Amongst my circle of muso friends, only Billy Bones,a long standing fan, has heard of Goblin the Italian Prog/Soundtrack maestros. Before the gig begins, him & I are standing at the mixing desk when a youngster comes up and starts chattering away to me, in Italian. It takes some time to convince him that I’m not Maurizio, the keyboard player, although, later on, I see that M and I share the same taste in beards ‘n’ shirts and understand the lad’s confusion. The band start to play and spend most of the night in silhouette, backlit mainly in blood red. The three large screens, that had been showing Un Chien Andalou, now show the relevant scenes from Suspiria, Dawn of The Dead and Profundo Rosso, as the group play their theme music from those films. What can I say? To generalise, the Italians have always been very, very good at what is now called Prog and Goblin are in the vanguard. Lush keyboard ‘scapes and lashings of Gilmouresque guitar at thunderous volume . Why Spanner’s not here has never been fully explained, he would love this.
The visuals? It’s an unusual and impressive approach, spoiled as ever by these morons who insist upon holding their camera phones up in the air. Do they ever bother to look at the results of this less than furtive photography? A quick swatch at you tube advises this viewer that it’s pointless and, more to the point, annoys me somewhat greatly. I want someone to invent some sort of cyber hand grenade that can be unpinned and I can lob into a crowd like this. No damage to anyone, it just temporarily disables the camera on their phones. What a spiffing idea, I’m off to patent it!
Not your traditional support by a long chalk. Prior to Goblin, those arriving slightly late (ie us) were greeted by a screening of Buneul’s Un Chien Andalou. Me? I can never get enough of donkeys in pianos or razored eyeballs. Great stuff!
Lighthouse Beacon Straight Ahead 