Location: Lignano Sabbiadoro / Arena Alpe Adria / Italy
Date: Sunday, 05.07.2009
Chickenfoot is an all-star lineup of veterans made up of Joe Satriani, Chad Smith (Red hot chilli peppers) and fifty percent of Van Halen (Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony), who, after recruiting David Lee Roth again for their recent American tour, surprisingly ditched Anthony too. But if Eddie, Alex and company couldn’t muster the courage to cross the pond this year, that certainly doesn’t go for Chickenfoot, who, together with thousands of good-music-hungry fans, already blew the Rockline crew away at the recent Nova rock festival. This time we caught them in the glamorous Italian seaside resort of Lignano Sabbiadoro, which boasts the most beautiful beaches in Italy, and the venue was fittingly gorgeous too: an amphitheater built in the style of the ancients, gracing the spacious park by the town hall. The band took its stage at twenty to ten.
The album Chickenfoot recorded and released a few weeks ago is, despite enviable production and even better playing, still a bit monotonous and predictable on record, but live it sounds completely different. That’s down mostly to the incredible energy the band members give off and generate, plus their physical shape and vocal flexibility, which are enviable for their age. With his acrobatics, Hagar serves up the best of the Van Halen days alongside Anthony, Smith’s trump cards are his skill and that pinch of Keith Moon madness every good drummer needs to have, and as for Satriani, there’s really no point wasting words. If anyone can stand next to Hagar without fear and step into Eddie’s shoes without an inferiority complex, it’s definitely Satch. His supersonic blues extravaganza has no use for the playful, by now played-out tapping, and his sound, which is considerably more consistent and a bit heavier than Van Halen’s, complements Hagar’s voice much better. Sammy is in great form too, since his vocal cords still hit those vocal ranges with no trouble, the ones we know from the albums 5150 and Live right here, right now, which is nothing but praise.
In a little under two hours, Chickenfoot played the whole album (from Avenida revolution, Soap on the rope and Sexy little thing all the way to Future in the past), accompanied by a few short covers and the obligatory solo spots, in which Hagar joined Satriani on guitar. The ballad Learning to fall also took on completely new dimensions live, letting us relive the best years of Satriani’s solo career and look back with nostalgia on the songs Always with me, always with you and I believe. For the encore, which Sammy kicked off with the sounds of an electric instrument resembling a zither, Chickenfoot also gave us Bad Motor scooter, found on the debut album of Montrose, the band where Hagar started his musical journey, and then the stars said goodbye to Lignano with a deep bow. The show they put on that night, despite not-so-lavish lighting and a lack of pyrotechnics and other visual gimmicks, stunned even the old gig cats. If a band can create, with nothing but its presence and instruments, an atmosphere best described in one word as ecstatic, then everything else is simply unnecessary.
After the show, the Rockline crew finally found, after a long trek around the sprawling park, a hidden, strictly guarded gate that led through tall hedges to the backstage area. There, along with a few other fans, we waited in vain for a photo session and handshakes with the musicians, who, a little after midnight, like true Hollywood stars, settled into spacious limousines with tinted windows and promptly drove off to the hotel for some well-deserved rest. The one bright exception was Satch, who earlier had carefully sidled up to the fence, where his fans were calling for him tirelessly, and generously handed out a few autographs through the bars. That’s the price of fame, I guess, it’s just a shame that it’s mostly the real fans who have to pay it.
author: Tomo Jurca
photos: Barbara Milharčič
Setlist:
1. Avenida Revolution
2. Soap On A Rope
3. Sexy Little Thing
4. Oh Yeah!
5. Runnin’ Out
6. Get It Up
7. Down The Drain
8. Bitten By The Wolf
9. My Kinda Girl
10. Learning To Fall
11. Turnin’ Left
12. Future In The Past
13. Bad Motor Scooter
