Not much to say, really, because the show was indeed outstanding. Accompanied by (I’m sorry I didn’t get their names) an Italian on guitar, a Croatian on accordion and his old band matte Gumbi on percussion, Al proved again, although unnecessarily, that he is a great musician and guitar player.

Edit: According to this article in the online edition of Washington Post, they were Peo Alfonsi and Fausto Beccalossi:

In addition to his longtime percussionist Gumbi Ortiz, a master of Caribbean polyrhythms, Di Meola was accompanied by two Italian-born musicians: accordionist Fausto Beccalossi and guitarist Peo Alfonsi.

I don’t know where did I get the Croatian thing, but I stand corrected.

The guy on accordion was also brilliant. I wasn’t aware an accordion was capable of such things. And he was sometimes singing along too, which was touching me in unexpected ways.

Mike Joyce puts it better:

There were several moments, however, when accordionist Beccalossi nearly stole the show with his deeply soulful rhapsodies.

A very big surprise was also Gumbi’s instrument, something I’ve never seen before, literally a big crate that was also serving as his stool. Yet that crate sounded almost like a drum kit when pounded by his bare hands. Absolutely spectacular.

Edit: Thanks to the same Washington Post article and Wikipedia, I now know the instrument is called Cajón, the Spanish word for crate, so I was close.

I’ll leave you with these pictures taken with my (crappy) mobile phone, in which you will have to trust me there’s Al di Meola on stage, last night in Bucharest.

I just wish these things would happen more often than once a few years…

The event management on the other side — typical for this fucking country: a complete mess.

Firstly, due to the lack of advertising, my estimation is there were just about 2000 people there. I think it should (and could) have been at least four-five times that amount.

Then the pretty expensive VIP tickets I bought were almost useless: the seats were not numbered! We sat in other seats because the ones I presume were ours were already taken when we got there, and since there was no sign of any kind of official around, there was no way to force anybody out of any seat.

But let’s keep a bright memory about this, the show was absolutely great!

Unfortunately my friend Irina didn’t bring her camera along because she feared she won’t be allowed to bring it inside. But I’ve seen some incredible scenes inside the venue (I told you the event management was absolutely disastrous): some people not only managed to bring camcorders inside, but they were also fully equipped with tripods!

So I’ll leave you with these beautiful pictures lifted from Robert Plant’s official website. They are from a show in Greece, but they look quite similar to what we saw in Bucharest.

Tomorrow night we’ll have the privilege to see the great rock legend Robert Plant performing live in Bucharest.

I’m very excited and I can hardly wait. I hope it will be great. I haven’t followed his music in the recent years, yet even if I (supposedly) don’t like it, it’s going to be a great show, performed by true musicians. A must see.

I’m a little bit concerned about the location though. It’s going to take place in a parking lot and it’s going to be the show that concludes a series of live performances starting today with some (crappy) Romanian bands. I’m really curious about the acoustics in that parking lot.

But I’m more concerned about the seats. I’ve bought the so-called VIP seats because I wanted this concert to be a surprise and birthday present for Crenguţa, and of course there was no way to get her standing for several hours into a crowd of thousands of crazy rockers. The website I bought the tickets from had a really bad schematics of the stage and seats areas, one thing being clear though: the seats are at an angle from the stage.But there was no way to tell how the visibility is going to be. But we’ll see.

After years of drooling, my dream has finally came true, thanks to my incredible wife Crenguţa, whose idea I believe it was, and with the financial help from my sister Ancuţa, my sister-in-law Alina and my mother-in-law Iuliana. Thank you, I love you!

My wife never ceases to amaze me, even after all these years (we were class mates in primary school, and our love story took off during highschool — although according to family folklore I had a crush on her since the first grade, and we were more or less flirting since the seventh or eighth grade).

She is to be committed to the hospital again tomorrow for the second hip replacement surgery, yet she finds the time, the energy and the will to think about my birthday! I know she’s really worried and has a lot on her mind right now, and this shows just what kind of person she is: so caring, so thoughtful and so altruist…

I must confess that I would have probably behaved completely different in her situation. I think I would have felt so low and unable to think of anything else. But not my baby! That’s why she is so special, and I must be really lucky to have her in my life.

I love you very much, get well soon so we can get on with our life, OK?

Err, in fact there are too many things I’d love to get out of my system, but nobody wants to know about my personal problems. Most posts of “blogging tips” type will tell you that.

And as a matter of fact, I’m really really tired of talking about my problems, even thinking about them, but unfortunately I can’t help it. A few days ago I heard for the first time a song of Adriano Celentano called Miseria Nera, although you could probably count on the fingers of one hand the songs I’ve never heard before. The chorus speaks better than I could ever do it myself:

“Io vendo il cuore<br/> Io vendo, per non morire<br/> La vita e bella,<br/> Ma e bella per pochi<br/> E non per me.”

“I will sell my heart<br/> I’ll sell it not to die<br/> Life is beautiful,<br/> It is beautiful for few<br/> And not for me.”

Listen to a fragment of this great song on the Clan Celentano website.

Oh please let it rain today.
This city is so filthy, like my mind in ways.

Wash, by Pearl Jam

Note: This is a scaled-down version of the original image found here: Concert photos on pearljam.com

Edit Nov. 21^st: Due to popular demand (just kidding, only my wife actually reads this) I’m currently looking for options to embed a player inside these kinds of pages. Probably a flash one. I intended that in the first place, but being caught up in other things and all… I’m not really sure it will happen very soon.

Yes, it’s strange because it’s not something I would normally listen to very often, at times it gets too experimental for my lack of patience and mood.

But this particular song (track number 7: Quicksand) caught my attention, as it almost summarizes my life for the past few years in these lines (Note: this is my transcription and it may well be inaccurate. I just couldn’t find the lyrics anywhere.):

Sometimes I’m paralysed
The life is speeding by
I never seem to get anywhere
No matter how hard I try

Last time when this happened to me (and I’m talking about resonation here) was during a very unhappy period, I think there are three years since then already.

I was extremely depressed, almost suicidal. I felt like screaming my lungs out every fucking minute of the day, but this is not an appropriate conduct from a young man in society. So instead it seemed the music of Radiohead screamed my pain for me, and it really was the only thing I could (or would) listen for a few months in a row. It turned out that it wasn’t such a great idea in the end. Firstly because nobody seamed to understand what I was going through just by my choice of music, although I thought it was plain to see. It was this strange, unexplained resonation I feel again now, and apparently nobody else around me experiences — or at least not at the same time and for the same music.

That was the period I took many of the worst decisions of my entire life (if only to mention breaking up with the one and only person that actually cared for me and that eventually — and surprisingly, considering what a monumental jerk I was and still am at times — became my wife, after a relationship of maybe ten years).

Note to self: wouldn’t hurt if I could express my true deep feelings once in a while. Still something I’ll have to learn how to do, apparently. Thank you again, mom and dad, for the fucking divorce and the complete lack of mind and maturity in dealing with it afterwards.

Getting back to Mr. Belew, as much as I enjoy his album, I’ll have to put it aside for now and wait for “lighter” moods. I’m really sorry, as I suspect it will seem that it has lost its magic after a while, just like it happened with Radiohead — which I still like and listen occasionally (not in the presence of my wife, mind you), but I just can’t help the feeling that something is missing. My complete lack of balance, maybe. Which might be a good thing actually, it could mean I’m still higher than rock-bottom.

But to keep me from doing something stupid again, I think it’s best to get back to old friends Obituary, Death, Pantera, Sepultura, or the recently discovered Six Feet Under and the likes.

It’s only metal that keeps me hanging, for the moment.

P.S. I have one question for mister Belew I forgot to tell you about. What’s with the fucking drum machine, man?!

Some of the best tracks use one (if not all, I couldn’t tell for sure on some), when a real drummer sweating on top of a real set would have been much more appropriate for a rock album, as experimental as it may be. Wouldn’t you agree?

And of course I had to be there, although there were moments when it didn’t seem possible!

It all started for me back in 1990, when I had purchased my first cassette tape of their 1998 album called “So Far, So Good, …So What”. At the time I was in Poland with my athletics club, and I was convinced the tape I was buying was the genuine stuff. The following years I saw the “business” of forged tapes and CDs blooming in Romania as well, so I finally realized that not a dime from that tape (and many subsequent others, for that matter) ever reached Megadeth.

Well, maybe it was a forged copy, but the music was what it counted, and I was hooked forever. And I don’t believe the money of a little boy from one of the poorest country in Europe would have made a difference for them. Of course I’d have loved to support one of my all time favorite bands, but it just wasn’t possible. In fact, that’s exactly why I chose to buy a ticket this time, although I had been offered a press invitation.

So to cut a possible long story short: here I was, 15 years later and actually after listening to their music for half of my life, I finally got the chance to see them live. Man, it felt good!

They are professional musicians, and it shows. It was a very good show and they all sounded great together, despite a few sound engineering problems (the whole right side went mute at one point for a few seconds) for which they promptly apologised — take note, you Romanian ape-shit “music stars” who can’t even lipsynch to your own moronic lyrics.

Unfortunately the acoustics of the arena where it all took place are not great at all, I don’t know why the organizers chose that place. It is in the middle of a small park, a little bit away from the city center or other important places, but not really remote — a ten minutes walk from my place, actually, which was in fact nice.

But maybe the authorities feel better knowing the fans have a few minutes to chill off with a stroll in the park after the concert and before hitting the “civilized” world , who knows? Sepultura played in the exact same spot a few months ago (I missed that one, damn it!), so I feel there has to be some sort of motivation, and if I know anything about the people leading this country probably all the wrong one, of course.

But I’m off again, let’s get back to Megadeth. So I’m very happy to show you a few of my favorite pictures from the show, taken by my friend Irina, also known as “Wicked Witch” with her new camera. Thanks, Irina!

And most of all, thank you Megadeth, for fifteen great years plus one hell of a night!

For a larger version of the pictures, please visit the dedicated set on Flickr.