Venue: Piazzale del Castello / Udine / Italy
Concert date: 07.07.2009
Attendance: 2500
Ticket price: €25
Lately, chasing down gigs by big-name musical heavyweights has really gotten under the Rockline crew’s skin. Good thing we live right next to the heart of Europe, which carries the bulk of the top-level concert action every summer. All it takes for a one-of-a-kind live experience is pressing a little harder on the gas pedal of your four-wheeled rattletrap, and you’re in paradise. This time the road to the “great beyond” led to nearby Udine. Behind the walls of the city castle, Steve Winwood took the stage — a former member of Spencer Davis Group, Traffic and Blind Faith, an old master whose incredible voice has offered a kind of white-boy alternative to Ray Charles’ vocal delivery for decades. But Steve Winwood is definitely more than just a great singer. He’s a rock icon, a prolific songwriter, a musical innovator and a producer who has been steadily building a solo career since 1977, with its commercial peak coming in 1986 with the release of the album Back In The High Life.
The Udine castle, which the locals call Piazzale del Castello, is a truly magical spot, a real “magnet” for architectural-history junkies. The ancient location offers a lovely ambient atmosphere, tailor-made for the intimate nature of an evening with a legendary musician. Steve Winwood stepped out in front of a carefully seated audience right on the dot (which seems rather unusual for Italians), and breezily — in fact quite routinely and without any visible effort — strolled through a dozen-song set of tunes that, one way or another, marked the highlights of his thrilling career odyssey. Clearly tired of reinventing the wheel, Steve successfully gave quite a few of the songs a thoroughly reworked sonic makeover, one that stood out noticeably from what you could hear on this year’s live collaboration with his great friend Eric Clapton (Rockline review here). Steve’s flirtation with carefree swaying in Latin rhythms quickly bore fruit in an improvised dive through Light Up Or Leave Me Alone, which thrilled above all thanks to the spontaneous, thoroughly lived-in interplay between percussionist Karl Van den Bosche and the versatile Paul Booth. Paul proved to be a real gem of Winwood’s traveling circus: besides his top-notch command of the sax and flute, he also has a knack for conjuring magic moments behind the wheel of a vintage Hammond chassis.
Winwood spiced up the evening nicely with plenty of playful improvisations, which, thankfully, he didn’t drag out to the point of exhaustion. Every improvised excursion, often sonically akin to some of the nastier jazz fusion detours, was always boldly harnessed to the structure of the song being played. In search of inspiration for his improvising, the in-good-spirits organist looked most often toward the inspired Booth, who always knew how to answer the many challenges with just the right recipe of baroque-scented melodic ornaments, served, of course, with a healthy dose of self-control. Their convincing stage act sketched out the contours of a stormy musical relationship, to which the Traffic favorite Pearly Queen managed to give a fresh burst of life, while The Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys, thanks to him, unfolded a wide palette of moods. For a rare moment of serene meditation, Steve predictably borrowed the services of the Blind Faith number Can’t Find My Way Back Home, which, under the influence of the extraordinary power and fairy-tale depth of Winwood’s voice, played out the antics of a soulfully engaged pastoral. Alongside the first-rate serving of those triumphs, we certainly shouldn’t forget the spontaneous, tropically scented rendition of probably the best-known Steve Winwood song, the one and only Higher Love, which rang out in the lightest possible spirit, accompanied by a teasing barrage of percussion and a mighty vocal backdrop, with an extra touch added by the magic of the ever-present master of woodwind acrobatics Paul Booth. In that creamy company of discographic peaks, the honor of Steve Winwood’s latest album was ably defended by the effortlessly delivered At Times We Do Forget and the dramatic Dirty City, for which Steve cooked up a pile of thrilling guitar moves. Steve, in the role of the band’s lead guitarist, welcomed the arrival of the mega-hit Valerie, and later drove off with his six-string companion on a long-awaited date with the Traffic classic Dear Mr. Fantasy. Visibly moved by the audience’s warm response, he threw Gimme Some Lovin’ into the cauldron of the Udine castle right at the end of the night, earning, understandably, a standing ovation from the crowd.
Steve Winwood won everyone over on every front. His stage show brims with lively musical communication that hits fairly mainstream, though here and there it tosses in a few treats for the more demanding tastes of music gourmets. The 61-year-old musician is full of youthful energy, his voice sounds fresh as spring and remains the primary instrument of expression, serving its purpose superbly. The musician’s vitality, the fruit of boundless energy and an iron will to keep creating, thrilled the crowd gathered under the open sky of the castle auditorium in charming Udine. Just under two hours of playing flew by like they haven’t in a long time. Of course — you get used to this kind of luxury pretty quickly.
Photos: Mojca Perdih
Setlist
1. Different Light
2. I’m A Man
3. Can’t Find My Way Back Home
4. Valerie
5. Dirty CIty
6. Pearly Queen
7. At Times We Do Forget
8. Light Up Or Leave Me Alone
9. The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys
10. Empty Pages
11. Higher Love
—encore—
12. Dear Mr. Fantasy
13. Gimme Some Lovin’
Photo Gallery
