Jeff Beck & Johnny Depp

White Stratocaster, sunglasses and a vest over a light-colored t-shirt. This is how Jeff Beck walks onto the Umbria Jazz stage, with no frills and the air of someone who knows exactly what's about to unfold on a warm – but all things considered breezy – mid-July evening. The Sutton virtuoso's concert closes the long Perugia festival, which has been running for ten days – or forty-nine years, for anyone with a bit of historical memory.

On the Santa Giuliana stage, Jeff Beck opens with "Star Cycle", immediately flooding the arena with fusion textures and rock distortions, without lingering on words or unnecessary digressions. Indeed, there are few moments when Beck approaches the microphone to address the audience, as if to reaffirm that his preferred mode of expression is through his fingers, not his mouth. Every so often he raises his arm to thank a crowd that couldn't have welcomed him any better: over five thousand spectators and not a single unsold ticket. But these are just cold, hard numbers, which ultimately don't count for much in the presence of Beck and his weathered hands, still surprisingly steady and fast.

The show is a continuous succession of more or less recent tracks – from "Big Block" to "Brush With The Blues", passing through covers of "Caroline, No" (Brian Wilson) and "Stratus" (Billy Cobham) – performed with an unusual steadiness and confidence for a man sailing full speed toward his eighties, an illusionist not only of the six strings but also of passing time, capable of making us believe that the only time that truly matters is the one that marks the unfolding of a song, not the succession of events.

The performance of "Midnight Walker" is moving, suddenly breaking the overwhelming wave of distortion to settle into ethereal, measured atmospheres, building a bridge toward something astral and remote, located in infinite space light years away from the bell tower of Santa Giuliana, which rises behind the Arena's stand like a rocket built more than seven centuries ago.

It would, however, be disingenuous to pretend that those thousands of souls crowded into the stands and seats were there for Jeff Beck alone. Thirsty for curiosity and voyeurism, many of them were also (and above all) there to see Johnny Depp live, fresh from his recent legal battle against Amber Heard, an event that further heightened the hype around the show (the Perugia date is the first of four Italian dates with the English guitarist).

To welcome him onto the stage, after about an hour of the show, came a thunderous roar and the devoted lips of those who had already devoured the new "18" – the album by the most improbable duo in world rock – with their ears, just days after its release date (July 15, 2022). "This Is A Song For Miss Hedy Lamarr", John Lennon's "Isolation" and the fascinating grunge version of "Venus in Furs" are just three tracks from a set that lasted roughly an hour and saw Depp, initially unsure of himself, grow more confident as the minutes passed.

In the end, what remains is the crowd's applause, the screams of the groupies, the duo disappearing and reappearing for the encore ("A Day In The Life") and the audience rushing to the foot of the stage, breaking every rule of etiquette and assigned seating. All to take home a little piece of rock history and a small slice of Hollywood, less distant than usual on this strange and magical mid-July evening in Perugia.

(photo by David Morresi)

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google