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Rating: Some signs could have been misinterpreted.
Like encountering, a few meters outside the theater, the not quite expected Paolo Liguori, or, just a few meters inside, the more predictable but still not thrilling dj Linus.
However, this is not what we should talk about, nor the icy beauty of the Bicocca district and the Teatro degli Arcimboldi. We must talk about an event. An event that is unmistakable, not assessable either with compromises, false hesitations, or fear of rhetoric. We must talk about that absolute and unforgettable masterpiece which was the David Gilmour concert, on 24.03.06, in Milan. And inevitably and always, we must talk about Pink Floyd.
But the concert starts in a much more Gilmourian than Floydian manner. In fact...: knowing I risk literary vagrancy, I'd dare say that the concert starts in a Deandreian key. Namely: David Gilmour gives the first highly applauded and well-known attack of his Stratocaster in the instrumental “Costellorizon,” a suggestive track that also opens the latest album. Then, exactly as Faber did in the tour of the unforgettable “Anime Salve,” he announces the execution of the entire album in the first part of the concert. Just as it is on the record: same setlist and essentially identical arrangements.
Boring? As much as Faber's case, obviously not. The interpretations are, at most, enriching. The songs live a broad and beautiful life and breath, almost better than the recorded ones. The only small and very appropriate "elongation" of the tracks is the great presence of Dick Perry, a man who anyone unfamiliar with can stop reading and direct elsewhere, with a virtual and friendly kick in the butt. After an hour, twenty minutes of intermission is announced by the protagonist (after all, we are in a theater, right?), spent wandering with a friend and colleague fomenting the common excitement and, I do not deny, in vain attempting to contemplate some beauties from the audience.
But it is when the concert resumes that what was meant to happen unfolds, and the excitement of the first half transforms into pure and uncontrollable ecstasy. “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” is absolutely unprecedented in the proposed form: the introduction recalls the 2002 concert, with the Stratocaster replacing the acoustic. In the typical crescendo, the whole band joins in, and the choirs are, obviously, all male, given the presence of only six musicians on stage. Then, in the second verse, the solitary leader of the introduction returns. Parry closes with baritone and tenor solos. Then it is pure Floydian delirium, much superior and much better, in my opinion, compared to the two "watersless" tours, so much so that the last piece, before the encores, is a justifiably extensive “Echoes,” where everyone, starting with the leader, performs in a form comparable only to the distant years when the track was still performed “live.” A predictable and almost hysterical standing ovation finale.
Two encores, as predictable as they are straightforwardly beautiful: “Wish You Were Here” and “Comfortably Numb,” with the long final solo closing a concert that was nothing short of perfect. Particularly noteworthy is the role of Richard Wright, who, equipped with two keyboards and an electric piano, did his part like never seen in millennia, shouldering almost all the keyboard parts, many choirs, and a couple of vocal interventions as the protagonist (truly thrilling, the one in “Wearing the Inside Out” from “Division Bells,” an album represented by three tracks). Notable was the total absence of tracks from “A Momentary Lapse of Reason” and Gilmour's first two solo albums. So was everything perfect? I'd say, as I have already stated, yes. But, since as a good Piedmontese, I will have to complain about something, I could say the young drummer was at times a bit flat and unable to take off. But only, I think, to the ear of a nitpicker like me. The rest is pure divinity, a worthy conclusion to the guitar week of my life (on Tuesday, I jammed with Braido, but I say it just to boast and I know it's insignificant...).
One last tiny fact, perceived by all: a tour conceived in this way (just like the album) that could slyly have been branded as Floyd without any problem, least of all legal, is simply the work of a great author, a splendid voice, and one of the few truly fundamental guitars in the history of music senselessly defined as lighthearted. All with the absence of the now reconciled ghost of Roger Waters, who we will see at the Arena of Verona, hopefully with equal pleasure, and I hope, though it seems unlikely, devoid of the now reconciled ghost of Gilmour.
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