Tag Archives: Music

Earth Wind and Fire – Milan

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I’m certain he hadn’t told me about it until Sunday night but it doesn’t really matter anyway.

I’m sure I saw this band many, many years ago and knew them to be a band of truly superb musicians. And, so it turned out to be. Beforehand, I couldn’t have named more than about two of their songs but as they’ve been going for so long, they do, of course, have many well-known songs.

It’s not a sit-and-listen concert but a get-up-and-dance concert. And, so, we actually stood up, behind the seats and watched and danced and sang along. A wonderful concert.

And, from a different concert in Italy, a few days ago (sorry for the quality but it does give you an idea of how really good they are live) – Boogie Wonderland. Enjoy.

UPDATE:
Now some videos are being posted on YouTube.
The first is with an Italian singer, Mario Biondi who I’ve seen in concert before and who is rather good.

What’s love got to do with it?

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As I have mentioned in some other post or posts, there is a prostitute who ‘works’ a corner just near where I live.

She always say ‘Hi, puppy!’ when we go past. (BTW, she’s talking to Dino at that point, not me :-D ). We say Hi to each other and I mumble something about the weather (especially recently as it’s been so cold, poor thing). I don’t know where’s she’s from. She is very tall and has legs right up to her bum. But I don’t really know much about her except that she is, undoubtedly, a prostitute.

I don’t have a big problem with it, in as much as I’m not interested and I do feel kinda sorry for her in that, as a career choice (if she has any choice), it wouldn’t rate as a fabulous choice imho.

But this is a profession that’s very, very old and, at least, it’s direct and to the point. I.e. you want sex, you pay for it.

Whereas, this, apparently, is most definitely NOT!

Obviously.

I mean, even where there are men saying they’ll fork out thousands of dollars a month, the terms and conditions explicitly state:

Please take note that we prohibit anyone from promoting illegal activities (such as prostitution) or commercial activities of any kind in their profile or in messages sent on the site and if such conduct comes to our attention we reserve the right to, amongst other things, remove you from our website and ban you permanently.

So, there you are. Not prostitution. Nor anything like it. Obviously.

Perhaps I should write down the url and give it to my lady friend from the corner?

In the meantime, I met this next lady once, in the street, in Milan. And she smiled at me. But she’s really tiny and not a prostitute, unlike my lady-from-the-corner friend.


(Tina Turner – What’s Love Got To Do With It?)

Would you like a great evening of entertainment and fun in Milan? Don’t miss this!

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We had booked tickets before.

Obviously, had we known that we were going to lose Rufus, we would not have gone but, in a way, it was nice just to be able to laugh and enjoy something.

And, it was wonderful, spectacular and fun.

I’m talking of the musical Priscilla (pronounced prishilla here). F was a bit worried. He hates these things being translated into Italian (apparently Mamma Mia was in the original language (good) whereas Grease had everything translated – even the songs (very, very bad, according to F)).

However, he had a voucher from his last birthday (not the one a few days ago) and it needed to be used. So we had booked for last night.

It seems some time since I went to a musical and they are incredible fun. The music was superb and I particularly like the three women who spent most of their time hanging from wires above the stage, singing their hearts out.

The costumes were unbelievably good, especially for the version of MacArthur Park.

It was only a few times where I didn’t get the jokes during the dialogue (the dialogue being in Italian – the songs remained in original language).

If you live in or near Milan, you should go.

And here is a link to a blog (in English) by the creators/producers, who brought the show to Milan

Only one thing. The theatre was about a third full. I am certain it would have more fun with a fuller theatre. Of course, it was a Tuesday night, not long after New Year but after the holidays, so maybe that was the reason. However, just before the curtain went up, we (in the cheaper seats) were encouraged to move closer – to the most expensive seats. In theory, we could have paid about €39 and been sitting in €79 seats! We both agreed that it surely would have been better to sell tickets at a lower price (even if only for these mid-week shows) so that the theatre would have been fuller.

We felt sorry for the company who put their heart into the whole thing. I think everyone in the audience clapped extra hard to try to make up for the fact that we were so few.

But it was really fabulous. Please go. I can guarantee a truly enjoyable evening’s entertainment and you should know every song.

I would give it five stars.

And here, as it’s one of F’s favourite songs (and one of the highlights of the show), is MacArthur Park –

(p.s. the version in Milan, to me, was even better than this one even if the stage was smaller)

Stepping back in time………….

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You’ve seen the films. Usually American, depicting the High School Prom. The dancing, the essential glitter ball, the live band. Particularly from the 50s or 60s.

The strings of lights from the roof. Maybe, if it’s a dedicated ballroom, it has mirrors round every wall. If it does a dinner dance, the tables are arranged, length outwards from the longest two walls, leaving the central part as the dance floor.

You sit at the tables. Maybe you drink some wine. You have the first course and the band starts playing. Between courses, rather than going out for a cigarette, people start dancing. The cha-cha-cha, waltz, tango, etc., etc.

In those days, this WAS the Saturday night out. Couples went to enjoy time with their friends, eat and dance. All for a very reasonable price.

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We have the address. An’s birthday was that day. She had been persuaded by her colleague (whose birthday it was last week), known to us as the Lesbico since she is lesbian, to join her birthday party.

An had an address. It was a street I have walked down so many times and yet, I could not remember any restaurant being there. We met up at An’s flat for a glass of prosecco and walked, together, to the place.

‘It’s a bit trashy but it should be super fun’, she told us. ‘The food is super good’, she added.

It was next door to the police station. ‘It can’t be here’, she said when we got to 2A. ‘But this is 2A’, I said remembering that there was a place offering dancing lessons. Yes, it was here alright. We walk down the steps, following the signs for the entrance.

We walk down some underground corridors. Quite wide, lined with that pale, fake-wood boarding. It was very well lit but strange. We turned left and then right and then left again, going through several sets of doors that had been opened.

We arrived at a bar. It had a few people sitting around. There were no windows but still very bright. But the ‘entrance’ was through the bar. I wondered what type of restaurant this could be.

We walked up a few steps.

We were on a fairly narrow balcony. The balcony had a railing over which was a …. ballroom. You could check your coats in for 50 cents. We walked along the balcony and down some stairs. It felt like we were a long way below ground – but that was probably not the case.

The room was a big rectangle. Round three sides were mirrors so the place did not have a claustrophobic atmosphere. What looked like trestle tables (but with table cloths so I couldn’t say they were) to seat 10 people (or 12 if there were people sitting at the heads of the tables) were arranged along the long-side walls, lengthways out from the wall. This still left a huge area in the centre. They had a small table in the centre on which there was a selection of salumi and some parmesan and a couple of buckets holding ice and wine. And plastic cups!

It struck me that this was similar to the Feste delle Unita things I’ve been to in those country places. This was not something I ever expected to find in the centre of Milan. It was like it was a volunteer thing and yet it most certainly wasn’t.

We all sat down at our tables. M (The Lesbico) had done the seating arangements for the five tables we had. All An’s friends were on one table with a couple of M’s friends to fill the table up – but, very kindly, M had arranged that these people spoke English. However, some of them had cancelled. It looked like there were the 5 of us plus another couple meaning there were four empty places. But these were filled later when people turned up to M’s party who weren’t on the list!

The other thing was that M had told all her friends that the women should wear dresses and the men, DJs. An had only found out that morning. M, we learnt, had also sent out special invitations.

There were probably towards 250 people all told. In the end we learnt that there were at least 3 birthday parties being hosted plus, along the one wall, people who really knew the ropes and seemed to come there often (I’ll explain later).

Just after we sat down, the band were introduced and started playing. They were a good band. Not a group to go and see in concert but tight and well-rehearsed.

There were bottles of wine and water on the tables. They started to deliver the antipasto which was a kind of vegetable lasagne. Not bad. Whilst we were eating that, they cleared the table from the centre. Then people started to get up and dance.

The staff were efficient. After the antipasto was risotto. It was OK (me, not being a big fan of risotto) but a lot of people didn’t really like it. Finally the main course, which was a veal casserole with polenta.

As it was An’s birthday, she had bought a strawberry gateau and that was our sweet.

And, for entertainment there was, of course, the dancing. We were struck by how good some of the dancing was. As we discussed, soon this type of thing will die out since most people of my age and younger don’t know how to do this type of dancing. I have tried (and I’m sure I’ve blogged about it) but failed miserably. My feet just don’t seem to be able to function for this type of thing.

F did get up and dance with this rather strange looking woman – short, no neck, a smile as wide as her head, short, black dress and white pearls (or beads, anyway). She knew all the ‘formation’ dancing that went on and was on a table on the opposite side of the wall to us – which I think was ‘the wall for the regulars’. Fabulous! In fact, she only smiled when she danced with F.

We met a couple on our table who were going to get married next year, although they seemed to have a definite disagreement going on about the honeymoon.

Oh, yes, and there was a tombola (that’s the English tombola not the Italian one). In fact, the woman due to get married (who was Irish but has lived here since the late 90s) won the second price – and overnight bag!

The whole thing (without the tombola tickets) cost us €20 each and it was a great night – so much fun.

I think it wasn’t so much ‘trashy’ as ‘old fashioned’ but so weird to find in the heart of Milan. However, if you have a party to organise, it’s a fabulous idea. I would definitely consider it as it is really a hidden gem.

If you wanted to know, it’s called the Sala Venezia and is at Porta Venezia. The link I’ve put is to a blog that gives more details (in Italian).

Look what they’ve done to my cigs, ma!

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Funnily enough, I had thought of writing a post about this last week or the week before.

You see, a week or two ago, I noticed there seemed something strange about my cigarettes. No longer, if I left them in the ashtray, did the cremated corpse of the cigarette with the shape perfectly preserved serve to remind me that, really, I should have put it out or not bothered to light it up in the first place. At which point, I would immediately light up another one, of course.

No, now it went out. This was good and bad. Good in as much as I didn’t waste a whole cigarette for, once relit, it was fine. It was bad in that I was concerned they had, somehow, changed the composition and wondered if they were going to be bad for me. Of course, that’s a relative statement since they are bad for me. I meant, they had put something in that made them more dangerous.

I meant to ask F if his were the same. But I didn’t.

I meant to mention it to others but, to be honest, forgot about it. I thought, maybe, it was just that one batch until …….

Well, until I saw this from the BBC.

So now you know. No longer will I waste about 10% of my cigarettes but, thanks to some new law, I will just have to relight them. So a good thing after all :-) (depending on your point of view, of course).

And, I don’t know why I thought of Melanie’s song as the title (more or less) but she is one of my favourites and so here it is:

From hot and sunny Carrara to the Chicago rain.

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“I hate being in love”

“I always fall in love. I can’t stop it and I hate it”

“I fall in love and then I fall out of love. I’ve had enough of it”, the American girl behind me whined. I wanted to say something. I thought of turning round and saying “That’s life”, but I didn’t.

The morning was on the beach. The temperature was, probably, in the 30s (°C, of course). We had lunch, courtesy of F’s sister at which, because his sister and niece are both taking English lessons, there was an impromptu lesson.

Then we left. I could have stayed there all day but we had Chicago later.

It wasn’t supposed to rain. The forecast said no rain. Everyone’s forecast said no rain. The clouds in the distance were laden with rain. And the lightening, as always, was great to see – as a backdrop, of course. I don’t want it coming any closer. But it did. The spots of rain were large. Wearing sandals, a shirt and some linen trousers didn’t keep me dry.

On the plus side, it stopped the mosquitoes which, until then, had been on a feasting orgy and the smell of Autan was all around. I hate the smell of Autan and try my best never to use it. My thinking is that, if it’s potent enough to ward off mosquitoes, it can’t possibly be good for your skin. A couple of nibbles by the zanzare can’t be as bad. And, anyway, even the people who liberally spray themselves, seem to get bitten just the same.

There was another plus side. With the onset of the rain, many people started to get up and leave or, at least, try to find some shelter. Leaving a number (quite a sizeable number) who headed to the front. The front, for sometime, protected us from the rain but in the end it got us too.

I never did festivals. When you’re young, you can do this ‘staying in the rain’ for hours whilst you watch your favourite band. Firstly, this is NOT my favourite band and secondly, I only know a few of their songs and only one that I can sing along to. However, what was I to do? Everyone in my group was at the front and so, I followed.

To be honest, even without knowing all the songs (I knew about 5), the band were brilliant. Not only were they good but they obviously enjoyed themselves which makes a whole lot of difference. The trombone player was incredible – not only for his playing but also for his energy and enjoyment.

Once again, it was Milano Jazzin Festival and Chicago were great. It was worth the money and the rain to see them.

Anyone who had a heart ….. wouldn’t want to miss this

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One of the girls, N, who was with us had said, apparently, that she didn’t know who he was.

She meant, of course, she didn’t know his songs. But everyone knows a few of his songs, even if you don’t think you do.

And, so as this 83-year-old man shuffled on stage last night at the Milano Jazzin’ Festival, although I knew that I knew many of his songs I was blown away by both him, his playing, his songs (I knew all except a couple of them) and the atmosphere which was much like a party.

It was fun.

It’s difficult to pick just one song since there are so many of them. As it is, I shall pick two.

The first, although first sung by Dionne Warwick, was a hit in the UK by Cilla Black and so Cilla and this song always go together for me:

The second is a song that I don’t know that well but it’s sung by Elvis Costello – God Give Me Strength (although, obviously, not last night):

Burt sung some of the songs and he can be forgiven for not having the perfectly strong voice of a young man.

His contribution to the world of music is immeasurable and I am so happy that I’ve been to see him since you don’t know if he’ll ever be back in Milan. Although, if he is, I really want to be there :-)