Tokyo Concerto, 10th May 2002
(Reviewed by Tatsurou Ueda)

IRST of all, the show was absolutely fantastic! They did pretty much the same set as Matsuyama-san reported.         I too was 'almost' in tears when the first note of River of Life struck. As the music built up, it took the whole concert hall to a place no one has been to but in each one's dear memories of the time when the music was first played. Every one of those in the audience must have had their individual moments and feelings as s/he heard the song back in the 70's (or recently) that jus tdo not compare with others, but this time all was in accord. PFM on stage masterfully presents the majesty in music, in which all shared the same beauty and emotions. Peninsula was played in such length that the venue was turned into a classical guitar recital. Franco introduced the song in Japanese (!) as ".. the song represents nostalgia of Italy". Strange enough, all the Japanese audience felt nostalgic about past time in Italy: that's how strong the song is.         My personal highlight came as Maestro de la Voce was played in full, with all the interaction between Di Cioccio's vocals and Djivas's earth shaking bass. Ah, that simple but eloquent melody on Franco's guitar!         Alta Loma was incredible. Subtle but dynamic, loud and quiet. Tender but fierce, violence in loving emotions. What can I say about this, but the words are only wasted.         Impressioni di Settembre was played for encore, followed by È Festa (Celebration).         The show was a blast all the way.         After the show I had a pleasure of meeting all the members of PFM as well as the support drummer Pierro. A nice guy indeed. It was a lot of fun especially as I was with our dear Leonardo and some of the best prog musicians of Japan including Kenso's Yoshihisa Shimizu, Hiroyuki Namba, Raven Ohtani (who played on the first Mr. Sirius album) and Shinji Matsumoto who now works with Hiroyuki Namba.         Premoli had to go back to the hotel early but others were available to chat and autograph. At the end of a long long day they must have been all very tired but their hospitality was no less than being unsurpassed.         (I should add that Yoko and I had such a good time with those prog gurus of Japan later at a near-by restaurant.)         Just honestly about the performance and sound engineering: the first set Suffered less than perfect sound (perhaps the monitor was unbalanced) and at times one or two instruments would go astray for a split second, thus being less tight than they could have been. The second set after 10 minutes pause was just great.         All in all, what a wonderful show it was, and such energy shown by the boys in the band was incredible. If you feel jealous for us lucky Japanese fans being able to see the band play in full figure, jealous you should be, as they are just wonderful! :-) Tatsurou Ueda

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