Prog exhibition - Rome,Italy 5-6 November

Nothing very good till now, but then Banco came to put things on their  place. In spite of some vocal problems of Francesco Di Giacomo, they rendered a great show that all the audience (some 3000 people) enjoyed. Apart from an intro theme from Come in un'ultima cena (I think), the rest of the set was based on their glorious three first albums, including (not in order) the opening section of "Canto nomade...", Metamorphosi, L'evoluzione, La conquista della posizione eretta, La danza dei grandi rettili, and of course RIP and Non mi rompete along with Traccia as their grand finale. It's a shame they didn't play the beautiful "150.000 anni fa... l'amore" due, I suppose, to Di Giacomo's problems, although he sung great anyway and the audience gave him a standing ovation. One thing I was surprised about was the role of Rodolfo Maltese, who was standing in a corner of the stage with his guitar hanging and hardly playing a note (the guitar parts were almost completely played by Filippo Marchegiani). I don't know if something has happened to him and he remains in the band for a matter of friendship, but his contribution to Saturday's concert at least was almost zero.

Oh yes, the guest start for Banco was John Weton, who came to play a decent version of Starless but then he stayed on stage to play the tambourine and sing in English some verses of Non mi rompete. While David Jackson, Gianni Leone, Claudio Simonetti and Thijs van Leer had a great time on stage, Wetton looked a bit mislead.

Just to finish, I'd like to say that I'm a bit jealous of the great audience in Rome. 2000-3000 people for that kind of festival is just inconceivable in Barcelona (just think that only 150 or so attended Adrian Belew power trio gig the day before), were people (and politicians) seem more interested in mediatic acts as Springsteen, U2 or Police.