Venue: Estragon klub / Bologna / Italy
Concert date: 15.05.2008
Attendance: 200
Ticket price: 20,00€
Yesss! The one and only chance, and the closest one, for someone living in Slovenia to catch hard rock legends Y&T came up in Bologna. It was day three of my three-day trip to Italy, and I was already feeling the weight of all those sleepless nights, which had been sneaking up and piling onto my shoulders along with the miles I’d driven. Around 6 p.m. things were already pretty lively at Estragon. Y&T were in the middle of setting up the stage for their show, and while I was hanging around outside the club, I got to eavesdrop on the sound checks of Y&T and the two Italian support bands, which helped kill the long minutes before the doors of Estragon officially opened (a little past eight in the evening).
At 8:30 p.m. Italian hard rockers Planet Hard started warming up the sparsely filled hall. You could tell the guys were still very green. The singer especially shuffled around the stage a bit awkwardly and more than once shyly ducked out of the zoom of my Canon G-7 camera. The band had a seriously decent sound for their half-hour set, showed off their sweetly melodic brand of hard rock, and played very nicely and correctly from a technical standpoint. But of course the stumbling block is recognizability. A bit more energy poured into a nastier look on stage wouldn’t have hurt at all. The songs, which somehow lacked the real energy flux of a live performance, may well grow nicely in the future, and Planet Hard have the potential to develop further and take their Bon Jovi-esque expressionism up a level. The only problem is recognizability, which plagues many young bands that decide to play hard rock.
Next on stage were Markonee, part of whose show I missed because I was busy interviewing Mr. Dave Meniketti (Y&T) at the time. These Bologna boys also love to dig into the legacy of AOR hard rock purism à la Def Leppard. Unlike Planet Hard, you can tell Markonee have been treading concert stages for a while. Compared to their predecessors, they delivered a far more convincing, energy-charged set. The guys released their studio debut “The Spirit of Radio” in 2006, but the only song they played from it was Loved Land. They wrapped up their 40 minutes with that one. Anyone who knows the band wasn’t the least bit surprised when they launched into a parody of the Divlje Jagode song Motori, which the band calls Marconi in their version. There was also some new material, presented with the songs Cross Between The Lines, See The Thunder, Brand New Day, Native American, The Big “K”. The quintet looks assured and confident on stage and packs a nice dose of hard rock dynamite. The problem is, of course, the same as with Planet Hard before them. Recognizability. Live, younger bands that lean heavily on what’s “already been invented” can be interesting, while their studio albums, for lack of recognizability, can be a whole different story and a real snoozefest.
Around 10 p.m. it was time for a draft beer. Birra piccola literally means “little Italian” — or, technically speaking, a plastic cup with two deciliters of ground-up hops. For three euros, I ordered it first, thinking I’d get 3 dl. Wrong. The big beer is 4 dl and costs five bucks. Once again a strange taste, which confirmed that Italy just isn’t a country of draft beers.
Y&T dragged their feet for quite a while, probably hoping the hall would fill up a bit more. A solid 40 minutes of waiting ticked by, the clock hit 10:30 p.m., and finally the guys hit the stage with Hurricane (from the album “Earthshaker”). It was a real honor to see Y&T on stage! The band has been touring Europe every year since 2003, but you have to be lucky for it not to be just northern Germany, Scandinavia and the United Kingdom. The boss and frontman, the excellent guitarist Dave Meniketti, seemed incredibly fired up, as if he couldn’t wait to get on stage. On his left was his longtime bandmate Phil Kennemore, Mike Vanderhule was slapping and flapping behind the drums, and to the right of Meniketti stood the real surprise of the night. Guitarist Stef Burns, who joined the band just for this one show in Bologna. That was a one-of-a-kind moment. Meniketti said that their guitarist John Nymann had to cancel his appearance in Bologna with Y&T because he urgently had to get home to the USA for pressing family obligations. Just our luck, because Stef Burns lives in Bologna. It took only one phone call. And what’s Burns’s connection to Y&T? Over ten years as a member he recorded 4 studio albums with them, and at the moment he’s the guitarist for Huey & The News and for Italian star, the most illustrious Vasco Rossi himself. The promoter was probably quietly counting on Rossi’s guitarist drawing a considerably bigger crowd of Italian music fans to Y&T at Estragon this time, but sadly miscalculated. Barely 200 people showed up in a hall that holds, by my eye, around 2000.
You couldn’t tell at all that Y&T had swapped a member. Burns looked right at home in the band, as if he’d never stopped being a part of it. Even the stage interplay with Meniketti, as the two played shoulder-to-shoulder duels of twin harmonies, came off incredibly tight. The band continued with Black Tiger and added the excellent Contagious. The first surprise of the night followed with Go For The Throat (“Open Fire”, 1985).
Despite the small turnout, the front rows were packed with real die-hard fans of the band who knew the repertoire inside out and sang the lyrics along with Meniketti. They went especially wild for the classic hard rock crushers that simply must be on a Y&T setlist: Mean Streak, Midnight In Tokyo, Rescue Me, Summertime Girls, with a fantastic solo intro from Stef Burns, the closing Forever and, as an encore, Open Fire. The crowd literally demanded those from the band at the top of their lungs throughout the show.
The band steered most of the repertoire toward their golden eighties, with “Earthshaker” the most heavily represented album (4 songs), including the superb closing number played in the encore, I Believe In You, followed by “Contagious,” “Black Tiger” and “Down For The Count” with three songs each, while from probably their best album, “Mean Streak”, they played only two songs. The band aired out their own material from practically every album except the first two and the latest, “Endangered Species” (1997).
The sound was fantastic throughout the show. The guys played full throttle, and Dave Meniketti stood out above all, burning it down with his fanatical solo displays, where an incredible feel and command of the instrument really came through, and the bluesy authenticity that is such an important part of Meniketti’s musical identity especially sparkled in those solo spots. The man sweated through himself during the show. All the more so because of his vocals. Meniketti’s voice is still incredibly well preserved and fresh. Powerful, wide-ranging, decisive and commanding. Meniketti comes heavily out of the blues and is an extremely convincing guitarist when it comes to laying down a riff and fiery, compact solos, but the moment he opens his mouth too, it’s immediately clear what a band like Y&T needs to totally ignite on stage. That Meniketti dynamite is indispensable to the essence of the band.
Even the versatile guitar wizard Stef Burns, who is technically far better schooled than Dave Meniketti, joked at one point in the show: “Tonight I’m in my Malcolm Young version.” Meaning that the guy was playing second guitar this time. Still, before Summertime Girls he got his five minutes to show off, in a solo spot, the rich repertoire he has in his little finger as a musician.
Y&T raised hell at Estragon for a full two hours and 10 minutes. An excellent setlist, a dynamite-packed show, a crowd right into it below the stage, and above all you could feel the band was hungry to play. To play a lot and perform live. Meniketti soloed so passionately a few times that you could get the feeling he didn’t want to stop. The guys pushed their throttle to the max, opened fire, whipped up a proper hurricane in the hall, and in a good two hours confirmed that these seasoned old foxes still sound fresh and untamed. They played full throttle in front of a practically empty hall and found it hard to say goodbye to the stage.
After the show the guys came over to the official merch stand, where they were available to fans. They signed autographs, and Dave handed out a few more picks he had left over. This was, after all, the first, last and only Italian show of this Y&T European tour. And not just the last in Italy, but the last in Europe. The guys promise to return as early as September this year. Let’s hope so, because they seem winged with inspiration and hungry to perform. The Bologna show was played practically without a single flaw, loaded with authentic high rock voltage and energy. Exactly what we came to Estragon for that night. Y&T remain unblemished even after this. All that’s missing is a new studio album from the band. All in all, the Y&T show in Bologna was one of the best concerts I experienced in the first half of 2008. The performance won me over above all with the authenticity and realness that the foursome radiates so intensely and convincingly when they tackle their repertoire live. Everywhere you looked there was nothing but pure, noble rock energy from the charismatic and still unbending rockers Y&T!
Y&T setlist:
1. Hurricane
2. Black Tiger
3. Contagious
4. Go For The Throat
5. Dirty Girl
6. Meanstreak
7. Eyes Of A Stranger
8. Fly Away
9. Don’t Stop Runnin’
10. Midnight In Tokyo
11. Ten Lovers
12. Anything For Money
13. Pretty Prison
14. Rescue Me
15. Summertime Girls
16. I’ll Cry For You
17. Looks Like Trouble
18. Squeeze
19. Forever
—encore—
20. Open Fire
21. I Believe In You
Photo gallery
