Three LEGENDS, some new stars & Solid Rock House Band with Marco 'Pensa' Caviglia on the guitar.
Pensa Day - 23-27 September - Borgo La Fornace - Italy
I came in Italy very excited because it was my very first Pensa Day. Borgo la fornace is a small, but very elegant and relaxing 5 stars SPA resort set in Tuscany's green heart. They has made a big organization with many surprises, very delicious food and wines, presents, great warm and very complaisant staff, doing everything for their guests to feel comfortable.
I won't post the set list of the 3 concerts now, because I'm sure I'll miss some songs. Will do that later...
The 3 concerts (24, 25 and 27 September) were built in three parts each...
The first part was performed by Polly Wood & Steve Picken, and also by Federico ( a very young italian finger's style guitar player). I'm not surprised by Polly and Steve because I have seen them last October in London's Bush Hall and also in April for the Sergio Tacchini's night for the International Tennis Tour AOTP. Polly is a young but very talented singer and songwriter and Steve Picken is a finger style guitarist, both from UK. They played some old and new songs all written by Polly. During the Pensa Day concerts their performance was very artistic, powerful and full of young energy. They owned the hearts of the whole audience from the very first note to the last. Their style - a mix of acoustic, rock, blues and some Latino tunes totally blowed away the public.
http://www.myspace.com/pollywoodmusic
http://www.myspace.com/stevepicken
I was delighted so much by Federico's beautiful voice and very good guitar playing. I like his songs too much. BRAVO Fede!!
It was GREAT to see Maestro Steve Phillips right away after them keeping his spirit young and so lively with his amazing, convincing and really elegant style of playing, behavior and everything on the stage and on the real life. A real classical English gentleman with great smile, big heart and incredibly good with the guitar and singing.
The third part...well, they were John and Chris, with Marco Caviglia & Solid Rock Band!!! WOW!!! What can I say...It was so inspiring to feel the STRONG Dire Straits spirit again forced by both Dire Straits legends from the past - John and Chris, enjoying themselves so much together on the stage, especially because they did it for charity again, to rise money for the Children Hospital in Florence. They played 3 songs from John's solo albums - First We Take Manhattan, I Want to See the Moon and All I Want Is You. The last 2 were played live for the very first time!! DS songs were WOL, SOS, MFN, SFA, Expresso Love, Where Do You Think You're Going (not in this order).
It was amazing to hear John saying in all concerts that he had a great BAND with him in Pensa day!! Thank you Marco Caviglia & Solid Rock for being so good and proud to play with John Illsley!!I'm sure it would not be the last time of John playing with these great guys!! MITICI as Italians say!!! Thank you Marco for setting all these things together.
I would wish to thank personally to all Band members:
Marco Caviglia - Lead Guitar
Fabrizio Bruzzichini - Guitar
Primiano Di Biase - Keyboards
Maurizio Meo - Bass
Salvatore Scorrano - drums
THANK YOU SOLID ROCK!!You really did a good job!
There was a nice guitar exhibition of Pensa Guitars all the days.
I'm sending all my love to all friends from the Italian forum - Fede, Davide and Nunzio, the beautiful Stefy and Cristina, Pensa Boy and his friend, Jurij, Farco (great video!!), Marisacche, Maffet. We had really very fun time together in Gambassi for the last concert!!
See you all for the next Pensa Day!!
Thank you Borgo la Fornace and the sponsor MEYER !! I'm sure tha charity concert will help to the children of l'OSPEDALE PEDIATRICO di FIRENZE!
Well, a little bit more breath....THANK YOU John Illsley, Maestro Steve and Chris - Maestro di saxophone...with his incredible modesty he refused to be Maestro, but I'm sure he IS because there are hundreds of mails on his site by people inspired to play the saxophone by DS sax legend Chris White.
P.S. Will post some pictures later...Here is more pictures by Marco Caviglia:
http://web.mac.com/mcaviglia/Pensaday/Welcome.html
http://gallery.me.com/mcaviglia#100031&bgcolor=black&view=grid
