After a pause in Venice, we took the train to Ferrara for the Friday show. Joined by Stefan, we went to the venue at around 6:30 but there was already a line of 50 people. The venue was basically a field with a stage and chairs on the grass. Zero intimate and almost like a festival. Also the stage was kinda far with a barrier/space separating the crowd so no one could climb/go to the stage. That said, the first part of the show was amazing mostly cos of the song choices. He started very funnily with The Professor and surprisingly he started by explaining the story before singing. Wonder if he's ever started a show talking instead of singing. Kinda shows how happy/chatty/in a good mood he is. The first part of the setlist was great especially the part in which he did Fool/ 9 crimes/I Remember/Elephant/Insane. Fool was quite the surprise, especially so early in the show, and was as great as usual although not as intense as the (drunk) version from Paris. Before I Remember he explained how we hardly ever forgets song lyrics expect for I Remember
and of course, he did forget some
nicely, when he asked for requests, 2 different people shouted Insane and he played it. Incredible version kinda angry toward the end. Loved it and really made the concert for me. After Acc. babies, the low point of the gig cos of the caca Rhodes piano, he asked people to leave the seats and move upfront, so from this point on it was more like a festival than a concert. And it really felt like that cos the gig was shorter, many were singing/shouting the lyrics, so I personally think something was lost... not bad cos we got Joel to guess on Woman like a Man and Volcano but I rather listen to Damien singing Cold Water with absolute silence and no one even breathing than with 1000 people murdering the lyrics... although it's kinda funny to hear 1000 people singing 'Did I say that I LOOOOOVE you' at the end of TBW... priceless... Show ended with Cheers Darlin with the girl being Damien's friend from Colombia, Natalia, who flew from Spain. After the show, long waiting but no aftershow although Damien stopped by and answered/talked with everyone despite the level of the questioning reaching stupidity level, e.g., Damien, do you know Julia Roberts? How is she like?... enough said...
Fool at Ferrara
Insane at Ferrara
After Ferrara, we said goodbye to Vere and went to Firenze. This time we went to the venue earlier, at around 5, and after some fighting to keep the line in order (Sharmin's new favourite word is "fila") we went in the venue, a nice new open theatre, in the most caotic race for the front row ever in which we had to run like crazy like if we were at the Olympics, but we managed. The venue was amazing and the stage was like 1 m from us and barely 30 cm high, so nice and close. The show started nicely with Coconut Skins with this Rob playing the mouth-harp thing and at the first part of the show he was talking like crazy, also mixing stories, like telling the Yoke story for The Professor and some sperm story for Delicate
The Professor was particularly nice cos he added the 3rd verse that he never sings, which coincidentally we had searched online before the show. Then before The Box, he told the saddest story... how he has this friends that always demoralizes him, like telling him he cannot this, he cannot do that, and that this friend... he sees him every morning in the mirror... sad beautiful story for a sad beautiful song, loved every second of it, and it's such an uplifting powerful song! After much appreciated versions of I Remember, 9 crimes and Amie he asked for an Italian folk song and someone came and did O Sole Mio while Damo was sitting on the ground in the first row. After that he reciprocated and did a traditional Irish, think it's The Great Fields of France. Didn't sound familiar but was nice enough. After playing some requests, Rootless Tree and Cannonball, Joel came on stage for Volcano and he asked for us to join him onstage, which was super easy cos we had just to do 1 step. We did and sat there for the rest of Volcano doing the groups thing but also for Cold Water, which was simply out of this world. Imagine singing on stage by Damien, with all the lights in the venue off, so just lighting from the stars above, while he did Cold Water and Hallelujah at the end. So so beautiful, beyond words!!
The encores were great, and Cheers was pretty funny with his friend the photographer dressed as a woman and being the girl in the story. The story was a bit different, like Damien had been drinking wine all day and was drunk and desperate
the ending also had him going to the loo, peeing, watching his hands and finally leaving the bar! After that I thought he was gonna leave but he did a final Elephant that was again gorgeous and spectacular!!! He finished saying 'A dopo'= later, which kinda anticipated some aftershow... he also said we'd be seeing him sooner than we think, which in my eyes means a new tour later this year
but he might be refering to the aftergig too... And yes, there was an aftershow immediately after the main show, like 30 min later, so basically almost everyone was there, haha well at least 200 people. And he played a total of 7 songs, all requests. He seemed to be in really great spirits and really willing to please everybody. There was another guy playing that did a couple songs and was pretty good and then another guy playing poorly that the audience kinda stopped halfway thru cos he was painful to hear... so it was mostly Damien. He did Grey Room, which was amazing and very uplifting, then Back to her Man, asking everyone to stop taking pictures, filming, no youtube, nada and enjoy... Eskimo, Yoke (he said it was the song about giving song to charity cos of masturbation), Older Chests, also very beautiful, Dogs, although he messed up quite a lot and forget most of it, and finished in the most amazing way, by singing The Greatest Bastard, which is the most gorgeous beautiful incredible song ever, and the cherry in the cake of a great concert and tour!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In summary, you gotta love the holiday tour. Highlights for me: Fool coming back to the setlists, Insane, Elephant, I Remember, Cold Water, which was kinda ignored during the 9 tour, and The Box, plus all the stories he's telling and all the general level of good-mood-ness
Plus his willingness to connect with his fans (I'm convinced he's done some therapy-course to gain tolerance to fans), the will to play people's requests, but also the will to play us new songs even when at the aftershows most people are interested in old songs. I personally got the feeling that this has been a tour to put him back in the game, to start the wheels turning, and that he's coming with an album/tour by the end of the year. But don't quote me on that, I'm optimistic by nature.