Although lately I've been quite busy and knocked out by heat, I finally can afford to write a few words about two concerts. This Summer Sardinia has been touched by two main events.
The first one saw Ryuichi Sakamoto and Christian Fennesz in Cagliari, playing in the open air at the Amphitheater (Monday, June 23). It was the first of four live performances in Italy to allow the audience to get acquainted with "Cendre", their second album together. As encore they played the wonderful main theme from the score (composed by Sakamoto) of Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (1983, by Nagisa Oshima, with David Bowie and Tom Conti), in which Sakamoto played the part of an aggressive Japanese sergeant.
The second one saw the glorious group Tuxedomoon in Sarroch (about 30 km. from Cagliari), in their only performance in Italy (Friday, July 18). And I was there (lucky me!). For a long time fan like me it was sheer emotion seeing the three American musicians, along with the Belgian Luc Van Lieshout, live on a stage. I saw Blaine Reininger years ago with some other musician I forgot about, but I wasn't favourably impressed. About 20 years ago I was among the crowd at a live performance by Steven Brown in Cagliari (Teatro Alfieri). He had just made a cover album in Italian of the best songs by Luigi Tenco, to which he added significant value. The backing band included members from the Italian band Minox. I was also lucky enough to chat with Steven for a while after his concert. The band started up in S. Francisco in 1977, and by the early 80's they decided to live in Europe, mostly in Belgium. Today I listened again to their first album, "Half-mute" (1980). Still a great one, needless to say. They played only a few of their old tracks (but none from "Half-mute"). I especially liked "No time to lose". The guys speak more than one language, so Steven and Blaine sang in English, Italian, French, even Greek (Blaine lives in Athens). Steven Brown played sax, clarinet, piano and organ, Blaine Reininger played violin and guitar, Peter Principle played bass guitar and an analogic drum-machine, Luc Van Lieshout played horns and organ. Incredible to say, the entrance was free. For this I wish to thank the organizer, Davide Catinari's Vox Day.
(Sakamoto & Fennesz picture is taken from http://www.musicclub.it/musicclub/jsp/gruppi/default_one.jsp?id_gruppo=11695597927590) (Peter Principle picture is taken from http://hersonski.com/images/articles/tuxedomoon11.jpg)
