Location: Roncade (Treviso, Italy), New Age Club
Concert date: 15.03.2005
Attendance: 1000
Ticket price: 25,00 €
After a three-month drought, finally something real! A proper band-aid for the wound left by the cancelled Asia show in Ljubljana. Where’s Treviso? Really close. Dead simple if you stick to the motorway, a mess once you leave it. We got lost again like it was a bet, but that’s long been business as usual for the well-oiled trio of Peter, Thomas and me. But as fast as we get lost, we always find our way out of a tight spot too. Italian road signs, in all their glory.
At 20:00 we were standing in line at the box office. This one’s worth knowing if any of you ever travel to New Age for a gig. The Italians have this nasty habit that anyone who wants to cross the threshold of New Age has to pay an annual membership fee first, which comes to 9€ and a half. Of course we nagged the guy at the box office that we only wanted to buy a ticket (Mind you! For a measly 20,00 €). “Eeee….!” the kid at the box office started, waving his arms around. Then he shrugged and trotted off to the security guard. Judging by what I’d seen, I’d already started digging through my wallet for those ten European coins, when the kid came running back and explained that before going into New Age we should hand our ID cards to the security guy, who would give them back after the show. And that was that. No membership fee for us “particularly resourceful” foreigners.
After we’d been politely served a well-earned beer, the lizards (The Lizards) wandered onto the stage around 21:00. No joking around with the “little reptiles”, since their lineup features two big-sounding names and highly respected musicians. The first is a true rock legend, the excellent drummer Bobby Rondinelli (ex-Rainbow, ex-Balck Sabbath, ex-Riot, Rondinelli – I warmly recommend the album “Our Cross – Our Sins” if you don’t know it), who reportedly left yet another big band he was a member of not long ago. Blue Öyster Cult, so that he can dedicate himself 100% to The Lizards. The other big name is Mike Dimeo, former Riot singer, whom we got to see in Ljubljana a good five years ago at K4, when Riot played as the opening act for Agent Steel (30.01.2000). Back then Mike still hadn’t shaved his head, and Slovenia was still seeing plenty of proper rock concerts (Yes, Steve Vai, Jethro Tull, Sting, Iron Maiden, Dream Theater, ah, those beautiful days). Enough crying! The rest of The Lizards is made up of guitarist, composer and arranger, “studio jack-of-all-trades” Patrick Klein (with a Gibson SG guitar, red like Santana’s or Tony Iommi’s) and band leader and bassist Randy Pratt, who’s known for owning one of the biggest collections of handmade bass guitars in the world.
So, finally, after a long time, a support act made of the right stuff, and none of those “third-rate” local bands that just eat up the time of the waiting crowd and make your hair go gray and fall out at double speed. Okay, The Lizards first made people take notice with Bobby Rondinelli’s imposing drums. The man has just one rack tom, two floor toms, of course a gigantic snare drum, and he’s surrounded by a pile of every cymbal imaginable, and a huge gong wasn’t missing either. Another thing was the image. “Reptilian”, of course! The guys went for a total seventies look, shirts with psychedelic patterns, Klein especially reminded me of some Pink Floyd guy, and Pratt wasn’t lagging far behind either.
They “chirped up” the evening with a repertoire that we can call classic hard rock without mincing words, grown on the foundations of the giants of the seventies, above all Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and Rainbow. The performance was electrified to the max. Dimeo was on fire, singing in every register, decisive and full-throttle. The singer has a polished voice, his lines at times pull toward Robert Plant’s (careful, the voice is completely different), and otherwise he comes very nicely close to someone like Tony Martin (as far as vocal color goes), which is no small feat. Of course the biggest attraction among all the lizards on stage was Bobby Rondinelli (I immediately thought about how much more crackling and flashing there would be if Rondinelli played on this tour for Glenn Hughes). Rondinelli is a special drummer. His hit is like a lightning bolt out of the clear sky from thunderer Zeus himself. Non-stop torpedoing and bombing in a recognizable style and sound. Rondinelli is a magnificent drummer. Especially magnificent in that he’s capable of extraordinary control of motion, particularly of his jerky swings. That’s why he needs very little room for every bomb. He efficiently fills every last bit of space offered to him within the fills, with the extreme detonation of his snare rattling, tastefully, always differently. So, to “hammer out” his repertoire he doesn’t need to chase flies and butterflies around in the air, he plays seemingly very soft and simple, but the effect is sonically downright devastating. A true, genuine school of hard rock drumming. No wonder the riff giants Iommi and Blackmore both wanted him by their side. Rondinelli ritually chewed his toothpick during the show this time too.
The Lizards blazed with their professionalism, stage perfection and tightness. The sound was great, apart from a few resonant moments when my trousers were properly shaking and the bass guitar was cutting through the mix. One of the highlights was the witty instrumental Hyperspace, which Pratt opened with a harmonica and Dimeo stepped behind the keyboards for. In the middle of the set Bobby had a short solo spot, which then morphed into the atmospheric, dark number We Are Dinosaurs, with especially accentuated heavy, steely, metallized sounds, where you can actually picture a march of a horde of “T-rexes”. Real drama is captured in this song! Rondinelli smacked the gong good and hard several times for the occasion! From their current studio album “Cold Blooded Kings” (2004), The Lizards also played The Opal Crest Of Zed and Down. They closed the show with a brand new song, I Can’t Fool Myself, with an outro reminiscent of You Fool No One by Deep Purple, which will appear on the band’s next studio album. And so the show was over. In one hour The Lizards properly warmed us up with one of the finest classic hard rock excursions my eyes and ears have caught these days.
And then came Glenn Hughes. Ladies and Gentleman! Would You please welcome the voice of rock, Mr. Glenn Hughes!” Yes, even today this bold sentence holds up against all counterarguments!
Glenn Hughes strode onto the stage with his companions, grinning cheerfully, dressed like a proper gentleman in a colorful shirt and vest. Of course, jeans were a must, and for an even funkier look he put on glasses with purple lenses. The band is actually the same as last year on the Hughes Turner Project tour (the project of two great rock singers, Glenn Hughes and Joe Lynn Turner). It now features the by-now fully trusted Joakim Marsh (or J.J.Marsh for short) on a Gibson “Flyin’ V” guitar, keyboardist Kjell Haraldson and Thomas Broman on drums (obviously the Swedes are the most obedient workers, if we think back to 1994, when Hughes was accompanied on his tour by all the then-members of Europe).
The legendary musician attacked head-on with material from his latest solo record “Soul Mover” (2005), and right away with the title track. The band immediately built a solid, tightly wound groove that tipped over into the funky Orion with its impressively crafted riff, which Hughes particularly enjoyed on stage and which fired up the tempo of the show even more. After Land Of The Livin’ came the first “Purple Mk. III” resurrection.
J.J. steps forward, takes his time in the intro and treats himself to a totally original solo (off the top of his head), and then all of a sudden slides into that mysterious motif of the song Mistreated. Glenn opens his mouth.,….brrrrrrr, I still get chills! This dude sings better today than ever before. How immersive, how refined and subtle, constantly on the right edge between total disconnect and composure, nonstop extravagant acrobatics from killer high clean screams to passionate swaying across the lower sequences. Glenn kept playing with a magic little box under the microphone, which turned out to be nothing other than a wah effect, coaxing contrasting sonic inserts out of his bass guitar. At the end Glenn treated himself to a real soul-gospel finish, contrasting winding extremely high lines with low ones, accompanied by Kjell’s keyboards. And that was without a doubt the first peak of the show. J.J. was brilliant, nailing the original Blackmore playing perfectly, and the band came enviably close to the original.
Let It Go, a song from the latest record, hit especially hard among the newer creations in all its atmosphere and the singer’s immersion. The song is about forgiving yourself, how to overcome the feeling of guilt, get past it and outgrow it. Typical Hughes messages, while before High Road, which followed, Glenn explained to the audience that the essence of it all is “liberation”: “Freedom is a key word! It is all about freedom!” How to live your principle and accept everything that surrounds you, find inner peace and be happy. In passing, Glenn mentioned that this year is one of the most beautiful and happiest of his life. The guy was playful on stage the whole time, smiling, open to any joke, among other things he asked the crowd how many of us were half gay and then embarrassed all the band members with that question, while he added that there’s a little bit of gay hiding in each of us anyway. As for how Glenn mocks the Japanese-speaking inhabitants of planet Earth, I’d rather not go there, because I still nearly pee my pants laughing just remembering that “bonus” intermezzo of his.
“Medusa is a song I wrote when I was 17!” Glenn said by way of introduction, and then came a song from Hughes’ Trapeze era. A progressive, slightly psychedelic excursion (especially as far as the keyboard sound goes), full of motivic turns,…an excellent choice for swinging the atmosphere in the opposite direction! And given its age, it was a real honor to hear it. The finale was rocked out again at a higher tempo. First Glenn announces the song Don’t Let Me Bleed, which is about his “broke up” relationship with some woman. During Don’t Let Me Bleed the whole hall was crackling with emotion. The air was so electric that J.J. ended up without one of his strings. And not just any string, he blew out the high “E6”, which means the atmosphere was truly charged with a special climate. And the last sentence went: “Are you ready to funk with me?” and on with Wherever You Go from “Songs in the Key of Rock” (2003) and another finale in a higher gear.
Of course they came back. After an innocent warm-up they opened the encore with a special song from the especially overlooked Black Sabbath record on which Glenn sang (“Seventh Star”, 1986). That was the song Seventh Star, which was quite a surprise for me. Mostly because stylistically it veers furthest away from the mostly bluesy, funky, soul-tinged classic hard rock that Hughes so loves to play and compose. A real special treat of the show and the set list. You could tell the band doesn’t rehearse this song often, though, since the performance wasn’t the most convincing, and the guitar in particular was a bit too low in the mix. The last number only confirmed my theory. It was of course the song without which a Hughes show simply can’t go on. Burn was the second Mk. III Purple classic and confirmed the band’s exceptional tightness, delivering a real energetic outburst. Burn was a true eruptive detonator, played superbly without the slightest slip. Instruments in balance, sound phenomenal. The difference between the Seventh Star and Burn performances was therefore like night and day.
Glenn Hughes is superbly well preserved, sings flawlessly and breaks every record with his extraordinary vocal abilities. And this time too our breath caught watching his playing and performance. How would it have been if he’d had Rondinelli beside him that night. Drummer Tomas Broman is the weaker link in Hughes’ lineup. Talented, excellent and so on…but still, when you watch Rondinelli in front of him, your eyes get a little misty. The kid was scooping up way too much “air emptiness” with every swing, like he wanted to swat all the mosquitoes and birdlife out of the sky. So he was completely spent by the end and could barely manage to bow to the crowd. Way too much flailing around for what the performance of Hughes’ repertoire calls for. Which is also why it’s harder for him to show those moments where you have to be sophisticatedly slim and softer, and the precision of his hits was limping too. He lacks finesse, in other words. Given that he’s been with Hughes for a few years now, though, this only shows Glenn’s generosity, believing in the kid and giving him a chance. Another exceptional quality of the rock legend. J.J Marsh was much more approachable to the audience than a year ago in Graz (Hughes Turner Project concert, 12.03.2004), when he hardly ever looked toward the crowd. The excellent guitarist did his job flawlessly. When he had to be Blackmore, he was, and when he had to be his own J.J., he was that even more.
Of course plenty of people missed a few more legendary Deep Purple sounds, but I completely understand the decision for such a set list. Hughes is thrilled with the new record and fresh material. There’s no reason not to give it absolute priority “live”. The show lasted just under two hours (from 22:30 to 00:20). A new tour with Joe Lynn Turner is coming soon, and there’ll be time again for an extra “Purple” You Keep On Movin’. The show was pure perfection. Of course Hughes’ bass guitar was too loud a few times, which resulted in more resonant shaking of living and dead objects in the hall, but that didn’t spoil the great taste in the slightest. The magic of funk, soul and blues and divine singing in all the purity that only the eternal “soul mover” knows, the most reverend Glenn Hughes.
Setlist
The Lizards:
1. Tramp
2. Something Higher
3. Rodeo
4. Dark Angel
5. Down
6. Hyperspace
7. The Opal Crest Of Zed
8. Bobby Rondinelli drum solo
9. We Are Dinosaurs
10. I Can’t Help Myself
11. Cold Blooded Kings (not played)
12. Turning Me Under (not played)
Glenn Hughes:
1. Soul Mover
2. Orion
3. Land Of The Livin’ (Wonderland)
4. Mistreated
5. Can’t Stop The Flood
6. Let It Go
7. High Road
8. Medusa
9. Don’t Let Me Bleed
10. Wherever You Go
—encore—
11. Seventh Star
12. Burn
