(long) Italian tour review :)

[borneoman]

So the Italian tour is over for me after doing 3 shows (Grado, Ferrara and Firenze) in 4 days. Amazing tour with great friends and spectacular Damo concerts, among the best concerts I've ever attended. Damo at his happiest, more relaxed than ever, telling crazy story after crazy story, playing requests, and if that wasn't enough, being more accessible than ever after the shows.
We kicked the tour in Grado, 2 hours north of Venice. Great location with the venue being right by the sea. Drove with Sharmin and Vere and met there with Glo and Lalla. Right after arriving we saw the start of the soundcheck with Damo looking pretty neat with a new haircut We also spotted Joel (easy, he's kinda tall but he didn't play that day.
The show in Grado was just amazing, great setlist, great stories... the show started kinda quiet with Older Chests and Coconut Skins but he won the audience with the story of the Professor and the many stories that followed, most of them about sperm... after The Professor, he did Volcano in which he asked people to climb the stage. Since we were front row we climbed quite fast and did the thing of singing in the different groups, with the song becoming faster and faster and in the end it was like a Volcano Remix after that he asked what we wanted to hear and a mad Italian guy started yelling song titles in a kinda impolite way from What This Night is For - Damien replied he hasn't any song titled like that- to The Power of Orange Knickers... Damien kinda ignored him but he kept yelling and even yelled 'Tori Amos' and finally Damien said he knew the song but not the chords... and finally played I Remember, which was very very beautiful... Eskimo followed, very beautiful too... and then he told the masturbation/charity story and played Yoke, which he hadnt done yet in this tour and was great!!!! after breaking a string he went to the piano for 9 crimes and Acc. babies. This was probably the gig's low for me, not his fault but the piano's, which was one of them Rhodes that sounds like a kid's plastic casio as opposed to sounding like a proper piano.
This was followed by one of the highlights of the night, The Box, title 100% confirmed as he introduced the song as The Box himself., he said something like 'did anyone ask for The Box'? and he started playing it but I think no one really asked The song sounds better and better everyday, already a classic to me. after that, he played Amie and a surprising Childish dedicated to the 7 people in the audience that know the song, aka, Us!!! after that he asked for the lights to be turned off and that was kinda funny cos they were not understanding him, mostly cos he was trying to give the instructions in Italian but mostly talking Spanish. Cold Water/Hallelujah followed and that was absolutely beautiful and breathtaking, especially in such a spectacular location by the sea. The last part of the show was more like the greatest hits but he threw in a great version of Elephant after Cheers to close the show!!!
Surprisingly he exited the venue kinda fast, 15 min I'd say and was immediately surrounded by like 50 people of the most obnoxious kind, all surrounding him at a distance of 30 cm, taking pictures of him with flash by placing the camera in front of his face at 5 cm, asking the most silly questions, insisting obsessively on Damien to drink from their beer, asking for Lisa wtf so when Damien said he was gonna go to hotel and back, I wasn't really expecting him to come back but he did... so we followed him to a spot by the beach (was kinda surreal, felt a bit like when you're a kid and follow the teacher in a school trip) and then we all did sit down in a sorta circle, quite a lot of people, like 50 people I'd say (by contrast we were like 10-15 in Paris guess cos of the long waiting). He played 5 songs in total, 2 requests (Delicate and Rootless Tree) and 3 newies (Back to Her Man and 2 brand new ones never played before). There was also a Russian guy playing guitar who did The Scientist and Creep with all of us singing and he was really good, and think Damo liked it too. Pity again there were a bunch of very obnoxious Italian fans... especially a guy that volunteer to play an Italian folk song as requested by Damien but instead he played not 1 but 2 horrible songs that were zero folk and was kinda rude to Damien too... plus the annoying guy with the requests asked why he didn't remember What This Night is For. Again Damien said he doesn't have any song called like that, then said, oh the one that goes' and we've never been in this place before' and finally said it's called 'Eve and the Day' but not sure if he was pulling our leg... but despite a couple creeps I think the whole think was kinda special. The whole thing was kinda surreal, being by the beach in the middle of nowhere with Damien kinda serenating us and singing us new songs that he wanted us to hear. In regards to the newies, first he did Back to Her Man. Amazing!!!! Especially the in crescendo and the final part. Then he ask his friend Rob to join him for a song with him playing this mouth-harp or whatever you call it. We got all a bit confused, I understood they were gonna do a cover but the lyrics were very Damien so might be a Damo song. When asked, he said the title was "What Have You Done To Her Face" and was changing along the song to What have you done to her smile... what have you done to her soul... for me, it was ok-ish not spectacular but in my head I was kinda thinking it was a cover so not sure...
By comparison, the last song I Don't Know How To Comfort You was much better. Very slow and very sad, nice lyrics (although the first line was shocking: I don't know how to feel/I don't know how to f*ck). In this sense, has been mentioning in all aftershows not to tape/put on YT cos these songs are not finalized and I think we should respect that... Maybe we could share by pm or 4shared. Not only those from Grado but the other shows too...

The Box at Grado