PFM (live at ULU )

London
2 March 2019

PFM (Premiata Forneria Marconi) were one of the earliest progressive rock bands to emerge from Italy in the early 1970s. They were certainly one of the best known Italian bands of that era, mainly thanks to being signed by Greg Lake to Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s then fledgling Manticore label in the UK and USA, giving the band a much wider profile than they had in their homeland. One reason for this was the hiring of King Crimson lyricist Pete Sinfield to translate and sometimes rewrite PFM’s lyrics into English to help reach a wider audience.

Since the halcyon days of the 1970s, the band has gone through several different line-ups and have managed to ride the wave until prog has become fashionable again, and the audiences for experiencing this wonderful music has grown exponentially. Somehow, PFM have managed to weather the storms of fickle public taste better than some of the other Italian progressive artists of the same era, such as Le Orme, and in fact in a recent prog rock readers poll, their star seems to be in the ascendant again, mainly thanks to their live performances.

Tonight there is no support band, so we are treated to two hours of pure PFM, borrowing heavily from the seventies back catalogue and from their latest release, Emotional Tattoos. This evening though, the band wants to give the audience exactly what they want, even if that means wallowing in a bit of nostalgia for most of the set. Franz Di Cioccio does an amazing job at being both drummer and front man for the band. He hops from behind his kit to the mike out front with ease and engages the audience with very conversational style intros, which go down very well with the assembled crowd. Patrick Djivas is mercurial on his bass and gives the songs the extra push that they need in parts.

The music is fantastically old school prog, with soaring guitar lines and wonderful Mini Moog keyboard runs giving the sense that the seventies never really ended. But the core of PFM’s songs are the emotional element. Franz’s vocals are delivered in an impassioned fashion, making you believe that he means every syllable he sings and as if he were ripping the songs from his very soul.

Tracks such as “Photos Of Ghosts” sound majestic as the band give it the big emotional depth charge it deserves. “La Carrozza Di Hans” is almost serpentine in its mix of time signatures and melodramatic keyboard fills. Apparently In Classic, an album of the band re-imagining classical music, took ten years to complete, and tonight they play “Romeo e Giulietta: Danza dei Cavalieri” from it. This is full of power and beauty, and is where Lucio Fabbri’s violin playing comes to the fore. It is a masterclass on how PFM just understand this music and seem to create a new entity from the piece (I have to say though that ELP also did a rendition of this piece on their 1992 tour).

Classics such as “Impressioni di Settembre” are almost heartbreaking in their delivery and “Harlequin” is a beautiful arabesque of a tune, filtered through the band’s spot-on timing and the intricate battle between percussion, guitar and keyboards. It was here during the course of the set that I tried to see if I could recognise some of the band’s influences creeping through; there was certainly a touch of Genesis (a band who were big in Italy long before the UK really embraced them), a little bit of Yes and maybe a smattering of ELP (which is maybe why Lake liked them so much) — but in the end, their sound is very much its own thing.

To end the night, the band perform one of their best loved tracks, “Celebration”, and there hardly seems to be a dry eye in house by the time they have finished. It’s a shame PFM didn’t do a full UK tour this time, rather than just the two dates that they played. Hopefully they will be back to these shores again soon and build more on their reputation as being one of the finest live performing artists in prog.

-Gary Parsons-