Author: Urban Bolta
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Padua / Gran Teatro Geox / Italy
Concert date: June 28, 2014
Attendance: 1,500
Ticket price: 62€
Americans have always had a slightly different take on (rock) music than we Europeans do, and plenty of rock giants rose or fell depending on which continent they came from. A whole pantheon of European bands never really caught fire in North America, and the opposite happened too. America, for instance, had a massive radio-rock movement that never got anywhere near the same strength across the ocean. Bands like Boston, Journey, Reo Speedwagon or Chicago, despite their huge success, still tend their careers almost exclusively back home. The chances of one of these giants landing on a European stage are rare, and when it does happen, you do NOT let the opportunity slip through your fingers!
And Chicago, of course, are way more than just an AOR band. They started out in 1967 as a jazz / fusion collective and racked up incredible successes through the seventies. Pressure from the label to chase even bigger commercial success pushed them partly toward pop, and all that genre-hopping paid off with a string of multi-platinum albums that have now reached an unbelievable hundred million copies sold. Lineup changes have blown through the band over the years, but they still tour regularly and put out new albums. The latest, »Chicago XXXVI: Now«, came out in the middle of their current European tour, which made its closest stop to us in Padua, Italy, at the end of June.
Chicago came to Europe with two original members, Robert Lamm on vocals and keyboards and Lee Loughnane on trumpet, while the other two members of the classic horn section stayed home, so the band had to find replacements for them. On stage there was a nine-piece collective in total, delivering a collage of sound that was rich and packed with instruments.
Unlike the Yes show at the Gran Teatro Geox in the same spot a month and a half earlier (read the report here), the hall wasn’t packed to the last corner. The back section of the seating was curtained off, so the feeling of a full house, a must for a proper concert experience, wasn’t lost. Chicago opened with Introduction and Questions 67 & 68 from their cult debut »Chicago Transit Authority« (1969). So the fear that the eighties pop-rock era would dominate over the band’s classic early material was nipped in the bud!
The show wowed with its dynamics. Despite their age and their commitment to a classic musical style, Chicago haven’t forgotten about showmanship, so typical of the American approach to the music business. Robert Lamm in particular, who sang the first big hit of the night, If You leave Me Now, kept urging the crowd to clap along, and the horn section brought plenty to the stage show as well. The trio moved in sync and often wandered all the way to the edge of the stage, where they quickly connected with an increasingly rowdy crowd, mostly gray-haired. The varied stage dynamics were helped along by the way the main players kept passing the baton, as the spotlights, following the songs, always sought out a different combination of central figures. Vocal duties were shared around too. Chicago split the acoustic mini-set that opened the main part of the show into as many as three parts. Bassist Jason Scheff sang Will You Still Love Me?, lead vocalist Robert Lamm took Another Rainy Day in New York City, and trumpeter Loughnane, who was also very active vocally that night, handled Look Away.
Chicago kept looking for the balance between hits and instrumental jams, where the horn section usually came charging to the front. The long experimental piece Ballet For A Girl In Buchannon satisfied every fan of colorful jazz passages and showed the artistic form Chicago once moved in. Next came the single America, one of two songs played from the new album. They filled the chorus with a lovely vocal harmony, but with lyrics that were way too schmaltzy and patriotic, plenty of people in the hall were rolling their eyes for those four minutes. Patriotism, sure, but not at any price. Those of us with an independently functioning brain stem struggle to understand who exactly those lines »America is free, America is you and me« were written to honor. After Lamm took over the vocal duties again, shining above all in the more sensitive eighties compositions like Hard Habit to Break, where the keyboards weave a gentle curtain of sound, Chicago launched into another marathon jam, I’m A Man. In this experimental version of the The Spencer Davis Group cover, the cherry on top was the alternating drum solo from both percussionists, Tris Imboden and especially Walfredo Reyes, Santana’s longtime Cuban-born sidekick, so flirting with Latin melodies was a given.
Then came an unexpected riot! All it took was a spark, in the form of the bravest fans rushing the stage, and part of the crowd got off their butts and stormed all the way up front, so the band drew its energy straight from the pit for the final stretch. After the unforgettable ballad Hard To Say I’m Sorry / Get Away, the show still didn’t want to end. The Americans masterfully rolled one song into the next and wrapped up the evening, after a good two and a half hours, with the dramatic, full 45-year-old composition 25 or 6 to 4.
Fans of the band from near and far got their money’s worth that night, and then some! Even after almost half a century of a career, Chicago remain credible keepers of their rich legacy, so after this charming stage performance, a true marathon, I can write that our western neighbors got another unforgettable concert evening, the kind we’ll be hiccupping over for years to come.
Setlist
1. Introduction
2. Questions 67 & 68
3. Dialogue (Part I & II)
4. Now
5. If You Leave Me Now
6. Alive Again
7. Call on Me
8. (I’ve Been) Searchin’ So Long
9. Will You Still Love Me?
10. Another Rainy Day in New York City
11. Look Away
12. Ballet For A Girl In Buchannon
13. America
14. Old Days
15. Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?
16. Hard Habit to Break
17. You’re the Inspiration
18. Beginnings
19. I’m a Man (The Spencer Davis Group cover)
20. Street Player
21. Just You ‘n’ Me
22. Saturday in the Park
23. Hard to Say I’m Sorry / Get Away
24. Feelin’ Stronger Every Day
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25. Free
26. 25 or 6 to 4
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