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Rating: June 11, 2010
3:00 PM: In front of the Gran Teatro in Padua, the location of the Alice in Chains concert, there are 4 of us, and I thought I was late.....
4:00 PM: same location and the same 4 people!
4:30 PM: still the same location, but now the people are 10, 9 women and 1 man; the question arises spontaneously: are AIC playing or Tiziano Ferro????
5:00 PM: Thank God, to dispel all my doubts, young people, representatives of both sexes, start arriving with the t-shirts of our heroes, and even a kid around 10 years old (which gives me a bit - but only a bit - of hope for the new generations).
To make it short, at 8:00 PM, in front of the corridor leading to the stage, excited and thrilled fans (the newspapers later reported that 2,000 of us attended the concert) are ready to engage in the "Run Forrest! Run!" to grab the front row near the stage. At the start, a herd of people pours into the theater, some fall, the more agile cast them quick, sympathetic glances, step over them and rush to occupy the best seats.
After a long wait, our guys take the stage, the set design is minimal, but I doubt anyone cared about that, and they seem pleasantly surprised by the warmth of the audience. The setlist includes songs from all their albums (except Sap); it starts with "All Secrets Known", continuing with "It Ain't Like That", "Again", "Check My Brain", "Them Bones", "Dam That River", "Rain When I Die", "Your Decision", "No Excuses", "We Die Young", "A Looking In View", "Nutshell", "Lesson Learned", "Acid Bubble", "Down In A Hole", "Angry Chair", "Man In The Box". The encore (unfortunately the only one) delights us with "Would?" and the immortal "Rooster".
For most of the concert, the singing of the audience overwhelms that of DuVall and Cantrell, and every person seems to be an integral part of the band, enchanted and delighted by every single note. The 4 Alice are on fire.
About DuVall, there are 2 things to say: either he truly believes in what he does, or he is an exceptional actor. He puts energy into it, interacts with the audience by improvising something like "Padova vi amiamo" in Italian and other things in English, but it doesn't really matter what he says, the audience in Padua is so pumped that, as Andrew Wood once said, I think: "you can tell them 'Your mother stinks!' and they'll reply 'Yeaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!'. Which is probably what happened!
Inez is powerful, smokes, laughs, and you can tell he's having a good time!
Kinney is fantastic but is the most penalized because he's behind the drums and no one notices him, except when before the encore he says something into the mic and everyone, naturally, responds "Yeaaaaaaah".
And finally, there's Jerry. A monster of skill, a bit static on stage, but you can tell he's the one who draws everyone's attention, he's the puppeteer, and we are his puppets ready to move to the rhythm of his guitar.
It all lasts about an hour and a half. An hour and a half of screams, joy, nostalgia, sweat, emotion, and all the most engaging feelings that a lover of good music can experience. At the end of the concert, the judgment is unanimous: pure spectacle, these guys are phenomenal! And there is no need to discuss this!
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