Author: Urban Bolta
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Trieste / Dom pristaniških delavcev (Teatro Miela) / Italy
Concert date: March 5, 2013
Attendance: 250
Ticket price: €35.00
Eminence Ian Hunter’s show in Trieste, part of the new season of the city’s by now traditionally fascinating gigs, was one you’d be crazy to miss! Ian Hunter is a rare guest on concert stages, especially in Central Europe. Your best shot at catching him is on home turf, the British Isles, and even there his shows are more the exception than the rule. Add the fact that the man is 73 and deep into the autumn of his life, and Tuesday’s trip to Trieste’s Dom pristaniških delavcev was pretty much a must for every fan of old-school rock.
So who is Ian Hunter, anyway? In the early seventies he led Mott The Hoople, a band that, despite a short stint on the scene, left a deep mark in just five years and influenced whole generations of musical heirs. It’s no secret that Def Leppard frontman Joe Elliott is a huge fan, and it was reportedly his nagging that led to the long-awaited Mott The Hoople reunion in 2009 – five consecutive shows in London. The media spotlight around that one-off comeback was blinding, Hunter’s popularity rating shot back up, and it put wind in the sails of a half-dormant solo career he’s been on since the mid-seventies. Last year Ian Hunter released a new solo album, »When I’m President«, and on its promo tour he stopped in Trieste too.
A few minutes past nine, right as we arrived at the »scene of the crime«, the opening act of the evening started warming up the crowd: Trieste blues guitarist Mike Sponza, joined on stage by his Austrian colleague »Sir« Oliver Mally. The duo took the nicely packed hall on an hour-long trip through raw, primal blues, splitting the stage duties evenly. Mally took on the crowd banter, while Sponza led the way on solo excursions, where he didn’t skimp on showing off his rich arsenal of skills. Judging by his fingerpicking technique, even Steve Howe himself wouldn’t be ashamed of it. Sponza and Mally built their set from original material, each handling vocals on his own compositions. Their deep, gravelly voices proved that both grew their musical talent listening to the black blues of the Mississippi Delta. The pleasant journey of two musical masters had excellent acoustics going for it, and the seasoned pair, serving up guitar blues with a charm all their own, had the demanding crowd in the palm of their hands the whole time.
After a short break the trio of musicians took the stage and broke the rough silence of the extremely cultured Trieste crowd with the opener Just The Way You Look Tonight from the current album »When I’m President«. Hunter sat in the middle of the stage with his trademark tousled hair and dark shades, joined by two sidemen with eminent pedigrees: guitarist Andy York (John Mellencamp) and double bassist David Roe (Johnny Cash).
In Trieste Ian Hunter kicked off a new European tour, this time completely acoustic. That meant the full, juicy sound of the Mott The Hoople era gave way to leaner but no less interesting acoustic reworkings of old hits, and the songs from the current album (When I’m President, Crazy Horse, Life) were already arranged to fit, which Hunter shook out of his sleeve at an even pace throughout the evening.
In that sense, the mighty, resonant sound of the double bass from David Roe, a master of his craft, was an excellent way to enrich the overall sonic picture. Personally, though, I missed a bigger contribution from keyboards or some other organic-sounding instrument, apart from the harmonica, which the star of the evening skillfully maneuvered the whole time. Long ago Ian Hunter made his name as an instrumentalist precisely as a pianist and keyboardist, so a single song, Dead Man Walking, where Hunter put down the guitar and sat at the keys, was decidedly too little. In close tandem with his right-hand man Andy York, Ian Hunter reshaped some songs almost beyond recognition and gave them a completely new face. One of them was the early solo hit Once Beaten Twice Shy.
Hunter reportedly had minor health troubles that evening, so he wasn’t in the best mood on stage. That was most obvious mid-show while his guitarist Andy York was sorting out technical problems. He could have used the pause to talk to the crowd, but despite all his personal charisma he just stared blankly ahead. Despite these small remarks, there’s nothing to hold against the grand old man of British rock. Vocally he did very decently, especially with his trademark half-singer-songwriter way of delivering lyrics, which has always partly replaced singing as such with Hunter. One of the more interesting moments came with a stylistic about-face and a short dip into country waters with Johnny Cash’s Cry, Cry, Cry, a song on which the rotund David Roe once scraped the double bass. The intimate get-together wound down with the The Velvet Underground cover Sweet Jane, and when the trio came back out they played the most anticipated song of the night, All The Young Dudes, written in 1972 by none other than David Bowie, hoping to give Mott The Hoople bigger commercial success.
Meeting the grand old man of British rock Ian Hunter fed the Trieste crowd’s appetite, though the cherry on top, a livelier performance and more interaction with the audience, was missing. Even so, the trip to Trieste was worth every kilometer driven, because a musical one-of-a-kind like Ian Hunter doesn’t exactly stop »around the corner« every day. Who knows if he ever will again.
Setlist
1. Just The Way You Look Tonight
2. All Of The Good Ones
3. Man Overboard
4. Shrunken Heads
5. Once Beaten Twice Shy
6. Wild Bunch
7. When I’m President
8. Dead Man Walking
9. Words (Big Mouth)
10. Now Is The Time
11. Cry Cry Cry
12. Crazy Horse
13. Michael Picasso
14. Irene Wilde
15. Sweet Jane
—encore—
16. Life
17. All The Young Dudes
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