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Rating: What a night guys, what a concert, one of the best I've seen recently.
The venue is quite full but it's comfortable, the crowd is very composed.
9:30 PM approximately: the support band, the Enemy, makes their entrance, a side project led by the energetic Troy Van Leeuwen, guitarist of A Perfect Circle and collaborator of QOTSA (also present in the two Italian dates of the Californian band in 2002).
Their sound is a nice rock, very rhythmic, fast, sometimes confusing, but engaging.
They play for a total of about forty minutes, I don't remember well because while they were playing I made a trip to the bar to refuel!
10:15 PM: Explosion of applause! The show begins!
The great Mark Lanegan enters and... surprise... on guitar, who do we find: Van Leeuwen again, followed by the second guitar of Brett Netson, the bass of Eddie Nappi, the drummer Norman Block, and the keyboardist Aldo Struyf (source: www.onewhiskey.com).
Mark begins almost immediately, of course, lights a cigarette and starts with the poignant "Borracho." I'm as nervous as a kid at his first concert, something that hasn't happened to me in a long time! I close my eyes and let myself be carried away by that warm, smoke-infused voice.
They follow with: "Message," "One Way Street," and "Sleep With Me," performed magically, even better than the studio recording.
It's very hot, I'm practically a meter away from the stage, sweat starts to drip from everyone's faces, but the Band doesn't lose heart and continues its journey.
Another cigarette!
After the two ballads "Pill Hill Serenade" and "Wedding Dress," Mark & Co. perform in an almost imperceptible fusion of two tracks: "No Easy Action" and "Miracle"; I and the people around me are visibly pleased with this very technical passage and we look at each other making the classic face as if to say: damn, they play well oh!
Mark is a very cold person with the audience so much so that he only allows himself shy "Thank yous" at the end of a song to immediately start with the next.
The performance continues touching pieces like: "On Jesus’ Program," "Hotel," "I'll Take Care of You" (present in his previous solo works), culminating in "Methamphetamine Blues," present in the just-released EP: "Here Comes That Weird Chill."
At this point, the band takes a momentary pause before gifting us a duet of Mark and Troy with an acoustic guitar!
Cigarette!
They perform "Mockingbirds," one of the first tracks recorded solo by Mark, beautiful, very beautiful, one of my favorites, the audience sings and has fun, laughs and dances, how cool.
Another beautiful technical passage follows alternating in the same track two different pieces: "She Done" and "The River Rise," the audience applauds ecstatically.
We're nearing the end and Mark gives us a few more new songs present on the latest work, finishing the opus with a piece sung in two voices with the drummer of the Enemy.
I look around dazed, as the audience heads towards the exit. I manage to photograph the Setlist, almost getting into a fight to have it! I realize I can't find the friends I was with anymore (I practically lost them at the start of the concert). I sit, I'm tired, sweaty, and drunk on music, waiting for the venue to empty, satisfied, I head towards the exit; what a night guys, what a night!!
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