Franco Battiato at Koko

Luca had another spare ticket to see yet another Italian artist, although warned me that he wouldn’t be like any of the artists that we’d seen recently. Looking up Franco Battiato, it’s no wonder since he’s a 63 year old singer who’s been wowing Italians for several generations and continues to publish albums without any visible end in sight.

Held at Koko on Tuesday night (the night it snowed across the country), I stood in line with, what seemed like, only Italians around me. Even the ticketing people spoke Italian rather than English! Inside it was quite the mix of different ages yet the common thing that bound them together was their appreciation for Battiato’s music as made evident from how many songs everyone seemed to sing along to.

I find it hard, even now, after listening to him perform how to describe his music. It’s surprisingly contemporary mixing together elements from many different styles with his vocals. He sang alongside a fairly large band with a number of string instruments, a pianist, and a few guitarists (two of whom were extremely attractive dread-locked ladies) and had a phenomenal amount of energy for such an elderly performer.

Despite not knowing any of his songs, and only understanding the one or two songs he sang in English, Battiato impressed me by simply putting on a great performance. I can’t say that I’m going to listen to his songs anytime soon, but it was a enjoyable night experiencing something I wouldn’t go out of my way to do myself. All the Italians present seemed to enjoy it and it clearly obvious he enjoyed performing for them, so what more do you need?