Premiata Forneria Marconi
Live @ Arena Daturi, Piacenza

THE REVIEW

<<Yeah, well comrades, comrades, but then if you don't cough up the money... fuck off!>> 

...

27.90 euros, cost of the ticket.

Me and a pair (well, a pair, more like a dozen) of friends had been organizing for some time...

The intention was to find a weak spot in the Daturi railings to get in without the tedious convention of paying for a ticket, which, given the band’s rather long career (and thus their commendable stash) and our economic precariousness, was really quite tedious. So armed with elbow grease and wire, we had taken care the day before of creating an opening by breaking through the rusty barrier that prevents access to the aforementioned arena from the North side. The operation turned out to be simpler than expected, so after opening the breach, we secured it with wire as best as we could, so it wouldn’t be noticeable. All we had left to do was to tackle the 80% slope that separated us from the field where the event was taking place without being noticed...

Friday, June 12, around 21:00

A pair of smokes, a pair of bullshit stories. Then an unknown youth climbs over, calmly; no one notices, everyone is fixated on the stage, waiting for someone to appear.

...around 21:30

We infiltrate. We roll down the cliff and find ourselves on the grass. We're in.

We sit on the ground, another pair of smokes, another pair of bullshit stories. No one gives us the slightest bit of trouble.

A pair of hours pass... nothing... just a few roadies occasionally going up on stage amidst the roars of the crowd that Mussida has never seen in person, or even if he has, probably doesn't remember.

We start getting pissed off.

Then suddenly someone comes up from backstage, but it’s neither Djivas nor Di Cioccio, nor a roadie. It’s the manager.

<<I regret to inform you that tonight PFM will not perform, because...>>

<<Fuck off!>>

<<...we've been here since 5 p.m. and we still haven't received the amount of money we requested. The ticket price will be refunded at the exit. Good evening>>

<<And this would be rock'n'roll? Fuck off!>>

<<Yeah, well comrades, comrades, but if you don't cough up the money... Fuck off!>>

<<OUT, OUT, OUT>>

But nothing could be done, PFM didn’t play. We managed to take a look at the setlist. They would have started with "Bocca Di Rosa" and "Il Pescatore" and would have ended with "Volta La Carta", then resumed with an encore composed of "Celebration" and "Impressioni Di Settembre". We hit the street acting like fools, but the bitterness just wouldn't leave our mouths. A great band, one of the few that managed to tickle the so different palates overseas, was gone for us at that moment, the moment we realized that music for them had become a job, the moment we realized that 25,000 euros (the proposed fee) our parents, working their butts off, couldn't even scrape together in 2 years, while to them it wasn’t enough to play for one night.

Nothing could be done, PFM gave us the cold shoulder over a matter of money, almost like a frivolous woman.