Ezio – Pitcher, Düsseldorf; March 2nd, 2023

Ezio has been in my musical universe for over 20 years and I always enjoy seeing him. Yet, his shows are like the proverbial box of chocolates – you never know what you’re gonna get. This one was no different, with random requests, loads of banter and many funny moments.

To my surprise the ticket and the venue’s website started a concert time of 7 pm, so I showed up at the venue a little before six only to find a sign at the door saying “entrance: 18:00, show: 20:00” – dang, could have waited an hour. Waited, exchanged a few words with Ezio, who’d stepped outside to make a phone call and got in eventually. Was freezing, so it was tea for me until more people showed up and we chatted for a bit.

The show started shortly after 8, with Ezio telling us he had bad eyes, many buttons to press  and big feet so he might fuck up at times. He was chatty that night and talked a lot between songs, making us laugh (and occasionally, groan).

He started off with ‘Not hard to find’, which I had forgotten about, but enjoyed nonetheless. This was a solo show and I’d thought I’d miss Booga, but he did a fantastic job on his own. He was happy we were there and told us he was in the middle of a Netherlands tour, needing a break. The next song was for J. who had been coming to the shows for 30 years. It was ‘Mermaid Song’, one people always call out for when he is taking requests and it was beautiful.

“Are you enjoying yourselves or are you thinking ‘Fuck this was a mistake!’,” he asked us, then told a story about watching an opera which turned out to be a mistake. 😀 He joked with the audience, then dedicated a song to K., but I didn’t recognize it, much later I figured out, it was ‘Girls’ from the ‘Adam and the Snake’ album. Next up was ‘Wild Side’, always a favorite. He did, what he had feared and fucked it up, so he turned it into a song of how his eyes are shit and figured that would make a great Rammstein song so he had to demonstrate, much to our amusement. 😀

Ezio told us someone last night had told him he was like “Ed Sheeran’s dad” and he joked about how he could have never produced a ginger kid. True. It turned into a story about his son, who clearly looks like he came from him. It was all a funny rant about musicians he doesn’t like. When he asked which song we wanted to hear so I called for ‘Bruce Springsteen’ and he played ‘I’m on Fire’ in response – fair enough! Afterwards he explained about his song ‘Bruce Springsteen’ and that he had though he might sell records by mistake. 😀 Then he played it for me anyway. <3

We got o hear about his hometown of Peterborough and a pub he played there one afternoon when it was full of drunk skinheads. He managed to make one of them cry with a song he had written about his daughter. That was the first time I heard him speak about his daughter, but apparently he is not worried about her as opposed to his son. OK then. The song was lovely.

There were a lot of different requests, next time he asked, but Ezio ignored all of them except for ‘Tuesday Night’. Having gotten one request, didn’t keep the guy, who made it from adding more later, but he did not get another one through. Fair. Next, we heard about him learning German on Duolingo, favorite words and the difference between Saarland and Sauerland. 😉 He made up a song on the spot too.

Ezio proceeded to ignore all suggestions and decided to play something fast, which was ‘Indian’ – it fir right in as he has noted that he was being very “un-PC” that night. *shakes head and smiles* He switched up guitars to get a more Spanish guitar sound and played us a new song about Vampires, followed by a Neapolitan song that he complained about being hard to play.

It was time for a hit song and changing back to the other guitar. First though, it was time for some more funny German words, “Kleiderbügel” (coat hanger) being a favorite and he noted that we were easily satisfied, because we always laughed. The following song definitely should have been a hit and it certainly is among Ezio fans  – ‘The Further we stretch’ brought the first full sing-along of the night. Yeah!

He briefly thanked his Patreon supporters and finally played ‘Thousand Years’, that had been requested several times already, joking that it was for the lovers out there. We got another new Vampire song – what’s with all those? It was fun though with a great guitar solo in the end.

Some fans had come from Belgium and it was quickly determined that nobody had come from further away. Then, Ezio proceeded to rant about Britain and how he doesn’t recognize the country any more. When someone called out “and the queen died” he was like “So fucking what?”, ranted about colonialism for a bit and spoke about how much the world and especially the UK has changed since he was young. Awwwww! I rolled my eyes a bit and so did a few more women in the audience. He even had a song about it, ‘I wanna be…’

It was time for more requests and he made us vote for ‘Deeper’ versus ‘Go’. We decided on ‘Deeper’ and he didn’t have a harmonica, so we had to sing it. We did terribly! 😀 It was all good fun though and as an encore we got ‘Saxon Street’. It’s not an Ezio show without that one and it was fantastic. <3

Afterwards I want and talked to him briefly and – of course – bought a T-shirt because I already own all of the CDs. Then I made my way home, happy I had decided to see the show.

Setlist

Not hard to find
Mermaid song
Girls
Wild Side
I’m on Fire
Bruce Springsteen
“Remember the times”
Tuesday Night
indian
“Vampire Song”
“Neapolitan Song”
The Further we stretch
Thousand Years
“I wanna kiss you where the sun don’t shine”
“I wanna be…”
Deeper

Saxon Street