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Despite being snuck away at the top of Italy, on the borders of both Croatia and Slovenia, tens of thousands of Trieste's grinning and loopy locals are out in force tonight as the touring Isle of MTV event swaggers into town, perching itself cockily right in the middle of a glorious piazza in the town's sun drenched harbour. After some Eurovision-esque set pieces from the TV comperes, Garbage get us down to business, and promptly clear away any remaining doubts about their ability to knock a crowd back on its heels, even after ten years in the game, and amid continuing rumours of their imminent demise. Opening with a blistering 'Paranoid', Shirley struts and pouts and generally gives good dominatrix, with that Courtney-Love-meets-Rab-C-Nesbitt foghorn of a voice in finer fettle than ever. 'Stupid Girl' and 'Only Happy When It Rains' sound a good deal fresher than their ten years of age would imply, while Shirley's writhing antics during latest single 'Sex Is Not The Enemy' gets pulses racing as well as feet moving. Recent single 'Why Do You Love Me?' is, we assume, rhetorical and leaves most of us hoping that the split rumours come to naught.
The biggest cheer of the night, predictably, comes halfway through the night for Snoop Dogg, who ambles onstage, complete with bling-encrusted microphone and a gold pistol round his neck. Dropping recent singles 'Signs' and 'Drop It Like It's Hot' alongside the classic 'Gin & Juice', it seems as if the whole of Trieste is gleefully nodding heads, despite this crossroads of eastern Europe being about as far from the 'hood' as it can possibly get. Snoop is as amiably, er, "relaxed" as ever, although he does seem a little miffed when the crowd stubbornly refuses to join in with his refrain of "Snoop's upside your head". One can only assume the language barrier proved a bit too much on this occasion, but he still looks slightly hurt, the poor wee mite. Although you might put money on him being older, Snoop is still only 32 now (no really, we checked) and it's sets like this that show not only just how high the bar has been raised in hip-hop over the last decade, but that it's going to take a lot more years before his position at the top of the pile is taken over by some other young pup.
As the sun sets over the picture-postcard harbour, we're all assuming that no-one could follow Snoop. Happily for all concerned though, the Chemical Brothers slink on, and in contrast to the high star-factor of the opening acts, hide themselves behind banks of blinking machinery and promptly prove us all wrong. With a career-spanning setlist including 'Leave Home', 'Block Rockin' Beats', and the set-closing 'Surface To Air', the night steps up another gear, with the crowd dancing like their lives depend on it. Even the beautiful people who'd ligged their way into the VIP area forget they're supposed to be looking aloof and start necking neat rum and falling over like the locals. The last bassline takes some time to rumble to a close, but the thousands of smiles on the crowd's faces take a lot longer to fade.
Watching 70,000 of Trieste's finest go completely doolally categorically proves what a great event this was. And, aside from some exuberant beery dancing putting a sad end to the life of one MTV-shaped inflatable, there seems to be no trouble at all, just pure enthusiasm for the music and the spectacle. The contrast to the hyper-critical and often overtly hostile attitude of this country's audiences couldn't be more acute, and is just another reason to grab your passport, blag a cheap flight, round up some mates and and go and find out for yourselves how much undiluted fun other countries take from the music we often just take for granted.
Photos by: Shirlaine Forrest
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