And for the non Italian speakers amongst you , here is another version
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April 26, 2007
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foxx review: john foxx, transilvania, milan
By davyitalianblue
Date: 17/4/2007
The omens were goods as we came into Milan on Saturday afternoon. Given the concert was in the San Siro district, on a glorious day we passed the stadium that the Blues had graced 44 years previously.
It's certainly more impressive from the outside than some of the turgid shite served up inside.
Anyway, I 'd come to pay homage to my musical hero, the electric futurist ex-leader of Ultravox!
Fortified by a pizza four formaggi , three or four Peronis and a coffee laced with grappa, I wended my way to Transilvania, a club owned by Dario Argento, the Italian master of horror films.
Inside it was a Bauhaus fan's delight, but I didn't let this deter me.
As we waited for the first act to come on, some ace sounds were played, such as 'Mexican Radio' and 'Hong Kong Garden'.
The first band on were Act Noir, a Brit vocalist backed by Italians. The singer looked like what would have happened if they'd put Marilyn Mansun and David Sylvain in that machine instead of Jeff Goldblum and a fly. Basically, Marilyn came out with Sylvain's voice. He tried hard to make us feel his faux-angst, but didn't quite pull it off. The rest of the group looked liked they'd been dressed after a visit to a Tony Wilson Jumble Sale in which he'd flogged New Order's old clobber in a vain attempt to retrieve his losses at The Hacienda. All black shirts and skinny red ties.
Next up were the Rubicks, a strange duo: a female vocalist who modelled her look somewhere between Tranvision Vamp and Courtney Love, whilst trying to be P J Harvey in her 'dress' period - all frantic screaming and guitar assaults . The bloke, the bassist, looked like a greebo, with long greasy hair in a centre-part - a slimmed down Lemmy. Soundwise, he was like Peter Hook on speed, giving his instrument some unmerciful stick. All in all, a creditable effort.
A sequencer and a Yahama organ were wheeled onto the stage, the dry ice rose and then the moment we'd all been waiting for, Juan Zorro had returned to make his mark, aided and abetted by Louis Gordon on the Yamaha . If ever a duo were so different. Their next album should be called 'Gravitas and Goonery'. Mr Foxx has the first in shedloads; his partner comes across as the electronic Bez, bouncing and gurning all over the place.
True retro futurists, they started off with 'Twentieth Century', seven years or so too late. Crafty fox that he is, John had foreseen this though, and by dint of a cunning phoneme change, it morphed into 'Twenty-first Century' halfway through. I wonder if Prince still does 1999?
Nearly two hours of magic were to follow. Loads of stuff from 'Metamatic' and some Ultravox classics from when they were decent and hadn't been severed from their exclamation mark. Before Midge Ure, in other words.
Towards the end there was the spoken word set to music phase, the highlight being 'My Sex' and 'Just for a Moment'. The pace never slackened and the crowd bayed for more. We were rewarded with 'Endlessly', during which there were amazing vocal gymnastics between Foxx and Gordon . Loathe as I am to concede it, I have to admit it was Sergeant Pepper-esque in its construct.
It was suggested that the gig could take place in a telephone box. It did, the Tardis! Us Foxxistas could easily have seen off the East Fife and Stenhousemuir crews combined, in the unlikely event they had been looking for trouble in Lombardy on that particular evening!
The night came to an end much to quickly. I managed to sneak backstage and get him to sign the cover to the vinyl 'Ha Ha Ha!' possibly the greatest album ever made. He seemed a shy and reserved man.
If my hero has any shortcomings, it is the fact that from a distance he now bears a semblance to snidey ex-Barcodes' striker Alan Shearer. He seemed genuinely pleased when I mentioned having seen him at Eric's in 1978.
"A great place for gigs," is what he said. It brought back my youth for me too - Saturday afternoons at Goodison, seeing the likes of Dobbo, Andy King and Duncan McKenzie gracing the hallowed turf, followed by Saturday night gigs. I made my way, misty-eyed, to the hotel.
It was a great weekend; life couldn't get any better. A mere fifteen hours later though, Joao Cesar McFadden was to prove me wrong.
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