D.L.K. 'zine 0011 #3, 03-04/1997

KIRLIAN CAMERA
Eternity Tour '97
Rome - Velvet -15 March 1997


  The only italian date in the second part of the european tour by the KC in order to promote their last album "Pictures from Eternity" (the first part of the tour started as the album came out, or in October '96). The VELVET's doors opened at 22:00 even if the start of the concert was announced to be on midnight. Around 23:00 the number of people in the venue was notably growing and the little venue of the concert was opened so only the people having the concert ticket (which is different from the one of the disco) are allowed to enter it. Soon before the concert the little venue is full of people dressed in black clothes, even if there are also older and less dark-like people than the one who came into the VELVET for other gigs (such as Limbo, Templebeat, L.I.N. and Kebabträume).
  At midnight Ivano Bizzi (sound engineer of the KC since 1989 and now replacing Simone Balestrazzi, who left the band after the '96 tour) went on stage, after having tested the mics and programmed the keyboards, and turned on the DAT playing the concert intro "Tauko" (last instrumental song from "Pictures from Eternity"). After that intro they started to play "Solaris IV/A" taken from the last but one "Solaris - the last corridor" from '95 and at that time the two KIRLIAN CAMERA members, after getting closer to the stage through the people, they got on stage. Bergamini, completely dressed in black and with a Balaclava covering his face, recited (with an extremely treated voice) the lyrics of the song reading them from a diary, while the beautiful Emilia Lo Jacono played (together with Bizzi) the synths. The public remained totally hypnotized by the ceaseless beat of the long song and by the stroboscopic light.
  At the end of the song there was a blear applause and then all of us was dragged in the cemetery atmospheres of "Vienna" (cover of the Ultravox included in "Todesengel - the fall of life" of '91), properly shortened as to the studio versios which is longer than 8 minutes.
  But at a certain point, on the rhythm of "Vienna" the song "Helden Platz II" (from the mini album "Schmerz" from '92) sung by the brlliant voice of Emilia Lo Jacono started. After a cover of the T.A.C. the KC played the single "Your face in the Sun " (from "Pictures from Eternity"), and some acoustic ballads: or "Field of Sunset" (from "Todesengel") sung by Bergamini and played by Lo Jacono on the acoustic guitar and Bizzi on timbal, and "Sea of Memory" (from "Erinneung" from '94) very well performed by Emilia on the voice and the guitar, with Bergamini on the timbal and Bizzi on the keyboards. At that point a sequence of four real masterpieces literally galvanized the audience; the classicalness of "Ascension" (opening-track of "Pictures From Eternity") made one shudder, the romantic ballade "In the Endless Rain", sung by Lo Jacono (the original version was sung instead by the ex-vocalist Bianca Hoffmann-Santos) was one of the best moments of the entire concert, then they played a completely twisted version of "Heligenstandt" (from "Todesengel") which was very EBM, both swift and glacial (the stroboscopic lights help to highlight the rhythmical scanning of the song) and finally the hit "Eclipse" (in the version featured in the mini-cd "Eclipse Zwei" of '94) ended up the concert.
  The applauses of the audience lead Bergamini and the others to return on stage in order to play a new version of the well known "Erinnerung" (from the homonym album) which resulted to be notably improved compared with the already good original version, on whose powerful and german-like EBM beat Bergamini recites (this time bare-headed) verses of the german poet August Stramm with very dramatic tones.
  After always more encouraging applauses, the Kirlian Camera play the last two songs, "Raindome" and "Der Tote Liebknecht", two ballads taken from "Schmerz". During the former, acoustic, Bergamini (who also played the clavichord in some songs) did sing together with Lo Jacono (who also played the guitar), while the latter, more electronic, assumed nearly orchestral tones and ended the concert in a great way. It is half past two a.m. as the dj's Diego Dionisio and Paul Toolhill started to play musical selections respectively of new wave/gothic and EBM/industrial until 5:30 a.m..
  Notwithstanding some technical problems (on the first song there were some troubles with the voice effect and the acoustic part loosed a lot of its fascination due to the bad guitar - and the timbal- amplification) and the absence of the video which has been characterizing the band performances for a long time by now, the concert succeeded equally well, involving the audience with atmospheres ranging from cold to robotical, from romantical to classical.

  • Diego Loporcaro

  • Taken from http://www.chaindlk.com/magazine.html