Well, a little bit of history tonight at the Lake Angels Soul Festival took off like a rocket and lit up the sky over Barga. Things will never be quite the same again. Recently it has been almost impossible to run the kind of music and food festa that traditionally was held for many years in Barga Vecchia. The regulations concerning food and food preparations and the rules about noise levels for live music inside the castle has meant that something had to change. Tonight it changed.
The Lake Angels building on their experience of running a very successful piazza during the Festa season decided this year to make a jump out of the city and move operations down to the sports stadium where it would be possible in theory to cater for 400 – 500 people and put on live music events without incurring the wrath of local residents.
In theory …. in practice it was a big risk as nobody was actually sure if that amount of people would actually turn up on the night. Turn up this did in their hundreds … all bets were on.
The Lake Angels Soul Festival was born. Two different soul groups playing each night and with a menu that moved from macaroni through to roast pig and finally on the last night … a traditional fish dish from Livorno being offered…. and all for charity.
Soul Italian Community House Band#3 opened the proceedings and kept the pressure on right the through their set until the main band of the evening – the Mr. Pitiful Soul Band took to the stage. Then things started to get a bit wild. Dancing throngs in front of the stage created a mini dust storm which covered most of the dancers legs with a fine brown covering as the night just got hotter and the music louder.
Then just before midnight- disaster struck … Andrea “Big Man†Giannelli on the drums who had been pulling a fairly good imitation of the “animal” on the the old Muppets show hit his drum with just too much of a rimshot, broke his flailing drumstick and slashed it into the skin of his snaredrum before he could halt his hands downward thrust destroying his instrument. He played on with one of his side drums to the end of the song but the band then had to take a 15 break while another drum could be brought in from a nearby musicians house.
….. and the band played on.
A great festival atmosphere this evening with almost an intimate feel to the whole event … something very difficult in a sports stadium. Well done the lake Angels, the SIC- the Soul Italian Community and the A.S Barga who organised this event.
So what now is the future for music and food events in Barga ? Change is probably the way forward with smaller more intimate events.
Maybe now is the time to relaunch the idea of the Festa del Centro Storico which is programmed to start on the 17th of this month in an acoustic version ?
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8.30 pm – Soul Italian Community House Band#3
Tiziana “Melanina†Noccioli – voce
Daniele “amnesia99″ Palla – voce
Massimo “Fabio Rapatmax†Rapezzi – tastiere e cori
Jack Nannini – chitarra
Gino “Tonico†Marchi – basso
Mauro “xnientefacile†Palla – batteria10.30 – Mr. Pitiful Soul Band
Cristina “criccanta†Salotti – voce
Fabio “Fabflack†Pierotti – chitarre
Fabrizio “Leo.Bass†Leone – basso
Andrea “Big Man†Giannelli – batteria
Simone “rhazckal†Venturi – tastiere
Alessandro “alebop†Rizzardi – t. sax
Riccardo Barsotti – trombaMenu – Roast pig