UFO in Milan, Italy, 31st January 1998.

Since I am not going to be able to make any of the UK shows during February and I just happened to be in Italy for business, how could I possibly miss my only chance to see UFO? The concert was at a place called Palaconcerti Aquatica. It is basically a large tent, so I wasn't too impressed. I arrived at about 2030 and the opening band Diving Ducks (not Danger Danger) was just finishing up so I can't tell you too much about them and I'm sure you really don't care. There was about 1200 people packed into the place and since I had arrived so late I couldn't get up as close to the stage as I wanted. I settled for the left side of the stage about 10 rows back. UFO hit the stage at 2115, opening with Natural Thing and then following the already well known set list to a tee. I was very disappointed with the vocals. You could see that Phil was singing his ass off but the vocals were down in the mud. What a shame because the rest of the band sounded so tight. I can't believe that an attempt was not made to fix the vocal problem. Maybe it was isolated to the left side of the stage but I doubt it. Phil looked great with black pants (looked like the same ones he wore at the Town and Country club in April 92) black shirt and a 3/4 length silk coat. The coat and shirt were lost for the 2 encores. Michael was all dressed in black and played with sunglasses for the first few songs but then removed them. He still looks like a guitar hero with the black hair, but now he looks like a "sophisticated guitar hero". Pete had on his patented striped tights and played without a shirt the entire show. Paul looked good in a blue shirt with black pants. Simon, from the little I saw of him had a white t-shirt with black shorts. Pete was his usual wild man self. He was all over the stage, sometimes jamming face to face with Michael and other times just running wild. Michael and Paul basically stuck to their respective sides of the stage although they did come to the middle of the stage for a mini jam-fest with Pete during Lights Out. Phil put on a really good show poor vocal sound and all. He was very animated during the songs and you could tell that he was enjoying himself. The show ended at about 2300 but I wasn't about to leave. I wanted to meet Michael! I wasn't to be disappointed. Michael hung out for well over an hour after the show autographing just about anything. However, if you had one of his CD's you got to go to the front of the line. After I got my picture taken with him, I asked him when we could expect the new UFO album and he said sometime this year. Let's all hope that this is true and that the boy's stick together for a long time to come. Maybe they could even convince Michael to play some songs live from the Chapman years!

Keep on Rockin,
Scott Rush