So, this is why I love Portland. I have been hearing about both poor turnout and weird venues on this tour, including attendance of less than 50 or even 100 people (even in LA!). I know it's a bad time of year to tour, but people really have no excuse when this band travels all the way from Italy to play a show in your town. We packed the venue full, and people were yelling, screaming, applauding, and generally having a blast hearing Frizzi and the band absolutely shred on a killer sound system. The band sounded amazing, and I have heard this band perform five times now. They really fed off the energy of the crowd, and I was pleased to see they changed up the program and performed the 50-minute concertina first before doing the live score of the film (it just doesn't work as well the other way around).
Jumping right into
Cat in the Brain was nice start, and really kicked things off well with all those funky basslines and general mayhem. They followed up with
Manhattan Baby (so good!) and
City of the Living Dead, which many in the crowd recognized and cheered. Since there were no accompanying visuals for the concertina, it was really up to the audience to recognize the themes.
Frizzi and the band were really into it by this point, and I was surprised to see the maestro pop up off his chair and actually turn around formally conduct the first two track from
Seven Notes in Black -- things were getting serious! After returning to his chair and finishing the suite, he went on to sing the best vocals I have heard yet for his
Movin' On and
Silver Saddle western songs. Really warm vocals and spot on, easily the best I have heard from him over the years.
The highlight of the night for me was when they jumped into the
Contraband theme and... what?! a new version? A really energetic mix of the theme, and halfway through they flipped it on its head and each band member performed a wicked solo -- especially that flute, goddamn. It gets blurry after that, but they ended with the
Zombi 2 theme and brought the crowd to their feet with a huge standing ovation. The band seemed a bit overwhelmed by the reaction, and asked for short break before starting up the film. Wow... now we get to watch a live score for
The fuckin' Beyond?
It's after 1am here and I'm supposed to work in the morning, so I'll just wrap it up like this. An amazing night out yet again with Fabio and crew, and the icing on the magical cake... after the credits wrapped and they ended with that big crescendo, yet another standing ovation and everybody went nuts. Fabio seemed genuinely touched by the response and paused to thank the crowd and the hosts.
BUT WAIT... they didn't want to stop! Fabio requested just "one more song" and they managed to get set up again for....
Blastfighter. Omfg
I heard after the show that this was the first encore they have done on the tour so far, so I feel very lucky to be part of the community here. I heard a random guy humming the Blastfighter tune in the hallway after the show, which really makes me happy to see. There are some good people here, including Eric Adrian Lee. Here he is meeting Fabio and discussing how he got into Italian library and soundtrack music:
Fabio then regaled us with tales of Edda Dell'Orso... wow, what a night out. Safe travels to everyone involved with this tour.
