Venue: Piazza Unita / Tarvisio / Italy
Concert date: 28.07.2009
Attendance: 3000
Ticket price: €46
All the poor souls who banged their heads against the wall in disappointment after Lenny Kravitz’s June show at Hala Tivoli got cancelled soon got a fresh shot at seeing their idol in action. After scrapping three dates on his summer European tour, Lenny Kravitz booked himself a camp-out in Tarvisio for the end of July, just a stone’s throw from our beautiful homeland. Naturally, hopping over the border instantly became mandatory for the RockLine crew too, who were surprised to barely spot a single car with Slovenian plates anywhere around Piazza Unita. Apparently, for the couch-potato backsides of Slovenian gawkers, the photographic ones included, Tarvisio is just too exotic a destination.
Experience has shown that Lenny Kravitz has pulled off, fairly smoothly and without any major shake-ups, the already tricky metamorphosis from hardy rocker to harmless pop icon, a guy who fires off instant sedatives for the teenage crowd. Though from a die-hard rocker’s point of view the situation was far from critical (Kravitz sawed through the night with swagger and no mercy, along with a bunch of thrilling improvisations), on Wednesday night most of the fists in the air were understandably raised for Kravitz’s newer creations, which, unlike their older siblings, proudly show off their affection for the popular tricks Lenny has been using in recent years to sweet-talk the less demanding tastes of the wider masses. At least until last year’s creative awakening with the album It’s Time For A Love Revolution (RockLine review here). Lenny managed, in grand style, to smooth over the differences in substance when serving up the highlights of his own discography. You could say the symbiosis came about as part of a musical, and above all spiritual, rebirth, which shows in the musician’s convincing stage presence, one that rarely fails to draw an emotional response from the crowd.
Wednesday’s Kravitz show in Tarvisio was the last one of this year’s European tour. For his farewell to the old continent, Lenny obligingly laid on a first-class demonstration of old-school rock & roll that, together with the charismatic musician’s deeply felt approach, hit straight between the eyes, with no frills and none of the tacky clutter you might well have expected from an evening with the man. From the opening Freedom Train onward, Kravitz’s backing band ran like a well-oiled machine, with wide-open channels of lively communication, usually kicked off by some especially perverse gesticulation from Lenny’s side. In between, frequent solo excursions by individual players added to the vital sound picture. The saxophonist and the in-great-spirits guitarist Craig Ross diligently handled the playful melodic filling-in of the Kravitz caravan’s sound, rubbing in one musical innovation after another. The two gentlemen had a free hand for their improvised shenanigans, which can be read as yet another proof of Kravitz’s musical persona shifting, since instead of the stage role of multi-instrumentalist he’s now content with carrying the role of frontman alone. A bold marketing move that surely cheated the musical connoisseurs out of a nibble of some improvised Lenny “treat” that us music enthusiasts stubbornly waited for.
But never mind! With a stunning display of stage power, Kravitz undoubtedly justified the deliberate negation of most of his own musical talents. Live, Lenny seems reborn. His main instrument remains his voice, which now once again radiates remarkable power and recognizability, and after the debacle we witnessed at the crumbling Bežigrad stadium in 2004, that’s surely the most important gain. With a refreshed image that meets all the standards of a modern pop icon, yet with a repertoire still served straight from the heart, Lenny took the crowd on a journey that squeezed him dry down to the last atom of strength. Kravitz threw absolutely everything he had into the heat of Wednesday night, and his devotion was obvious at every point of the evening, whether on reconciliatory numbers like I Belong To You and I’ll Be Waiting, not to mention the soulfully restrained Believe, which quickly spun their own emotional bridges to the audience, or while stomping through the uncompromisingly built rock structures of the brand-new Bring It On, Are You Gonna Go My Way, and of course the indispensable funk rock standard Always On The Run.
Wednesday’s concert undoubtedly delivered a hefty surplus over the expected pop-rocker grind, while also driving home just how unique Lenny Kravitz is. It’s worth stressing that live, Kravitz shows not even a hint of the self-absorbed starlet image that now and then shamelessly “oozes” out of some of the official “photo session” pictures. If anything, Kravitz first and foremost nurtures a personal, noticeably unforced relationship with his own audience. What we saw at the end of the show speaks in favor of these lines, when Lenny climbed down from the stage and cheerfully shook hands with a few lucky fans and “doled out” a hug or two (the guy with the camera in his hands collected a few more souvenirs for the web archives while he was at it), and in the end it’s the two closing encores that say the most, with which a visibly exhausted Kravitz gladly returned the favor for the warm welcome from the gathered crowd.
Photos: Mojca Perdih
Setlist
1. Freedom Train
2. Bring In On
3. It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over
4. Where Are We Runnin’
5. Flower Child
6. I Belong To You
7. Believe 8. Dancin’ Till Dawn
9. I’ll Be Waiting
10. Always On The Run
11. American Woman
12. Fly Away
13. Let Love Rule
14. Are You Gonna Go My Way?
Photo gallery
