Online review by Teatro.it (translated to English below)
Honor and glory to Geomusic by Gigi Bresciani who with the collaboration of the municipality of Dalmine and challenging the now well-known cuts to culture (yes, because music is culture too... Incredible huh?) and an increasingly refractory public to news and curiosity , carries forward a discourse, for these times, courageous. How else to define the Folk Meetings 2011 review and the fact of having brought a cult artist like Robyn Hitchcock to the province of Bergamo on the closing night?

It is true that unfortunately the hall of the civic theater was half empty (or half full, if you want to see it in an optimistic way) and this was a bit sad, especially after Elliott Murphy's sold out the previous week which had boded well, but never like this time the wrong has been of the absent ones and nothing should be of regret for the organization. Unfortunately, we must realize that it will not be easy to "awaken" people's curiosity after almost twenty years of pounding, continuous anesthetization operated by a good part of the media (although there will always be someone ready to put their hand on the fire by saying that all this is not is happening nor has it ever happened, on the contrary…). It is useless to deny that the result of such a work is before our eyes whenever meetings, reviews or shows that go "out of the ordinary" are proposed.

Having said that, it was a pleasure to get out of the aforementioned sow, this time thanks to the concert by Robyn Hitchcock in duo with cellist Jenny Adejayan.

The evening is opened by Rusties, a "local" group but rightly recognized and appreciated even outside the Lombard-Venetian borders and, listen, listen, even beyond! Started as a valuable cover band of Neil Young's repertoire, over the last few years the Rusties have arrived, with excellent results, at their own creative solidity which brings them - in a set of almost an hour and in acoustic formation with Marco Grompi and Osvaldo Ardenghi on vocals and guitar and Jada Salem on violin - playing songs from their two original albums Move Along and Wild Dogs. The Rusties were a significant added value and Soldier Of Fortune, Not Enough Love and Lose My Love, among other songs performed, helped to create the right atmosphere for a really interesting evening.

Sober shirt with pink flowers, very white hair and British irony, Robyn Hitchcock bursts onto the scene armed with an acoustic guitar a few minutes after the end of the beautiful Rusties set and, alone, opens the "hostilities" with I Often Dream Of Trains immediately followed by I Don't Know Why She Never Gets Anywhere With You. Thus begins a concert which, thanks to an immense discography, runs through almost thirty years of career jumping back and forth in time, alternating unexpected repechage - the aforementioned I Often Dream.. . - to more recent songs taken from the latest albums, above all that Propellor Time which last year has garnered great acclaim.
Eclectic and brilliant like few others (only David Byrne comes to mind as equally brilliant), Robyn Hitchcock has built his own cult career (first with the Soft Boys, then, after various excellent collaborations and solo parentheses, with the current Venus 3 ) thanks to continuous musical research but above all thanks to caustic and surreal lyrics which often, despite having years on the back, have lost none of their acumen.

Joined by the talented cellist Jenny Adejayan, who contributes to enriching the pieces with unexpected sonorities, Robyn puts together a series of songs – interspersed with interludes and irresistible translations into (deliberately?) mangled Italian, so that we don't understand if we really “ci è o ci fa” – for a jaw-dropping tracklist. Difficult to choose the most beautiful (and fortunately no one forces you to do it!) among the great Museum Of Sex, Sounds Great When You're Dead or Dismal City, you can only stand and listen wondering why, why, you should prefer to stand in front to a television when in a theater a few meters from home (okay, not for everyone...), one of the many unacknowledged geniuses of modern music is performing. And so, from the beginning of the concert, between an unexpected Comme Toujours and the final Ole! Tarantula, an hour of intelligence and irony flows in music and the moment in which one realizes that the concert is about to end is bitter. There is still time for three classy encores, three luxurious covers: A day In the Life by the Beatles - with Marco Grompi joining Robyn for a duet that was undoubtedly one of the high points of the evening -, Crystal Ship by the Doors and the very sweet, final, River Man by Nick Drake.

At the end of the concert we move to the foyer of the theater and, while waiting to be joined by Robyn and Jenny for the usual greetings and autographs, it is nice to see that it is natural to stop and chat and comment on the evening with unknown people who I will have the pleasure of meeting again and this makes me think again of how wrong absentees can always be when, due to lack of interest or sloth or who knows for what other reasons, opportunities like these are lost. For those of us who were there it was certainly an evening to remember, for the others… well, let them settle for Big Brother.

P.S.: A special and heartfelt thanks to Dario Regis for providing me with the concert lineup and to Mauro Regis for the splendid photos.

Setlist

I Often Dream Of Trains
I Don't Know Why She Never Gets Anywhere With You
Wreck Of The Arthur Lee
Luckiness
Museum Of Sex
Sometimes A Blonde
Dismal City
Sinister But Happy
You & Oblivion
Sounds Great When You're Dead
Old Man Weather
Comme Toujours
Up To Our Nex
Ole! Tarantula

A Day In The Life ( Beatles) con Marco Grompi
Cristal Ship ( Doors)
River Man (Nick Drake)