Teatro Arcimboldi

Maltese newspaper ad for Milan concert; note the coincidental street name of the business!

Concert starts: 9pm

Address of venue: Viale Dell’Innovazione, 1, 20126 Milano. MAP

Website: www.teatroarcimboldi.org

The first of two shows on David's tour in the place that calls itself the fashion capital of Italy, Milan, and we get yet another amended setlist. Audience reaction to the show was hugely enthusiastic, and more of the same is due this evening.

A beautiful venue added to the experience; the only downside was an orchestra pit which created a small distance between the band and audience.

The band were said to be on great form, and the second show was to also prove an entertaining experience...

With a further revised setlist, the second show in Milan went down well with the audience. The last show in mainland Europe is tonight (26th March), at the wonderful Sala Santa Cecilia, at the Auditorium in Rome. Another wonderful venue, and hopefully another wonderful show...

SHOW REVIEW - March 24th

By Steve "SplatCop"

Just come home from Teatro Arcimboldi in Milan and I can barely realize what an extraodinary concert I've seen... I need more nights like that to see, that was not enough for me!

After each song there was an ovation (and also during some "important" parts of some songs :) ) and Wish You Were Here (interpolating "Alé oh oh") sung by the audience as you can hear in Pulse...

Fantastic light effects and sound precision as usual...perfect and unique solos from David; a lot of improvisation, so that maybe I like more those live solos than the studio ones (from "on An Island")...

Echoes took everyone directly to Pompeii...

SHOW REVIEW - March 24th

By Charles Marsh

David Gilmour took Us in a fantastic Time-Machine

The Venue was awesome. The acoustics were out of this world and the light show was like seeing Floyd Pre Dark Side Era. The audience - mainly Italian, though there were at least seventy Maltese in the audience, some Americans and also some Croatians - were all Floyd fanatics as it reflected in the way they sang, cheered and shouted through the gig.

First part of the show was On an Island in full. I have played the album at least fifty times before the concert and still I think it was done exceptionally professional live on stage. The improvisations, the solos, the way it was heard... On an Island showed if there was a need of confirmation, that Gilmour is a unique musician.

Stand out tracks in the first part were the title track, This Heaven and Take A Breath which is surely becoming one of the favourites of all Pink Floyd Fans. A surprise for me was when David played the sax on Red Sky at Night, thought it was Dick Parry who was doing that part in the live shows. David played the sax with passion as if he was playing one of his guitars.

Second part obviously brought more enthusiasm from the 2400 people packed into the theatre. All the Floyd songs were being met with cheers but the stand out track was surely the 21 minute version of Echoes which for me, and most of those present, were taken into a time machine back to the Pompeii days.

And what a version it was! David and Rick were really synchronized and they played it from the heart. Hope it will be on DVD soon as I want to see and listen over and over again. A pleasant surprise for the night was Coming Back To Life as knowing the set lists of the other gigs I never thought it would make it to Milan. But it did and it was done in an excellent way.

Before the encore I decided to start cheering the Italian chant Ooo eee Ooo Ooo or something like that as it is on the Pulse album and all of a sudden the whole audience joined in the singing, then came wish You Were Here and Comfortably Numb.

I saw people wiping tears from their eyes, and others sobbing at the end of the concert. It was surely a night to remember!!! David, Rick and the other guys in the band managed to take us all to a fantastic time machine that all present will surely never forget...

SHOW REVIEW - March 25th

By Chris Wells

After finally navigating my way to the Teatro Arcimboldi, not exactly in a central location in Milan, my girlfriend and I arrived at the entrance two hours early. Prior to them opening the doors at 8pm, we had a couple beers at the theater café across the square where they were playing tracks from the division bell.

At 8:30pm we went in and found our seats... half way up the parterre by the right side wall, not on the main floor but just below the balcony. We were pleased to meet some friendly Italians from Bologna who spoke "proper" English as Roberto was obviously proud of... The mood was a bit somber compared to the 94'DB tour I was at in Oakland, California or Roger Waters 2002 which I saw in Austria. I didn't catch one wiff of the good stuff and everyone's pupils seemed to be the correct size.

The show started promptly at 9pm to a very welcoming ovation as the backing to Castellorizon started. There seemed to be plenty of people familiar with the new album as I could hear some people singing along and everyone gave a hearty ovation at the end of each song from the 1st set. The only technical glitch was halfway through when David yanked his lead from his guitar by mistake and picked it up off the stage and plugged it back in without missing a chord, prompting another Italian football style roar of applause.

Unfortunately the acoustics for this theater were designed for Opera while the famous La Scala was under renovation so lacked that Umpf of what a rock show should have, and since I was to the side, the sound all came from the left. A far cry from Pink Floyd's quadraphonic sound system. However it was intimate and the view was unobscured.

The 2nd set seemed to have some reworking in the song list from past shows, the encores were played as within the show with no break as probably they needed to be done by midnight sharp, which is exactly when they walked off the stage.

All and all a good show... but I prefered the Waters 2002 general admission style rock show. This seemed to be very similar to the Gilmour Live 2002 DVD with more electric guitar and the tracks from Dark Side.