2010-10-25: All Roads Lead to Rome

I try to let these diary entries be our mutually shared eyes, ears and taste buds during my various tours of Europe and the US. But sometimes there's just nothing I can write that will do justice to a particular experience. Such is the case with last night's show at the Loggia del Lanzi in the Signoria Square in Florence. Have you been there? You can't miss it-walk to the Uffizi, grab a gelato, turn left and you're there. I am guessing that the collected touring years of our band would be right around 200 and yet all of us agreed that it was the most stunning setting for any show that we've ever played. I could describe the statues that surrounded us not only in the square but ON STAGE but I think you should either channel your memory (if you've been there), Google the setting yourself (hmm...Microsoft Word spell check does not recognize Google-damn that Bill Gates!) or best yet check out the link to the concert that I will have up here any day now.

As we watched the video this morning in the hotel lobby we all agreed that the stage setting was so stunning and almost so preposterous that it almost looked like an outtake from This Is Spinal Tap. I was taken aback by playing "Resolution" in front of several thousand people in this setting, singing "Everything that rises must resolve" and thinking of the political and historical implications of those lyrics in this particular setting. I was told that the square never hosts rock music but our version of "Manhattan Fault Line" felt positively orchestral. Everyone in the band rose to the occasion of the evening-how could we not? Such a setting bears a heavy responsibility, doesn't it?

The evening ended at May Day, a favorite bar of Manuel's down the street from the square. I was drinking something called a Blue Virgin, watching a soundless version of "Hell's a Poppin" that played on the wall and eventually closed down the place with Manuel, Cesare and Erik (who had made the 2 hour trip to check out the show). On the way back to the taxi we walked past the breathtaking Duomo and I did my best to juxtapose the experience with, say, walking down Bowery after a gig at CBGB's (which, in its day, was not a bad sight in itself) and it made me laugh. Droning D chords, menacing minor chords and songs about disaffected drifters do take you to the strangest places.