By Giorgio Di Marzo
The Camden Centre, on 8th June 2006, hosted the last stage of Carmen Consoli’s European tour, which had started 9th of May 2006 from Palermo, Sicily, and concluded in the most cosmopolitan city of Europe.
A journey by bus which led Carmen and her band along a way determined by the theme of the river, therefore renamed From Simeto to the Thames. About 1,000 people, most of them Italians, welcomed the singeress – as she loves defining herself – in one of the most important concerts of the tour. To open the show was The Niro, a young Roman musician, who entertained the hearty audience by some of his pieces in English.
When, finally, is Carmen to tread the boards the whole Hall is a jubilation of applause and enthusiast shouts. She thanks and greets the audience speaking in English, as she will be doing during all the rest of the evening.
The concert is mainly dedicated to the presentation of the new album, Eva contro Eva (the Italian translation of the movie All About Eve), released last May, rich of more sophisticated and quiet sounds compared to her previous works. Set aside her famous pink Fender, the new songs feel the influence especially from folk and Balkan rhythms, the rediscovery of the roots which she explores from the Arabic atmospheres to the friscalettu (the flautino of the Etna’s shepherds). To lead off the dance is exactly a folk song in Catania’s dialect, and outstanding amongst the others are an extraordinary E se domani (And if Tomorrow) performed voice only, and Ciuri di campo (Wild Flowers), piece drawn from a poem written by Peppino Impastato, sadly famous because killed by mafia. Particularly suggestive was a mandolin interlude by Massimo Roccaforte, loyal militant in the band line-up, who charmed and raised enthusiasm in the audience with his virtuosity.
This is a definite inversion in style then, but there was much respect as well for the many aficionados in the hall: Carmen does not disappoint, and in her list there was plenty of time even for pure rock songs and pieces from her early albums, which the audience sang with her at the top of their voice.
Almost two hours of excellent music, two encores, a very warm participation from the audience – to be intended in terms of the temperature inside the Camden Centre as well! – and a bit of emotion is shown, apart from the public, even on the face of a big artist who, live, can do even better that in a recording studio.
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