European Tour Journal Day 5 (Zero Branco, Italy)

Leaving Pastrengo

We continue our journey through Italy along the Western Coast, now heading inland toward Zero Branco. Before heading to the next town, we stopped to visit Verona. I was actually hoping we’d have time to see Venice which was also in the vicinity, but just a bit too far for us to see and make the gig on time, so Verona it was!

Clearly impressed with this fulsome castle

We unexpectedly got to see some Roman ruins. The ‘Porta dei Leoni’ or ‘Loins Gate’ was  exposed during excavations in the late 1950’s. I intentionally overexposed the pics below so you can see some of the detail in the recessed shadows beneath the walkway.

“Porta dei Leoni” Roman Ruins recently excavated

We tooled around The Piazza Erbe, which was excellent for people watching, and we found the contrast between the old ruins and the modern fashion market element pretty amusing. You could almost travel back in time in your mind but then a spot of neon would catch your eye and immediately broke the spell.

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Modernity

Chris and I broke off at one point to kill time while others were finishing lunch. We wandered around the narrow side streets for a while taking in the architecture.

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LOVE IS ALL AROUND

We eventually ended up at the infamous ‘balcony’.

Supposedly this is where the famous scene in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliette took place.

The Balcony

There were hearts graffitti’d everywhere and messages of love, and people crowding in to get photo’s in front of the ‘Where for art thou balcony’, ambling to touch a piece of history.

 

It’s funny that it’s treated as such an historical place when, in reality, none of that ever happened! It was also a bit amusing that people had travelled from far and wide to see this site, and we were pretty much unaware of where we had stumbled upon until we had been there for a few minutes! We had no idea what all of the hearts and notes were for at first, nor why there were so many people crowded in this area, then we realized that it was 2 days before Valentines day…apparently this is the most romantic place on earth to many people!

Another thing that ‘broke the spell’ was when we turned around to leave the courtyard and saw, in the adjoining gift shop, all of these little ladies, sitting behind sewing machines, cranking out stitched hearts on various fabrics and items. The whole romantic image of the Shakespearean tragedy, and those extravagant times completely dissolved with the sight of this very public sweatshop.

Doctor Love

More pics from Piazza Erbe, Verona:

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CLOWNING

TO THE VENUE

I only took a few shots as the van windows were getting grimy, and there was also a bit of rain making it difficult to shoot ‘from the hip’ while in transit, though this added a nice effect to a few of the pics that did come out.

Altroquando is essentially a dart club with an extensive menue of craft beer and liquors, located in a semi-remote area in Zero Branco. I didn’t get many pics at this point but following are a few shots we obtained from a fan. I apologize as I don’t remember who took those.

Soundcheck!

One of the nice things about this venue was that we also had lodging above, so we were able to hang out for a bit and crash without having to load out! We got a good night’s sleep and tackled the gear first thing in the morning before heading to Torino, the location of our final show in Italy.

Spacemen out 

 

 

Synths For Lunch

This is a pretty incredible series of Electronic and Psychedelic music spanning decades and touching on several genres including Psych-folk, Jazz, Krautrock and Experimental music. This is the first of 8 episodes in a playlist. Curated by John Richardson. Dig in!

European Tour Journal Day 4 (Pastrengo, Italy)

 

After an excellent show in the historic town of Castelfidardo, we drove 20 or so minutes, through dark, winding roads, to our digs for the night in the nearby town of Osimo. We stayed in a sort of rustic hotel, which was essentially a house on a hill owned by a lady who lived upstairs. There were a few rooms with beds and a couple of bunk beds, 2 showers and a fully functional kitchen stocked with breakfast biscuits and tea. We settled in a got some sleep.

Hotel wall hanging

I woke up to the sound of distant church bells that went on for at least 10 minutes! We arrived the previous evening in the dark of night, so I had no idea what the surounding area looked like. This was the view that greeted us:

 

…and this cat:

 

 

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This little one kept us company while we packed the van and gave us good luck on our journey.

More pics of the surrounding area:

We packed up the van, took some ‘arty pics’, bade the the ‘Osimo kitty’ farewell and headed toward Pastrengo in the Province of Verona.

Let’s take a few minutes to see some of the town of Osimo as our driver, Davide, expertly manouvres the narrow roads, displaying some impressive skills right at the beginning, where he backs us out of a precarious position to allow some drivers to pass. We were listening to old Puerto Rican music while driving through the empty streets, which, for some reason, was the perfect soundtrack. It was Sunday and everyone was still asleep, even though it was probably around noon. I added a couple of tracks from the album to enhance the video. Enjoy the winding roads seen through a dirty tour van window!

 

Here’s a slide show of our drive, we had another brief view of the Adriatic Ocean. Another thing of note, something we would see throughout our trip, was that a lot of the highway sound/wind barriers also absorb solar energy, something we should definitely pick up on in The U.S.

 

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FABEMOLLE 

We arrived at the venue, met the other band, Holy Fuzz, and got set up. The stage was low, so we were more on the level with the crowd, which I like. The venue was really nice, had good acoustics and we took part in an excellent prosciutto and cheese spread.

Ziggy and our driver Davide in front of painting

Soundcheck!

Guitars and merch

Here’s a short clip of the opener Holy Fuzz doing a rendition of “The Money Will Roll Right In” by Fang, no doubt a nod to our hometown as Fang were from The Bay Area (Berkeley).

 

Also, a short clip of “Starlust-Face on Mars” from our set.

This was a pretty early Sunday show, so we drove to where we were staying, Villafranca, and had a lovely home cooked pasta dinner with Daniel and his dad Franco, a Sci-fi writer.

Franco with his book:

Next stop Zerobranco!