It's a fucking Monday night in the town of Michelangelo, and the book of opportunities and things to do is blank. Mostly because it's February (14th) and, to be exact, it's 30 years ago.

In fact, it1s 1972.  

But everything is fine tonite for me - just a day away from my 14th birthday- as well for other 1300 good souls patiently waiting in a well-mannered line outside the Space Electronic Club, located in the heart of the town.

This will be a night we won't forget very soon.

That's because this is the night of Van Der Graaf Generator's debut show in Florence. It's just the seventh concert of their first-ever engagement here in Italy, the first of a long series of tours three in the following 6 months- which will bring their status from cult band to pop icons.

VDGG have just reached the Top Ten with their latest release, 'Pawn Hearts' leaving Jethro Tull, Led Zeppelin, Santana and many others few points behind in the local selling market. The Italian Top Ten were conquered by word of mouth and with the help of the then only weekly music magazine ('Ciao 2001') and 'alternative' radio show, ('Per Voi Giovani', broadcasted every afternoon at four thirty on the national radio a.m. wavelenght and hosted by a couple of young and confident DJs, Paolo Giaccio and Carlo Massarini).

In front of the Space Elctronic club the sense of expectation is growing.

Kids gathered since early afternoon just to watch the band move into the club instruments and some weird machinery courtesy by Hugh Banton, Van1s skilled keyboards player.The band spent time with their fans, unaware of what to expect.

It1s 9.00 p.m. and the club is now fully packed and sweating.

The atmosphere is absolutely informal. Deejay Graziano Miai plays the records of his favourite bands, among which Audience (a darling of the club, which in 1971 at the time of their first LP's release hired the band for a week), Fields, Renaissance, Genesis, Atomic Rooster, Amon Duul II.

When the emcee introduces the band to a cheering and noisy audience only a bearded Peter Hammill appears on stage. He wears brown flanella pants with a parrot patch on the right leg, an oversize t-shirt and a beret. He says the show will start with him playing some songs from his solo album "Fool1s Mate" (known at the time by few, bought the morning after by almost everyone there!) accompanying himself on the acoustic guitar. But before starting the show he declares himself happy to be here, and that the night before he caught the flu!

Then, one by one, the band members walk on stage: Hugh Banton, shy in his regal royalness, Dave Jackson, aggressive in his best motor speed freakness, Guy Evans, out of the wood.

What the 1300 good florentine souls are treated with during the next 140 minutes is impossible to describe. A sense of impotence is painted on the faces of the best local musicians, and everybody is high. If you have not tried drugs yet this is the right night to have the first taste! The band are high as well, very high, and play their repertoire back and forth with confidence. They easily go into 'Necromancer', then move to 'Refugees', 'A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers' ,'W' and 'Man Erg', leaving 'Killer' at the very end with a long psychedelic hard driving coda led by Guy Evans1s free-flow drumming. The audience are on their feet asking for more and more.The band thank with big smiles on their faces and launch themselves in the most dramatic live version of their current single, 'Theme One' ever heard by anyone. Twenty more minutes of clapping by an audience completely gone berserk convince Van Der Graaf Generator to come back one more time on the Space Electronic Club's stage for another tune. And it1s 'Theme One' once again, performed under a mind boggling storm of strobo lights while Mr. Hugh Banton provides some of his most weird and scary sounds from the ring modulator and his artisanal electronic devices. My friend1s eyes are popping out of their sockets, and I firmly believe that I'll soon be flying all over the ballroom.

Well, it's enough now! Believe me it's e-n-o-u-g-h-!!!

Enough for the band, enough for the audience, enough for the club (it's one thirty a.m.).

I'm leaving. I wanna get out of there, I wanna go home with Banton's ring modulator1s weird sounds still ringing in my ears, with David Jackson's electric saxophones dual assault cemented in my ears. I want to hit the sack as soon as I can, turn off the light and start flying again. Alone.

Leaving the club, I hear older friends arranging to meet the next day to go to Ravenna and see the next VDGG show.

I say I won't go. I don't say them I can't. And I need time to absorbe, after all_

But I will see the band again on that same year (on June 2nd and August 4th, at the Piper 2000 club in Viareggio), asking for more of their unique sound, speaking a few times with all of them, moving their gear, stealing drumsticks.

In the following days I didn't do too much apart from spending my time trying to sort out what I did hear. No answer. Listening to VDGG's music more closely, though ('Pawn Hearts' still comes first) I embraced their great sense of pride in being so unique as a chance for myself to be apart from any other human being.

'If the band can be so unique, each one of us can. And if each one of us can, so can I', I kept saying to myself. In the old days it was called 'Sillogismo Aristotelico', if my Greek studies serve me well!!!

I understood that in life at least one thing has to be Big, Huge, Great. Imperative!

On Monday, Februrary 14th, 1972, I learnt a great lesson in living: there are many ways to do it wrong, but only one to do it right.

And Van Der Graaf Generator did it right!



Ernesto de Pascale

Seventies' Recollection:
Gallagher
Soft Machine
Genesis
Groundhogs
Marc Bolan
Led Zeppelin