Calibro 35 live @ Rotondes on Saturday: 25/01/2008, their debut, in Luxembourg!!

As announced, ten years after their very first concert, on Saturday we'll take back to Luxembourg Italian super cult combo CALIBRO 35!!
Today this blog starts a countdown to the show: daily posts will take you through the (first) ten years of history of this awesome band, sampled by Dr. Dre and Jay-Z, on stage worldwide with the likes of Roy Ayers, Muse, Sun Ra Arkestra, Sharon Jones, Thundercat, Headhunters and as unique musicians with, amongst others, PJ Harvey, Mike Patton, John Parish, Stewart Copeland and Nic Cester (The Jet).

We obviously start from the very beginning, which is one of our dearest souvenirs of the years of Panoplie, our association which has organised more than 50 concerts between 2006 and 2012. In 2007, Afterhours played 5 times in Luxembourg (2 in January and 3 in September, all sold-out), giving us the occasion to know their live sound engineer, the young and talented Tommaso Colliva. Enrico Gabrielli was also in the band at the time, and on the last night Fabio Rondanini came to d:qliq as well, after the show he played with Nidi d'Arac at a festival in town.
It was the era of MySpace (do you remember?), where I discovered a new project created by Tommaso, with Enrico, Fabio and two other musicians I didn't know at the time, Massimo Martellotta and Luca Cavina.

I had the pleasure and the honour to receive the first rough mixes of their work, that absolutely conquered me. The idea of bringing Calibro 35 to Luxembourg was the obvious consequence, and the project accelerated because of an invitation they received from a cinema festival in Brussels.
As a result, their absolute debut took place at d:qliq on January 25th, 2008, sharing the stage with Lombroso, Italian duo including Dario Ciffo, who was leaving Afterhours. He has been replaced by our old friend Rodrigo D'Erasmo, who was playing with Nidi d'Arac, too, and had come to d:qliq with Fabio in September.

Calibro 35 should have opened, but they ended up playing after Lombroso, forced to arrive late at the soundcheck. Talking about the check, I still remember when Tommaso and the band started setting up the stage, and asked themselves how to play: they decided to sit all down, as you can see in the video hereafter.
A very special night, a huge success, with an enthusiastic public only disappointed by the fact that they didn't even have a record, yet.. they finally had to sell the posters of the concert.

We can't help being proud (and reminding often) to have "baptised" this awesome band, and happy to take it back to Luxembourg, this Saturday: the line-up of the night includes one of the most interesting new acts of Luxembourg, afro post-punk quartet No Metal in this Battle, and two support DJs, KustonBeater & LeGenco.

Come enjoy this great night of music, at Rotondes, on Saturday, May 19th: here the FB event, pre-sales are online here!!