Ana Popovic, Castel San Pietro Blues Festival, 01/06/08

Having seen a concert or two in my life (with Ms. Popovic, that makes 162!), you could say I’ve also seen a few great guitarists here and there. And I have to safely say that 99% of them have been men, until Ana Popovic came along. It was indeed refreshing to see one “hot” female performer (and a great guitarist too!) for once come along on a stage and sort of “knock your socks off”, as was the case with Belgrade’s 32 year-old Popovic!

She’s come along way from her native Belgrade (she lives in Holland and travels with her 5 year-old son Luuk) with her first group Ush in 1998 right up to her latest album, “Still Making History” which was recorded in 2007 at the House of Blues in L.A. (apparently, the album has been in the top U.S. charts for some 14 weeks). And it’s the U.S. which has also helped to launch her career internationally-speaking.

Quite the slide-guitarist, Ana has also played with the likes of Taj Mahal and Solomon Burke. She’s also taken part in the prestigious “Blues Cruise” in 2006 with the likes of Hammond, Cotton, Hubert Sumlin and others. In 2006 she also received 6 nominations at the “Living Blues Awards”, including “Best Live Performer” and “Best Female Blues Artist”.

Quite the honour I must say to see this young female blues artists as the Castel San Pietro gig was her only Italian concert in 2008 before her long and upcoming tour of the U.S. Ana packed quite the heavy punch and concluded her set with Jimi Hendrix’s “House Burning Down”, a song, as she herself said, most appropriate for the situation which had hit her native Yugoslavia years ago and which still today haunts many countries in the world (all pics by M. Rimati).

James “Superharp” Cotton, Castel San Pietro Blues Festival, 31/05/08

The small bath town of Castel San Pietro, located 17 kms from Bologna, hosted for the 12th year its great little free blues festival. The Rolling Stones and John Mayall’s former great guitarist, Mick Taylor, was to have closed the festival, but unfortunately bowed out due to “health” problems (my sources said it was due to drugs). We had already made plans so we decided to check out the festival anyway.

And we’re glad that we did as it was indeed a lot of fun. The Saturday night show included harmonica player James Cotton, a 73 year-old bluesman from Tunica, Mississippi. At age 9 Cotton was adopted by Sonny Boy Williamson II and travelled with the incredible bluesman for 6 years. In the 1940s he hooked up with another blues legend, none other than Howlin’ Wolf, who had also been a strong influence on the Stones. But the greats don’t end there as shortly after he was called up by none other than Muddy Waters to replace Little Walter and Junior Wells. He played with Waters for 10 years until 1965 when he eventually went solo.

Cotton has recorded for some of the most important record labels around, such as Alligator, Blind Pig and Telarc. He’s also won Grammy Awards in 1996 and 2003 and has also been inducted in the Blues Hall of Fame in Memphis, Tennessee. 1977 was the year that had Cotton play together with Waters and Johnny Winter. In his illustrious career, Cotton has played with the Grateful Dead, Led Zeppelin, Santana, Steve Miller, Freddie King and B.B. King.

Unfortunately, throughout the years Cotton’s voice has practically disappeared, thanks also to some rather heavy whiskey drinking. What he lacks now in singing he certainly makes up in harmonica playing. His concert that evening lasted about 90 minutes. Indeed an honour to have seen live such a legendary artist (all pics by M. Rimati)!

John McLaughlin, Udine May 11th, 2008

For only 15 euros (and about 90 minutes’ worth of concert) the great John “Mahavishnu Orchestra” McLaughlin touched down in the small town of Udine (pop. 95,000 souls) with his great back-up band, the 4th dimension, a splendid trio of musicians worthy of the ultimate in funk-electro-jazz music (especially drummer Mark Mondesir)! The 66 year-old English jazz-rock guitarist virtuoso, who once played together with another great icon of the world of music, Miles Davis (whom I had the pleasure of seeing in Rome’s Olympic stadium shortly before he died) and was also part of Davis’s epic album “Bitches Brew” (which also has a track named after him), appeared in splendid form, wearing a simple pair of jeans, a short-sleeve shirt and white sneakers. McLaughlin had also once appeared as a sideman for none other than the Rolling Stones. The stage? Very, very simple, with just the musicians’ instruments (including one smaller drum set which was played by the fabulous keyboard player, Gary Husband) and no fancy lighting à-la-Kiss. Dominique Di Piazza was on bass for the band. According to Wikipedia, McLaughlin is: “.. regarded by many as one of the most influential and technically gifted guitarists of all time, having mastered a remarkable range of styles and genres, including jazz, Indian classical music, and fusion. He has also incorporated aspects of Flamenco music in some of his acoustic periods”.

McLaughlin played some tunes from his new album, “Floating Point” as well as some old material. Personally, at some point in the concert, I felt as though I was almost listening to Pat Metheny (whom I’ve seen only three times so far) in McLaughlin’s music, indeed a worthy “heir” of the great John. It was Mclaughlin’s third visit to Udine and even though the crowd was rather small (made up mostly of folks in their 50s but with also the odd “youngin’” here and there), his performance was no doubt greatly appreciated by the audience at hand. One of his tunes was also “Light At The Edge” by the great old sax player Pharoah Sanders (whom I also saw years ago in Rome).

On an odd note, as we arrived at the theatre at about 8.40 pm, there was John and his band also arriving. I looked at him and said, “But aren’t you ALREADY supposed to be inside”? At which point he looked at me and said, “Yes, I’m going now” (pic by M. Rimati)!

Francesco De Gregori, Spilimbergo (PN): July 30th, 2005

A nice venue in front of the town’s Duomo, the same place where in 2004 I saw Stevie Winwood in concert. De Gregori is Roman-born, a sort of “Bob Dylan” of Italian music. He’s been on the Italian musical scene since 1972. He was joined on stage by a six-piece band, all very, very good musicians (the keyboard player could have been his son!). I personally don’t even own one single album by De Gregori out of some 800 that I have but I must admit that many of his songs are not only quite good but the words are very interesting, some which have even been used throughout the years as Italian political manifestos. At 30 euros per ticket De Gregori played AT LEAST 2 solid hours with one encore. The only negative part was that he didn’t play a song from his latest album, “Vai in Africa Celestino” (which I downloaded on my iPod). Odd rather for such a well-known musician. After the gig we had some drinks in a local bar and the drummer, keyboard player and lead guitarist showed up. I naturally complimented them, especially the drummer, on their great performance.

Patti Smith, Castle of Udine June 28, 2005

Patti Smith’s concert started around 9:45 pm and ended around 11:15. Pretty expensive too, 38.00 Euros, for just 1.5 hours of music! Many in the crowd where 40 and 50 yr-olds. At 59 Smith packed a lot of energy and still had quite the nice voice. She played songs from albums such as “Horses” and “Gone Again” and also proceeded with some older hits such as “Because The Night” (co-written with The Boss), “People Have the Power” (written in 1988. I’m wondering if she got inspiration from Lennon’s “Power To The People” which was written about 11 years before?) and “Gloria”. At one point she sang a ballad and introduced it speaking about the war in Iraq and all the many innocent Iraqis that have so far died there. Smith also repeatedly yelled out during the concert “NO MORE WAR”! At one point, she also sat down at the edge of the stage and took off her boots and socks, not to mention spitting three times from the very same stage down below to where we were sitting (luckily, she didn’t hit any of us)!

She was backed up by four male musicians, one of them was Tom Verlaine. He and Smith go back a longgg way as in 1974 he was on Smith’s 45 record, “Hey Joe/Piss Factory”. Pretty good guitarist so it was indeed an honour to still see him on stage 31 years later. Looking at her with probably the same hairdo she’s had since moving from her native Chicago to New Jersey/New York in 1967, I couldn’t help but wonder just how many drugs she must have consumed in her life (ditto for Marianne Faithful whom I had also seen in Udine awhile ago), not to mention some of the stars she also rubbed shoulders with (Andy Warhol—she’s also a photographer and poet—Bob Dylan and Lou Reed).

And while listening to one of her “harder” songs I imagined her on stage with the following artists: the Sex Pistols and Keith Richards! What a trio that would make (all pics by M. Rimati)!

The Who, Arena of Verona, June 11, 2007

Freddy (Mercury) would indeed be extremely proud of Roger Daltrey (who?). Daltrey is none other than the lead singer of one of the world’s all-time great rock bands of the 60s, 70s and also 80s: The Who. And why would Queen’s former lead singer be proud? Because Daltrey held true to Freddy’s words, “The show must go on”! In Verona’s ancient Roman Arena your concert aficionado took in probably one of the most surreal concerts of his life (certainly after the one by Sir Paul McCartney INSIDE Rome’s Coliseum!): The Who’s performance under a torrential rainfall (the first time for me). Surreal because poor Daltrey, supported by his long-time companion and formidable guitarist, Pete Townshend (the only two surviving members of that band, the other two being bass guitarist John Entwistle and that mad drummer Keith Moon), virtually had no voice left by the end of the concert.

After only five songs into the concert and after a tremendous start, the concert was suspended for one hour as we were all hit by a violent thunderstorm and with some rather menacing thunderbolts too. I was personally optimistic that the show would go on. And it did but with one hitch: Daltrey's voice, as he himself admitted it, had become "cold" because of the long pause and the humidity provoked by the downpour. His voice literally cracked on certain songs and he was seen to be extremely frustrated and even argued with Townshend as he wanted to literally throw in the towel (it looked as though he had told Pete to piss-off, or rather f.-off!). The great professionals that they are, they decided, once the roadies worked to clear the stage of all the water, to continue with the show. They started with “Can’t Explain” and continued with some of their epic songs such as “My Generation”, “The Kids Are Alright”, “Baba O’Riley”, “Magic Bus” and “Pinball Wizard”, a song made famous also by Sir Elton John. But the best was yet to come as everyone in the Arena anxiously waited for perhaps their most famous song, “Won’t Get Fooled Again", a song that was wanted by Michael Moore for his movie, "Fahrenheit 9/11" (but which was diplomatically refused by Townshend). That same song came up awhile ago when a U.S. general, referring to the disastrous war on behalf of the U.S. in Iraq, made reference to the song as a way of saying, “Well, we got fooled into believing that the war in Vietnam had been a just cause, we ain’t certainly going to get fooled AGAIN thinking that this war is just too” (his words were reported in a Time issue).

Their fantastic performance of this song at the 1985 Live Aid concert at Wembley shows Daltrey reaching an incredible peak with his voice towards the end of the song. I personally thought, given the tragic condition of his vocal cords, that Daltrey would miss that peak in Verona. Instead, for the immense joy of all us present, Daltrey, no doubt totally exhausted, came through! No encores, no more songs as Townshend hugged his old chum as though to say, “Well, we did it, didn’t we”? Indeed a moving moment for us all as I would say 99% of us truly appreciated Daltrey's incredible effort. And not doubt also Freddy approved from rock and roll heaven. On a final note, another treat unfolded before our eyes as on drums was none other Zak Starkey, Ringo Starr's son! This was the second time for me seeing Zak beating away on the drum skins as I had seen him a few years ago playing for Oasis in Treviso. How ironic: it was Zak that once said that he didn't think that his father was a great drummer, but instead thought that Moon was much better! And here, almost 30 years after Moon's death, Zak pounded away at those drums in an impressive manner, a manner that also Moon would have appreciated. For me another special moment: it was 30 years ago that I saw the entire Who band perform in Canada shortly before Moon would die, and 30 years ago I had been in the same Arena for another great band: Chicago! Quite the (wet) night (all pics by M. Rimati)!

The Eagles, Rome’s Palalottomatica Arena, May 27, 2006

I must say that close to 35 years, if not more, flashed before my eyes at The Eagles concert in Rome. I say this because a few decades ago The Eagles had actually come to Winnipeg, but the venue for me was not only far away but in a lousy place, so I had decided not to go (if I recall it had rained and the area was full of mud, a sort of Canadian-style “Woodstock”!).

Frey, Henley, Walsh and Smith were all there in rather splendid form. They opened with “Take It Easy” and ended with “Desperado”, with all major hits in between, including the second-last song, no doubt their most popular, “Hotel California” and Henley’s “Dirty Laundry”. The concert was originally to have been staged at the Olympic stadium’s south curve but I figure that they didn’t manage to sell enough tickets, so the venue was changed to the old PalaEur arena, a.k.a. the “Sauna”. Some 8,000 people showed up.

The concert was nearly 3 hours long (the band took a 20 minute break). It was the band’s first-time ever concert in Rome, even though they had last played in Italy some 5 years ago. Bass guitarist Timothy Smith was exactly the same as we first met him 40 years ago—with thin long hair. I must say that Henley was a few pounds heavier whereas Walsh and Frey were in rather good shape. A special treat for me was when Walsh also sang “Rocky Mountain Way”. That song can also be heard as part of the “Spy Game” soundtrack with Robert Redford and Brad Pitt (indeed a great movie on the whealings and dealings of the CIA around the world!). Walsh also used the contraption which Peter Frampton and Bon Jovi’s lead guitarist have used: a tube connected to his mouth and guitar.

I always enjoy watching an American band who is against the current Bush administration: at one point Henley thanked the crowd for being there and then told some fellow Yanks in the crowd to lower the American flag as it was blocking the view of those behind them. Then he added, “We’re present enough in the world…”! When presenting the song which they had written on 9/11, Henley said: “And let’s hope to have wiser leaders in the future”! That was followed by a great roar of applause from the crowd. The band played practically three encores. Definitely a great concert for what we had paid (40 euros). All pics by M. Rimati.