Location: Roncade/Treviso, Italy
Concert date: 15.05.2007
Attendance: 200
Ticket price: 20 EUR
It’s honestly incredible how easily Glenn Hughes, after all these years in the business, keeps up a drive that, with the man constantly giving of himself artistically in every possible direction, somehow stays fresh on top of everything else. In fact, you’d be making one of the biggest mistakes of your life if you claimed he’s probably some long-forgotten seventies rock star who spends his free time Sinatra-style, entertaining the residents of retirement homes. Not a chance! Glenn has probably never read that script, which is all too familiar to plenty of his peers. His music is a modern, hard, full-of-life blend of funky hard rock, and his voice is stronger than ever!
The tireless “poppa”, who’s carrying on with the hard graft in 2007 too, clearly trying to make up for his lost years, is currently helping his Italian colleague Matt Filippini promote the Moonstone project. Together with Filippini’s usual lineup, the duo yesterday set the small crowd at the New Age club on fire, mostly young folks and, of course, mostly Deep Purple enthusiasts. Truth be told, I expected more of them, or at least more than showed up for Ian Paice’s drum demonstrations last year. Anyway, we’d all gathered in heavy anticipation of yet another one of Glenn’s “music education classes”, which, if all went well, would no doubt stay etched in our memory.
Surprisingly, it was Comrade Hughes himself who “missed” the lecture, so until he showed up, the local Bruce Dickinson, Marco Simoni, tried, rather unsuccessfully, to pull us into the action. The kid has a great voice, but on stage he came across as way too nervous and lost. On top of that, any vocal style like that, one we’ve heard a hundred times before, is hard to marry with Filippini’s Blackmore-esque strumming, which Matt himself clearly realized, since he seemed very reserved, at least at the start. I could describe the Italian crowd’s experience in much the same way: they clearly don’t know the Moonstone project well, if at all, which is of course very interesting. Opener Not Dead Yet got by on polite approval alone. Passions first flared with the arrival of Pictures, during which Mr. Filippini also started selflessly sharing his talents with us. With his awakening, the whole sound of the band gained energy and determination, which in the end even the most reserved couldn’t resist. On Beggar Of Love, which kept the temperature climbing, the shortcomings of Marco’s singing came through most strongly. The youngster’s voice does groovier, funk-oriented songs like this no favors at all. With shortcomings like that, the choice of songs like The Stealer by the legendary Free remains more or less baffling. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was the only one who didn’t like this treatment of blues rock classics one bit.
From the moment young Marko said goodbye to the delighted crowd, everyone’s eyes kept drifting to the right, from where the well-known figure of Glenn Hughes suddenly appeared. The gentleman strides onto the stage like a true gentleman, first bows politely, picks up his bass, and drops straight into Stormbringer! A blast of energy whose power I’d struggle to describe pulls the entire audience into delirium on the spot. Pure routine, he sucks in everything that moves without the slightest problem. The smooth flow of all this energetic action was briefly threatened by trouble with Glenn’s loose mic, which just wouldn’t stay in place. Glenn, visibly unhappy with the whole situation, at times couldn’t sing at all. Just when it was starting to look like a proper little catastrophe, possible only in Italy of course, the problem was suddenly solved and Glenn was clearly happy again. In fact, The Voice Of Rock was in especially good spirits yesterday: he seemed calm, at times almost serene, controlled when needed, but wild too. Fortunately, there was mostly the latter. Glenn’s Deep Purple set continued with Might Just Take Your Life, Sail Away with Roman’s relentless drumming, and Mistreated, before which Glenn reminisced about June 1973, when he and Blackmore wrote that unforgettable song together. Mainly thanks to its strong emotional charge, closer to the Whitesnake version, it was one of the highlights of the night. You don’t often see Hughes this deeply spiritual. Astonishing, there’s nothing else to add! To present the Moonstone project, Hughes picked Where Do You Hide The Blues You’ve Got. This time only as a vocalist, Glenn shines once again in his vocal split, soulfully gentle on one side and energetically furious child of God on the other, finally losing himself in the fantastically choppy funky rhythm of Gettin’ Tighter, stretched out thoroughly and enriched with a drum solo. Worth adding here that Bolin evidently, and surprisingly well, suits Filippini. The night wraps up with the warmly received Soulmover and, of course, the now-traditional, indispensable fire of Burn, by the end of which there’s nothing left to do but stand in silent admiration, overjoyed to have had the chance to witness yet another one of Glenn’s bits of magic that give you something to think about.
Words: Daniel Pavlica
Photography: Peter Strnad
Setlist
1.Not Dead Yet 2.Pictures 3.Beggar Of Love 4.Stealer 5.Stormbringer 6.Might Just Take Your Life 7.Sail Away 8.Mistreated 9.Where Do You Hide The Blues You’ve Got 10.Gettin’ Tighter 11.You Keep On Movin’ Encore: 12.Soulmover 13.Burn
Photo gallery
