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Rating: Here I am. One of the very last dates of Manuel Agnelli and company in Italy. The "Ballate per piccole iene" tour that began in the spring of 2005 is about to conclude. After the spring/summer of 2005, the Afterhours have been around the world to promote the album "Ballads for little hyenas" in English in the following year. This spring, they toured Italy singing the tracks from this latest album in English, and in December, Manuel and his associates gave a gift to their fans. The gift was this mini-tour (about fifteen dates in twenty days). In this tour, they pulled out tracks from the hat that they hadn't played for a long time. Songs mainly from their first albums, the less known to last-minute fans like myself.
After this little introduction, let's talk about the concert at Mamamia. The venue was not very full, it was comfortable and spacious. The concert opens at 11 PM with the opening act Giovanni Ferrario alias Micevice. A guitarist in his mid-thirties who presents his songs from the latest album. He appears alone on stage: singing and playing the electric guitar without any other members. He plays five songs, as far as I'm concerned, without praise or blame. Classic rock, classic riffs, nothing new on the front. After half an hour, he leaves and gives the stage to the band everyone is waiting for.
After ten minutes, at 11:30 PM, the Afterhours hit the stage to a roar of cheers. The concert begins with "Elymania", a track from the masterpiece album "Hai paura del buio". The chorus lyrics are wonderful: "You have the revolution in you/convincing me to resurrect/experimental joy/your hands over me/the most genius mistake". They continue with a song they haven't played live in a long time, and the crowd goes wild for "Lasciami leccare l'adrenalina".
The following "Ossigeno" and "L'inutilità della puntualità" are no less in terms of the warmth and sweat that the crowd offers in exchange for the notes of the Milanese band. As usual, there are people in the crowd moshing hard, but being positioned in the second row in front of the amazing Roberto Dell'Era, I don't notice much. Speaking of the bassist, in my opinion, he has a lot of style, he's a true stage animal and is very good at driving the crowd wild with his bass. Manuel, as usual, doesn't crack a smile, but you can tell he's having fun.
Continuing to talk about the setlist, they continue to alternate tracks from the band's early albums in Italian with more recent songs. "Il sangue di Giuda" live is truly powerful, and the entire audience sings it in unison. For the first encore, the After thank the audience with a fabulous "Bunjee Jumping" and a moving "Ci sono molti modi". The first encore concludes with the classic "Quello che non c'è". They leave and return to the stage with Giovanni Ferrario. It's time for "Easy to forget", a song by Ferrario played together with the After with Manuel on piano. Then a boy from the audience shouts "Strategie" and Manuel hears "Le mie zie" and asks Roberto: "They want us to do his aunts?" a
moment of silence and he says, "This is a song by Nomadi... or a song by Nomadi dedicated to their aunts... this song is entitled Le sue zie".
And they start the beautiful "Strategie", also sung by the whole crowd with great energy. The concert concludes with two wonderful covers: "Isolation" by John Lennon and "Satellite of love" by Lou Reed. Manuel says goodbye, thanks, and sets a date for 2008.
It will be very hard to wait a year without seeing one of the best Italian bands live... but who knows if Manuel will present us with some unexpected surprise... we fans are waiting...
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