The sound of an electric guitar raised clear on the rapid beats of the drums. The lights turned on, directed on a circle on the stage, while the images on the screens in the back started to slide quickly. Excitement was in the air and as impatience grew among the crowd, there he came to satisfy all of us. Lenny Kravitz entered the hall on the notes of Come On Get It, a song from his new album Black and White America.
We followed him, amazed by his personality. It didn’t matter if the opening group before him didn’t warm the atmosphere before his appearance. It didn’t matter if more than half of the crowd was over forty. It didn’t matter if he’s not as tall as he seems on TV. His involving voice was leading the scene perfectly.
Sunglasses, black pants, boots, wool hat and an explosion of energy: he rocked us all and in a few minutes the whole room of the Assago Forum was singing and dancing in the dark.
He started American Woman, then Mr Cab Driver, She’s Got Attitude, California in a balanced mix of old and new. Sometimes he took a pause between one song and the other, and gave us the attention we were dreaming of.
With I Belong To You he reached the climax of sex appeal and the room filled up with little hearts and stupid smiles.
He took off his hat, manly held the microphone and whispered “Yesss”, while I forgot my anger for the 50€ tax I got on my way to the concert. I was in love with him. We all were, around there.
I went mad as he performed Where Are We Running followed by a powerful Fly Away, on which I almost lost my voice.
On the notes of Stand, even the fifty-something women behind me finally started to dance with the guitar, superbly played by Craig Ross, and with Gail Ann Dorsey’s bass. You could feel the perfect accordance among the band, also composed by George Laks at the piano, Frank Vanderbilt at the drums, the big Harold Todd at the saxophone, Gabrial McNair Louis Ludovic at the trumpets.
Lenny continued to flirt with the public until the last song, a 15-minutes-long Let Love Rule that he performed partly on the stage, partly among a crying crowd of excited girls.
He astonished all of us when he walked among the fans holding hands and singing with them until the end, when he disappeared in the dark, leaving us smiling amazed.
That’s why I had to wait more than a month to post this review: I miss him, and it hurts. Believe it or not.
