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Rating: I honestly didn’t think there would be a lot of people at this concert, but instead, we arrive in front of the gates 6 hours before the start and I see that the line is already substantial, so I think: "well, these must be the most die-hard fans, the line won’t grow too much from here to 9:00 PM." Never has a thought been more wrong! We find ourselves in a massive line already 4 hours before, with the cold and penetrating fog characteristic of Milan.
Finally, at 7:30 PM those damn gates open, people run, rush in to get their tickets torn and grab the best seats. By 9:00 PM, the Mediolanum Forum is almost full in the seating areas and packed in the standing areas. Thank goodness the lights are dimmed and someone announces the entrance of Mark Knopfler, who appears moments later in blue jeans, a black shirt, and a conspicuous bandage on his right wrist. He starts with "what it is" and "Cleaning my gun," showing right away that the bandage won’t affect his guitar performance at all, especially since giving Mark a helping hand is a team of 7 musicians, who with mandolins, recorders, violins, flutes, double basses, and second guitars make the songs solid and compact, creating a harmonious wall of sound. Of course, there is no lack of virtuosity from Knopfler, with dialogues, sometimes with the double bass, sometimes with the violin, but he knows when to stop to avoid being boring and long-winded. About an hour and fifteen minutes pass when Mark bids us farewell, and after performing some solo gems (including the unreleased "Privateering") and a couple of Dire Straits pieces (although unfortunately he didn’t do "Sultans of Swing"), he announces that his part is over, thanks the audience, and leaves the stage.
Luckily, it doesn’t take long before they reset the stage and announce the arrival of the minstrel from Duluth. When the lights come back on, Bob appears at the keyboard in a black cowboy suit, Knopfler again on guitar, and a band dressed in elegant, somewhat loose-fitting gray outfits, in perfect 60s jazz-club style. As has become customary on this tour, the two perform a few pieces together, starting with the rough blues of "Leopard-skin pill box hat," a sobbing "It’s all over now, baby blue," and the semi-country "Things have changed," with Mark doing his part before leaving the stage and Italy. Dylan is in shape, you can see it, he makes dance steps that would make Fred Astaire jealous and continues with "The levee’s gonna break," "Thunder on the mountain," and a stunning and irresistible "Highway 61," all enhanced by his exceptional band (with a very southern sound) and particularly by the lead guitarist who invigorates them with new life. It must be said that grandpa Bob no longer sings: he croaks... but he does it in a brilliant way, with a respect for rhythm and intonation that no melodious voice could ever dream of, and perhaps it is also for this reason that many of his classics have been rearranged for over ten years now, sometimes making them unrecognizable, but precisely for this reason justifying yet another performance.
The show closes gloriously with a (against all expectations) recognizable "Like a rolling stone," much to the disappointment of many when it is discovered that he won’t perform "Blowin’ in the wind," which aroused much curiosity among the audience who know full well it would have been a completely new song, with a gospel tendency, but we know, if Bob doesn’t want to perform it, he won’t, and useless are the cries of people wanting him to return to the stage to sing it for us.
The lights come back on, and he has disappeared...those who truly believed he would do an encore are deluded!
The setlists are as follows:
Mark Knopfler:
"What it is"
"Cleaning my gun"
"Sailing to Philadelphia"
"Hillfarmer blues"
"Privateering"
"Song for Sonny Liston"
"Donegan’s gone"
"Marbletown"
"Brothers in arms"
"Speedway to Nazareth"
"So far away"
Bob Dylan:
"Leopard-skin pill box hat"
"It’s all over now, baby blue"
"Things have changed"
"Spirit on the water"
"Honest with me"
"Tangled up in blue"
"The levee’s gonna break"
"Desolation row"
"Highway 61 revisited"
"Simple twist of fate"
"Thunder on the mountain"
"Ballad of a thin man"
"All along the watchtower"
"Like a rolling stone"
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