ADRIA – The announcement was made yesterday: next week The Musical Boxthe only tribute band authorized and supported by Genesis, will commemorate for the Italian public the fiftieth anniversary of the album “Selling England by the Pound”. Once again it will be the deep Venetian province (between the dates of Legnago and Rome, stop in Schio on May 3) that will pay homage to the legendary British group. As happened on 6 April 1972, when for their first tour outside the United Kingdom, surprisingly Peter Gabriel, Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford, Steve Hackett and Phil Collins they made their debut at the Teatro Comunale di Adria, so much so that they stayed overnight at the Stella d’Italia hotel: «It took me ten years to find it, but the attendance register accurately reports their personal details», says Roberto Paganin from Polesine, who works he is a tax consultant and out of passion he is the “fan-detective” of the quintet in its various transformations.
TO THE NORTHEAST
52 years ago was the tour for the album “Nursery cryme”, thirteen evenings starting in the North-East: 6 April at the Palasport in Belluno, 7 April at the Apollo 2000 disco in Godega di Sant’Urbano, 8 April at the Paradiso dancing in Trieste , April 9th at Lem di San Martino Buon Albergo and then around Italy up to Naples. However, the start went wrong: «According to what I have reconstructed, says Paganin, at the last minute it turned out that the Belluno building was not available. But the promoter Maurizio Salvadori found an alternative for that Thursday: the Adria theater had been prepared for a show by the Magician Zurlì, scheduled for the previous Sunday which, among other things, was Easter, but then Cino Tortorella had had an accident and so the headquarters remained ready.”
The testimonies of some spectators remain regarding that event, reported in recent days on the Facebook page entitled “Ciao 2001″ to the magazine. For example, Carlo Biasioli recalls: «We were just over 100 people listening to them. It was an unforgettable concert for us and for them. In fact, their worldwide success started from there. Unfortunately there is no film, no recording and no photos: what happened in that concert remained in our minds and in our hearts.” Roberto Soncin adds: «One hundred people is an optimistic estimate, perhaps 20 or 30, many of whom were convinced they were listening to the “Gens”, a local (Sicilian, ed.) beat group in vogue at the time… Peter Gabriel still didn’t like dressing up, I remember him dressed entirely in black with a kind of tights. What struck me was the calmness of the group, the musicians seated and concentrated.” Giampy Veronese confides: «I was in college, I remember a couple of hastily made posters: Mago Zurlì was supposed to be there. I was 14 years old, they didn’t give me permission to go and see them.” Paganin’s brother was also in college: «he is older than me and he studied in Adria, while I lived with our parents in Scardovari. That evening his friends went to listen to an English band that he didn’t know, so he asked for a cassette to listen to. When he came home, he made me listen to that music and I was struck by Genesis: I was 8 years old and I haven’t stopped following them since then.”
THE FINDS
No other traces remain of the Adria concert. «A photographer from Rosolina had developed some slides, the enthusiast explains, but he lost them after a series of moves. On the other hand, I recovered one of the four large books with a leather cover, which survived the renovation of the Stella d’Italia hotel, in which the guests of the night between 6 and 7 April 1972 were registered. Eight customers of “English” nationality , born in the early 1950s, as shown by their respective passports: Peter Brian Gabriel, Anthony George Banks, Michael Rutherford, Stephen Richard Hackett and Philip David Collins, plus their technicians and all-rounders Robert Sworden, Paul Francis Korczak Kezelzowski and Richard Paul Macphail, «who was also the driver of the minibus in which musicians and instruments traveled», underlines Paganin.
In the “Ciao 2001” group, there is also Vito Civello’s note: «Thanks to the hotel recordings we also know that the supporting group was that of Odissea, an Italian group from Biella». Roberto Serafin applauded them the following evening in the Treviso stage in Godega di Sant’Urbano: «I had already been following them for a while, there were only a few of us there and we chatted with them until the morning». Entrance price: 1,500 lire. «I also did a search at Siae resumes Paganin because I would have liked to see the ticket slip. Unfortunately there is a hole in the archives relating to the management of the theater from 1971 to 1974: I found Orietta Berti, but not Genesis. Too bad: it would have been nice to exhibit those documents at the “Genesis Day 2012 Adria” that I had organized for the fortieth anniversary of the concert. But I took away the satisfaction of letting Hackett sleep, after 40 years, in the same room that welcomed him in 1972. On November 2nd I will be at Geox in Padua for his celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the album “The lamb lies down on Broadway “, the last one with the voice of Gabriel».
THE TIRAMISU
Those epic and very progressive rock years were narrated by the manager Macphail in “My book of Genesis”, a book that also dedicates space to performances in the Bel Paese: «Maurizio (Salvadori, ed.) always knew where the best restaurants were, so we had a big meal. We quickly learned to eat Italian style: pasta first, often homemade spaghetti with a delicious sauce, a steak, no vegetables, maybe a little salad, and then a dessert, like tiramisu. We also discovered fantastic wines, so by the end of lunch, around four in the afternoon, we were absolutely full and drunk. We would return to the hotel, close the blinds to create complete darkness, collapse into bed and sleep like the dead for two hours. Then we got up and did the concert. Life was good and the arenas were full, 5,000 and, on the second tour, 10,000 fans waiting to hear us.” Crowds of which the 100 of Adria were the pioneers.
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