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Rating: I arrived at the Velvet around 8:30. We got to Rimini the night before after driving a solid 800km from the south. Work obligations prevented me from taking it slow. But I'd sworn that if the FL came to Italy, I would go see them. I had sworn it also because I never ever wanted to feel that "great missed opportunity" sensation again, like the one I felt years before when I didn't go see Tom Waits' concert in Florence (another of my idols).
So, as I was saying, around 8:30 I'm at the Velvet's ticket counter. I didn't expect so many people. After half an hour, the ticket booth opens, and after another fifteen minutes, I'm finally inside. I expected something better for a music temple (a ton of foreign bands, both underground and not, have played here).
The important thing, though, is that I'm here.
About half an hour passes and a tall, blond guy arrives on stage accompanied by his band. It's Brendan Benson. I've heard some good things about him. They say he makes non-trivial melodic rock, and some say his compositions are reminiscent of a young Brian Wilson. Maybe so. But I'm not here for this. I'm here for that gentleman, the one behind the stage, the very one who occasionally enjoys coming out from behind the scenes and, during Benson's concert, cheerfully waving at the audience with both arms in his cream suit, like someone docking at a port aboard a ship.
That same gentleman (Wayne Coyne) who, when the opening concert finally ends, begins to enjoy dazzling the audience with a flashlight while his companions toss huge colored balls into the crowd. All hands up.
It doesn't seem like a concert is about to start but rather a carnival party; it doesn't feel like waiting for a musical performance but rather an entrance to the fairground.
And the clowns arrive, Ivins dressed as a dalmatian, Drozd dressed as a pink elephant. Coyne with a 24-carat smile on his face. I didn't think at my age I'd end up in a place like this.
Everything very beautiful, an unforgettable atmosphere. Perfect, at least up to this point. Unfortunately, what follows doesn't hold up in comparison (ultimately, we can't help but be a bit Leopardian). The fundamental problem is that the acoustics at the Velvet are truly disastrous. The concert starts and, would you believe it, I can't recognize "Fight Test" for at least 10 seconds... Coyne's voice, which isn't very powerful to begin with, gets lost in a sea of noise and distortions. Oh well.
The Lips go through various historical pieces with psychedelic and often kitschy multicolored images projected on the screen, like the Japanese family torn apart during "Fight Test," if I recall correctly, or like the oversized girls doing gymnastics during "The Gash."
"Waiting for a Superman," "Lightning Strikes the Postman" (with the audience immersed in smoke vapors, and with Coyne at the end asking: "Is anybody alive??!"). "All We Have Is Now" and "A Spoonful Weights a Ton" pass, with Ivins showering Coyne with confetti while he sings with a Judy Garland pose in "The Wizard of Oz"... Those same confetti, thrown by Coyne in waves, which envelop the ecstatic crowd during the performance of "Do You Realize." "Yoshimi" comes along with Coyne who becomes a ventriloquist giving voice to a nun-shaped glove puppet (I get why they come so rarely to Italy). And finally, the pulsing eye from "2001 - A Space Odyssey" appears at the end of the "What Is The Light – The Observer" pair (perhaps the best musical part of the entire concert).
It's over, tomorrow awaits another 800 kilometers. I don't know if it was completely worth it. But ultimately, we're all a bit Leopardian...
PS By the way, the band was composed as follows:
Dalmatian: bass, confetti
Pink Elephant: keyboards, sequencers, pre-recorded bases
Session Man: drums
Man in light: vocals, guitars, confetti, fake blood (on the head during the performance of "Yoshimi"), "Happy Birthday" dedicated to someone in the audience.
Everyone (including some from the audience): colored balls and a peace flag (just one).
Finally, if they end up in Italy again, I would definitely go to one of their concerts again (even if they didn't play "The Spark That Bleeds" and "Feeling Yourself Disintegrate"), hoping for a better place to listen to them, as well as see them...
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