/2009

The Answer, a VERY hard rocking band from Belfast which opened up for AC/DC (actually, not bad for a back-up band as many usually really suck). The lead singer of this four-piece band belted out songs like Led Zep’s Robert Plant. Their repertoire was short actually, a mere four songs, but no doubt more than one person downloaded one of their tunes after their rather fine performance (all pics by M. Rimati).

Renzo Arbore e l’Orchestra Italiana, Teatro Sistina Roma 14/03/2009

A packed house (mostly with old folks and ex Italian movie stars) who took in this splendid three-hour concert with Renzo Arbore and his outstanding 15-piece band. Arbore entertained all of us with some traditional Neapolitan songs as well as Roman and American ones. The show actually began with scenes of Arbore’s concerts around the world, including China. This naturally made the Chinese ambassador happy as he and the director of the Japanese Cultural Institute of Rome were in the crowd. Arbore, an old master of musical diplomacy, managed to also muster up something in both Chinese and Japanese. He also wouldn’t quit as he came on for about four encores. No doubt Neapolitans are always touched by his melodic songs as he tours the entire world with this marvellous band (all pics by M. Rimati).

Oasis, Palaverde Treviso, 21/02/2009

You have to love those two rascals of rock`n`roll, Liam and Noel Gallagher and their band Oasis: They certainly know how to pack `em in and how to put on a great show! After their sold-show in 2005 in the very same venue in Treviso, home to the mighty (and very rich) Benetton family, the band from Manchester (die-hard City and NOT United fans by the way, as they always like to point out) again filled Treviso`s Palaverde arena with some 5,000 fans. Oasis management this time was pretty picky with photographers (according to my contact they eliminated 12 of us) but thanks to this darling contact of mine at a local concert promotion company, I got to go for free as part of the “press” (a nice saving of 45 euros!).

What with all the new technology vis-a-vis cell phones, it`s viturally impossible to prevent anyone from taking pictures at concerts any more, so I managed to get a shot or two with my Nikon D-60.

It`s quite an honor actually to see the two brothers up on the same stage as they`ve been known in the past to go off into separate directions on their international tour dates (such as once when Liam remained at home while Noel went off to the States with the rest of the band). Quite amazing also to see Noel on stage and not in any apparent way traumatized by the adoring fans below his feet: some may recall that on September 7, 2008 during a show in Toronto 47 year-old David Sullivan jumped up on stage, attacked Noel from behind and threw him below onto the speakers! Sullivan was also ready to pounce on brother Liam until the roadies managed to subdue the crazy fan.

Their quasi two-hour show included one of my all-time favorite Oasis songs, “Lyla”. They also sang a favorite of fans worldwide, “Wonderwall” and one of their best-loved hits of all time, “Champagne Supernova”. No Zak Starkey (Ringo`s son) on drums this time as for the 2005 show (great treat for me back then!). His place this time on the drum skins was taken up by Chris Sharrock , Robbie Williams`s former drummer, and regular band members Andy Bell on bass and Gem Archer on guitar, two very cool dudes, to say the least. George Harrison`s “clone” was again, as in 2005, on keyboards (I`m wondering, given their great admiration for the Fab Four, if they`ve dressed this guy up exactly like Harrison on purpose, so similar is he to the real version). They also sang a whopping six songs from “Dig Out Your Soul”, their latest album followed by up to four encores.

As folks may (or not) know, both Liam and Noel are great fans of The Beatles (I believe Liam`s son is named Lennon in honor of John), and even though Liam is one cocky son-of-a-bitch (to this day he STILL believes that Oasis is the “greatest band in the world”. Hard to blame him as they`ve so far sold 65 million records around the world), I personally love the boys for that simple reason, and I was CERTAINLY satisfied as their last encore was none other than “I Am the Walrus” from the Beatles` Magical Mystery Tour album (I also have the video of that movie and the clip for the Walrus song certainly does creep up in a lot of Oasis songs)! All pics by M. Rimati.

Gianluca Grignani, Teatro Giovanni da Udine, 16\02\09

A 90 minute concert with just one ancore for this 37 year-old singer from Milan. As a youngester he was influenced by The Beatles and by The Police. Grignani has appeared four times at the famous San Remo Festival which takes place every year in February. Grignani was supported in Udine by a five-member back-up band during his Udine concert. Given the singer`s rather good looks, there were more women than men present at the concert! The songs weren`t bad, even though many sounded the same as all the others. At one point, he began talking about politics which is always somewhat of a problem in Italy as there`s no way out of the situation, dead or alive. His past has also included some encounters with cocaine plus a suspended driver`s license for excessive alcohol use. Grignani has also been the target of Italian satirical shows and recently verbally attacked a fan from the stage. The concert was ok, but not one of the best that I`ve ever seen (all pics by M. Rimati).

Vasco Rossi, Stadio Friuli Udine, 12/09/08

Great show in Udine’s Friuli stadium by Italy’s veteran 56 year-old rocker from the town of Zocca, located in the Modena area of the country.

Rossi, a former radio disc jockey who began singing at the end of the 1970s, attracted some 30,000+ people to Udine’s stadium, just two days after the 2006 World Cup winners, the Italian men’s national soccer team, played in front of 30,000 in a 2-0 victory over tiny Georgia for the 2010 World Cup qualifier in South Africa. And the fans for Rossi came naturally in all sizes, shapes and colours (some fans lined up as early as 3am on the day of the concert, which took place at 9pm that evening, while others included dads and moms who accompanied their teenage kids!).

The only major drawback to the show, which had quite the impressive stage, was the lighting, or rather, the lack of it: the Udine area got hit shortly before Rossi’s show by high winds (80 km/hr) and heavy rainfall which ended up pretty well knocking out the delicate and intricate lighting software/hardware. The show wasn’t totally in the dark mind you, but had the rain not fallen that evening, no doubt Vasco’s performance would have been even MORE spectacular than it actually was. Vasco, affectionately called “Blasco” by his armada of devoted fans throughout Italy (some came as far as 1,000 kms!), was wearing his traditional greenish-olive cap, a leather jacket and a t-shirt underneath with the letter “V” emblazoned on it. This tour was part of his latest album, “Il mondo che vorrei” (The world that I’d like to have) and included new and old hits, such as some of my favourites, “Gli spari sopra” (the video was shot in Los Angeles) and “Rewind”.

Blasco concluded with the soft and beautiful ballad “Vivere” as his encore. The show went on for nearly 3 hours and no doubt left NO fan unhappy after having paid 40+ euros to see him. Fans just under the stage were treated to a further delight: at one point the “old” rocker (together with Luciano Ligabue, the two are the closest thing to an Italian version of Bruce Springsteen) threw his cap to the audience below, then his a long coat-like shirt and then finally the very t-shirt that he was wearing, leaving him as a Tarzan-like figure on stage. Well done Blasco, no doubt Udine will always be happy to see you sing again (all pics by M. Rimati)!

Gianna Nannini, Villa Manin 03/09/08

Italy’s 53 year-old rocker Gianna Nannini packed a small and yet mighty punch in front of about 5,000 fans at the splendid Villa Manin venue near Udine. Nannini, who is the older sis of former Formula 1 driver Alessandro (anyone remember him? He had had an accident with the family’s helicopter and ended up having his forearm severed by the helicopter’s blade), is perhaps Italy’s most famous female rocker who began her long career back in 1976 (she’s also famous because along with a Neapolitan singer. Edoardo Bennato, she sang the popular theme song to the 1990 Italian World Cup, “Notti Magiche”, which was actually the first time in World Cup history that the major soccer event really had its own theme song. Your correspondent STILL has fond memories of that great sporting event as he was not only Korea’s interpreter but he took in several matches, such as the Argentina-Cameroon opener in Milan, the semi-final between Argentina and Italy in Naples and the W.Germany-Argentina final in Rome).

The V.M. concert opened, luckily on time, with “Mosca Cieca” and followed with some of her older hits, such as “Bello e Impossibile”, “Radio Baccano” and “Sei Nell’Anima” all the way to more recent hits such as “Io”. A nice ditty was “Meravigliosa Creatura” which the folks over at Fiat’s advertising company have recently used to launch on tv. networks one of their newest cars. Gianna was backed up by 6 fine musicians who helped her through a 90 minute show. Apparently, on May 24, 2008 at Monaco’s Olympiastadion, Gianna’s energetic performance even impressed a fellow by the name of Bon Jovi as she opened for him in front of some 60,000 people. She’s also one of the few musicians in Italy who also happens to have a university degree (University of Siena, 1994). She’s also sung together with Paolo Conte (all pics by M. Rimati).