John Foxx

If we exclude an impromptu Roman appearance dated 1987, in support of the ambient project "Cathedral Oceans" (the first of three chapters completed in 1995, and released on CD two years later), you have to go back to 1983 to find John Foxx playing in our neck of the woods. That was the tour for "The Golden Section", a phase in which the man seemed to have drifted away from the icy stances of "Metamatic" to chase the glories of that neo-romantic rock-wave which he himself had helped invent as frontman of Ultravox. Back then he showed up in Milan with a classic line-up, where the electronic component served as mere support, with a set that, alongside the album being showcased live, drew heavily on material from "The Garden" and "Systems Of Romance", skipping "Metamatic" altogether. We don't think the other night's show was meant to make amends to the robotic fans left wanting back then, although we do like to think so.

Even if we're wrong, we wouldn't be giving misleading pointers, since the grey-haired, elegant Foxx presents himself to the lukewarm Milanese spring armed with nothing but electronic gadgets, accompanied by his ever-faithful sidekick Louis Gordon, likewise digitally armed to the teeth. For anyone not satisfied with this description, we'd point to the recent release "Live In A Room (As Big As The City)" or, for the unlucky ones who can't get hold of one of the thousand copies in circulation, to the more widely available "Omnidelic Exotour", reissued four years ago: both faithfully document the direction taken by the shows of this lean English gentleman.

To cut it short, there's only one way to read today's John Foxx: synthetic pop, that is to say auteur electropop, no offence to the many tinkerers who imitate him, often forgetting to credit him as the pioneer he is. Techno-pop non-stop: not just Kraftwerk is the note to remember here.

And the setlist, while thrilling, sometimes even catches you off guard: in the cybernetic reworking of the Ultravox-era "The Man Who Dies Everyday", or in the angular yet no less evocative revisitations of "Hiroshima Mon Amour" and "My Sex", for instance. The rest is a bouquet of Metamatic-era glories or, at worst, of some well-chosen but far more earthbound recent creations. Can you think of anything more thrilling than a four-of-a-kind, with the voice in top form, when the four aces are named "He's A Liquid", "Metal Beat", "Plaza" and "Underpass"? Certainly not, since these alone were worth the price of admission.

And if we add two more gems from that era, the opening "20th Century" and "No One Driving", to the great Ultravox classics ("Slow Motion" and "Just For A Moment", besides the three mentioned above), it's easy to understand where our indulgence comes from for the occasional excess length in the reworking of the recent songbook, which, incidentally, is not to be dismissed at all.

And to think that this date was cancelled last December and remained uncertain for a long time, due to problems caused by a damning poster that subtly passed the duo off as an aging Ultravox cover band ("A night with Ultravox", the poster clumsily proclaimed). For this reason, an offended John cancelled the two Italian dates twenty-four hours before the performance. Setting aside the annoyance, with hindsight we understand the reasons: between the nostalgia being evoked and this show lies the talent of a great artist, here and now. Click click drone, applause, and so be it.

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