Lenny Kravitz (support act: Devon Ross)
Sunday, 28 July 2024
Pula / Arena Pula / Croatia
Lenny Kravitz is an American singer-songwriter who has sold over 40 million studio albums throughout his career. His live shows are renowned for their extraordinary energy and vibe — a blend of flawless band tightness, brilliant sound balance, and an intense re-living of the music in performance. Which means he is, in every sense, one of those artists who delivers everything on stage the moment he connects with his audience. It doesn’t stop at words and promises. No, Lenny actually delivers live not just the optimum, but an experience that goes beyond it — pushing all the way toward the maximum.
This year the man dropped the album “Blue Electric Light”, dedicated to his greatest inspiration — his musical guide and mentor, the late Prince. His summer European tour, carrying the same name, was built around promoting that record. But as has become a years-long ritual, both Lenny and his devoted fans know that no tour can survive without a best-of set — one that bends under the weight of his biggest hits. That’s simply what people demand from him.
The show had been completely sold out for a long time. The Arena in Pula is a dream venue — not just because of its status as a monument that ranks among the world’s greatest cultural heritage treasures, but for its acoustics, which in the floor section are basically flawless. There was still a wait before the Grammy winner arrived, though. The stage was first taken by indie and alternative rock musician Devon Ross, backed by her band. Artists like her have been flooding the scene for years now — it’s an impenetrable crowd, verging on chaos. Simple songs, a whimpering vocal, a worn, scratched, mildly heroin-chic look for the band — Devon at the front with a gloomy, serious stare, a howling dead-on rhythmic drive and scratchy guitars. The influence of ’80s post-punk is audible. Since she’s also a model and actress, that fame obviously opens doors to concert stages as well. But musically, she’s a real bore — because, as noted, the scene today is flooded with artists of that exact style: a vast, endless ocean of them. She dropped her debut EP “Oxford Gardens” back in February of this year, and blow me down, the very next day she’s opening shows for Lenny Kravitz. The kind of dream that countless garage-condemned artists — who definitely carry more musical substance and genuine artistic worth — can only wish for. But that’s the brutal world of the music business, which has always picked who’s worth the investment. That would ring almost 100% true this time around, if Lenny’s guitarist Craig Ross hadn’t been involved in mixing the EP — which means she almost certainly got some solid backing from Lenny’s management as well. She and her band presented the EP tracks: Mine Not Yours, Swim, I Don’t Wanna and Killer. Nice enough, decent, but nothing exceptional.
Lenny and his crew jumped straight into the heart of what would be a full two-and-a-half-hour show. With arguably the most charged-up hit of his career — Are You Gonna Go My Way. The Flying V is right there, and that rough, leathery voice of his even more so. A cannonball of chiseled, commanding performance. Here we go! The Arena loses its mind. The crowd is his in an instant. The man is unbelievable. He turned 60 at the end of May this year, yet he moves like a 20-year-old stallion, hungry and ready to prove it. We’re on the threshold of a show that charges you up — the opposite of draining. You know exactly what we mean. So even if you’re not a sworn Lenny Kravitz devotee, the man and his world-class band just hypnotically pull you in and make you one. I fall into that category myself. No expectations. First time seeing Lenny live. He literally killed me. And there probably wasn’t a single person who felt any differently after the show.
Amid the whirlwind of greatest hits, the newer tracks TK421, the dazzling Paralyzed, and the closing gem Human — soaked in a particular emotional elegance — felt as if they had always belonged alongside the peaks of Lenny’s career. Surrounded by an exceptional crew — at one point you could count a full 10 people on stage, Lenny included: longtime guitarist Craig Ross, bassist Hoonch Choi (doubling on keys), the most beloved member of the ensemble — the already iconic, wild-maned and playful drummer Jas Kayser — lead keyboardist George Laks, trumpeter Cameron Johnson, saxophonists Harold Todd and Michael Sherman, and backing vocalists Amiri Taylor and Raheim Taylor — Lenny delivered the best. Everything his audience came for. It was like a hive of furious wasps, with all the heat that only Croatian Istria can dish out at the tail end of July. Girls and ‘more mature’ girls alike declaimed, recited and sang along to everything coming off that stage. Naturally they magnified Lenny’s every move and call with enthusiastic, screaming responses of their own — uninhibited ones at that — which means Lenny stirred passions and emotions, and that is the fundamental mission of any musical artist: to move you. With an arsenal like that, there’s no other way. Still, one track deserves special mention above the rest: Fear from Lenny’s debut album “Let Love Rule”. The man and his band stretched it out to a full eleven minutes. Not only has he rarely played it live throughout his career, but in this very song — and in one single stretch — Lenny and his crew demonstrated tightrope-walking mastery: the astonishing musical polish and cohesion of the whole ensemble. The track was extended into a jazz-funk jam that in its first half opened the door for keyboardist George Laks to improvise freely, while the second half belonged entirely to the horn section, which tore the song down to its raw elements and rode it into a crescendo. All in all, Fear stands as one of the highlights of Lenny’s current tour — where all the quality, unbridled talent, passion and emotion come through directly, forceful and eruptive, building in one place into a massive, avalanche-like surge toward a barely describable, turbulent outpouring.
Through the carousel of hits he played that evening, Lenny also confirmed that as a composer and visionary, he is a genuine stylistic chameleon. The crowd was eating out of his hand. Into the grand finale with Always On The Run, American Woman and Fly Away! Breathtaking compactness and performative tightness. In every sense — and the under-the-skin, almost subconsciously infectious rhythm of his songs is surely the key element driving the seductive spell: the show carries you on high waves of a captivating, one-of-a-kind musical vibe.
The magnificent, moving, and deeply personal Human from the latest album “Blue Electric Light” was saved for the first encore slot, and the grand finale was sealed with the title classic from the debut, Let Love Rule — with Lenny stepping off the stage, crossing the full length of the photo pit, and shaking hands with fans in the front row. A wild celebration. You’d call it a truly unique musical ritual. Two and a half hours, and yet the time flew by in a flash. In the blink of an eye. As befits the name and reputation of this supreme stage performer whom the years simply don’t seem to touch.
In a word: “The best of the best!” All that pre-show euphoria — which, among other things, had people breaking into a cold sweat over how to get hold of any available ticket — was completely justified on this glorious evening at the Pula Arena. From the sold-out venue to all those one-of-a-kind, unrepeatable moments — ‘from here to eternity’ — conjured by the unified, powerful, and beyond-words instant of chemical ecstasy between Lenny and his crowd. Plain and simple. That night at the Pula Arena, you simply had to be there. A bombastic concert experience without equal.
Author: Edita Klemen & Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Edita Klemen
Lenny Kravitz – setlist:
1. Are You Gonna Go My Way
2. Minister of Rock ‘n Roll
3. TK421
4. I’m a Believer
5. I Belong to You
6. Stillness of Heart
7. Believe
8. Fear
9. Low
10. Paralyzed
11. The Chamber
12. It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over
13. Again
14. Always on the Run
15. American Woman (orig. The Guess Who)
16. Fly Away
—encore—
17. Human
18. Let Love Rule
