Last day of three dates Italian tour, and besides the mess of the night before (for me, that is, it was spent with no sleep at all between the station and the police offices), the general mood was higher than ever: a funny episode happened while waiting for the show to begin which raised the spirits even more when some of the roadies pulled a trick on the audience by deciding to play a tape (no cds yet at the time...) of I Know What I Like... The Palasport almost exploded - like they were ready to witness or expect a miracle to happen any moment - but then reason prevailed and the roar soon changed into a giant chorus...
As in the two nights before, Peter introduced every song in Italian, reading from some "phonetically" prepared sheets. It marked the start of a long series of "corrections" that the audience usually shouted out loud and Peter dutifully acknowledged.
The gig itself was not the best of the three, as fatigue was by then quite evident on Peter's face, as this was one of the final dates of the world tour that had taken up much of the year for him. Nonetheless he didn't spare a drop of sweat, and the raw energy of the performance was once again staggering.
The best of it all came near the end: first, during Biko, a bunch of hotheads got sort of carried away and when Peter turned the microphone to the audience with the usual formula - «the rest is up to you» - they actually got hold of the microphone to start singing into it! The sound engineer quickly turned the mike off, but not before a couple of "oh-oh-oooohs" could be heard by everybody else...
And lastly, after DIY and On The Air the lights came up, and the usual outgoing music started to play. The band had already skipped And Through The Wire from the set, and evidently they thought they would just end it there.
But we did not want to hear about it: everybody went on clapping and shouting for more nonetheless, so that Peter was in a sense "forced" to come back on stage. When he did, with all the lights still on, he gave us an amazing version of Here Comes The Flood, and the image of him with wet eyes at his piano is still one of the strongest I bear in my memory.
Setlist
Intruder
The Start
I Don't Remember
Solsbury Hill
Family Snapshot
Milgram's 37
Modern Love
Not One Of Us
Lead A Normal Life
Moribund The Burgermeister
Mother Of Violence
Humdrum
Games Without Frontiers
I Go Swimming
Biko
On The Air
Here Comes The Flood
(This review was originally posted about 10 years ago on my old, old website. The original format is still available here)
It was not "I know what I like" but "Dancing with the moonlit knight".
ReplyDeleteThanks for the correction... but I still seem to remember IKWIL, or at least that's what I "chose" to remember ever since I wrote about it in 1986 (only 6 years after the day)... Would it be possible that they did play both?
ReplyDeleteI clearly still remember: "Can you tell me where my country lies...." and a huge BOATO from the crowd.
ReplyDelete