Well just by way of a 'report' rather than a 'review' I can tell you all it was good night even though we did have to wait until five minutes to midnight before John and Louis finally took the stage after a fairly bland DJ set! (7 o’clock Japanese friends take note..) The venue was fairly small and I would guess there were approx 250 people at the most, mostly of the 'dark' or 'gothic' ilk.
Anyway it was just the two of them on stage with a projection of images to the side of the stage, set a little bit back (so if you were at the front you wouldn't have seen it) and from what I have read/seen of the Cargo gig it was the loop which was shown before the London show rather than images of James Stewart or whatever.
The setlist was also the same so we kicked off with the new one which bounced and crashed along quite nicely together with Million Cars / Dislocation / The Man Who.. which all set the tone and were well received by the crowd. Then onto the Camera / Uptown duo which again created another kind of atmosphere (and thanks again to that young lady who chatted away in a high pitched voice during both...). The 3 Metamatic era ones were the real favourites of the night and I would have gladly have gone on in that era with maybe a My Face or even Plaza but we were once more catapulted forward with Shadow Man which personally doesn't do a lot for me and neither did much for the crowd. The pause after came as per Cargo..(if I hadn't known I would've felt a little disappointed!) re-opening very well with The Garden despite the bad sound (some kind of technical hitch?). Travel and Furniture up next although I'm not a fan of either and I felt they didn't do much for the gig as a whole . But Young Savage got things going again nicely thank you and there was much punky shouting along. Incredible that some of these songs are 30 years (or more) old... My Sex also well received and the finale with Endlessly and Shifting City brought things to an energetic end, with both John and Louis giving it their all. End of gig.
Immediately after a queue was forming for the photographs/autographs and mercifully John came down very shortly after to do the duties, affable and likeable as ever. Unfortunately the 80s disco was playing very loudly so we couldn't say much but I did (try to) tell him that perhaps he should read and contribute to the forum! HA! HA! HA! Anyway a great night and a real treat for Italian Foxxians. A lucky crowd and long may John continue to come over occasionally!
My thanks again to Federica and her husband for the help in finding the place (!) and they have some excellent photos so hope they can get them up soon for us all to enjoy. Gloria..where were you??
On a technical note (and I’m no techie) Louis only had one keyboard whereas I see at Cargo he had two - he had the one with 'Journey to the centre of the earth' written on the front (I wonder if it was still in working condition after getting a damn good bashing after Shifting City..) and John seemed to be doing a lot more actually ‘playing’ with respect to the gig I saw in Cento, Italy 18 months ago almost to the day.
CDs and T shirts were duly on sale (manager Steve supervising ) and seemed to go quite well. Would've been a good idea to have sold at least Glimmer as well as the other remasters too, since they are hard to find over here.
PS found some photos here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/temple1201/sets/72157608183721211/ and there was a lot of professional looking equipment and people around so I imagine more will crop up.
