Coliseum, Oporto, Portugal

I headed to Porto after a hard day at work but believing that once again I would be blown away by David and the band. Well, when I arrived at the hall I started to have some doubts due to the few people present there. But my fears would fortunately not come true. Lisboa didn’t have a full house but the pit was full and the rest of the hall was cosy enough. In Porto when the show started the hall was not full either but from what I could see there might be a few people more than in Lisbon.

Anyway, the show started on time. The band entered the stage and the audience cheered, showing that this was something we had waited for a long time. The Scent Of Magnolia opened the setlist again but there was something strange on David’s face. By the end of the song it was noticeable that something wasn’t going has he wanted. Black Water and the first technical problem. Steve’s drum machine wasn’t perfectly fixed to the stand and when he was playing it fell off the stand. But he managed to pull it out by replacing the electronic beat on the drum snare. That didn’t affect too much the performance of he song but David was not very pleased. The Godman and maybe due to what happened before the performance pulled out of this song wasn’t the best. I started to fear a bad night for the band and a not so good show for the audience. But fortunately I surrender launch the band in a crescendo of performance and mood. The setlist was the same of the night before. After that shaky moments at the beginning confidence was restored and the band revealed more secure and effective. David’s voice sounded great as ever. But Matt still pulled a lot of piano solos on a few songs. And I still have some doubts about those.

The show was very good, maybe not so good as the night before but I still found myself amazed and thrilled by the performance and the songs. David was dressing different from the night before but still very elegant. As in Lisboa the audience was able to pull two encores but the difference here was that only one song in each encore was played. Nightporter on the first one and Bhajan ending the show. Don’t know why but wanderlust was not played, unfortunately.

At the end David was showing the same big happy smile of the night before and bowing to the cheers of the crowd.

We thanked for the opportunity of being blown away on two nights of great songs, high spirits and devotion. Beauty passed through here and I was there.

José Polido