There was always talk in Belfast about Lord Carson being of Italian stock - a rumour which brought with it yet another intriguing possibility, but no matter. Italian or not, Carson's statue just looked the other way as the great Pavarotti of Modena prepared to take to the Belfast stage. Tonight, for one night only, Lord Carsoni wouldn't be the only one to strike an operatic pose on a Stormont pedestal.
Rain of biblical proportions had been falling all day. In the distance, the tenor's moon-buggy was getting a final wipe. The reverend audience silently bowed their heads and prayed for clear skies and, sure enough, the deluge suddenly ceased. A weak sun appeared and we sat in great anticipation as the Ulster Orchestra began to tune and scrape. Locals pigeons immediately scarpered and, most importantly of all, a well-dressed roadie checked the six bar electric fire which would serve to warm the maestro's bum.
It was a truly surreal scene. The illuminated Stormont, just like Pavarotti, much bigger in real life - and many in the audience genuinely surprised to be quite so close to either. The start of the show/gig/performance was a bit disorientating too. Apparently knowing little of the simple arts of showbiz, Luciano finally appeared dressed in an anorak and a flat cap. We hadn't been expecting dry ice and a giant lemon - but even so. Maybe he'd just been fishing in the Beechy River or playing in a skiffle band on the corner of Hyndford Street? Perhaps, like the rest of us, he was just foundered.
Those in black tie (the Ulster Orchestra mostly) may have felt a little overdressed, but at least they were getting the good of the electric fire.
So there he was - all of a sudden - Luciano Pavarotti on a duckshoot. At 63, he's not quite as heavy as he used to be, but he's still big enough to paint a half decent mural on his back. Some say he's not as good a singer as he used to be either, but to these entirely untrained ears, his voice sounds as warm and full as ever. We've all watched him on television a thousand times - dramatic yet entirely effortless as the other two tenors bust a gut. And the hairs still stand on the back of my neck at the first notes of Nessun Dorma - but maybe that's as much to do with Packie Bonner as anything else.
Initially the audience seemed a little underwhelmed as Mr Pavarotti warmed up with selections that were hardly crowd pleasers. And, to be honest, we were still sore that he hadn't bothered to take his coat off - it looked like he wasn't planning on staying very long. Then he was gone and out stepped the soprano Carmela Remigio and she had clearly travelled on a horse. More groans from the fashion-conscious, and it was only when the two of them re-appeared, properly attired in black and white, that the audience really began to warm up - responding generously to the sacrifice the two shivering singers were making. At last it looked like a real concert and Luciano took her by her tiny frozen hand and sang a little Puccini. It was beautiful. The intermission was called and the Dublin contingent crammed into the Lyric FM tent - some never to return.
It was a place of mixed opinion. The feeling, to use boxing terminology, was that Miss Remigio was way ahead on points. She had scored heavily with O mio babbino caro while Pavarotti himself had not yet landed any real big hits. I proposed that he was doing the rope-a-dope and that he would suddenly flatten everybody at the very end with O sole mio or Nessun dorma - he was clearly saving his energy for the final rounds. In fact, I was so convinced of my theory that I quite ready to spout it into a radio reporter's microphone which had come my way - but as it turned out she wasn't interested in my opinions at all and was merely looking for directions to Brian Kennedy.
Things were certainly cranked up a little in the second half. Vesti la giubba and Non ti scordar di me reminded the doubters that there was indeed a great tenor in town. Maybe we would someday tell our grandchildren of the time we heard Pavarotti sing - the way people used to talk of seeing Gigli in the Ulster Hall. And it was a genuine thrill to witness that, behind the Pavarotti of whom many have grown a little weary, there remains a truly great singer. No bad thing, either, to be reminded that there is more to the maestro than the glossy pictures in the souvenir programme - Pavarotti with the Spice Girls, Pavarotti with Elton John and Pavarotti with the Dion woman. Charity concerts - but even so.
The crowd pleasing proper began during the encores. No Nessun dorma but a playful O sole mio was bound to send everybody home happy. A delirious girl shouted (in Italian) that she loved him. A smiling Luciano bobbed about a bit and said a few words. There was even a bit of audience participation as we were invited to sing along on that big boozing song. The audience, already in character, was well up for it and had to be advised by the man himself not to ruin things by clapping along - this was Pavarotti after all, not The Furey Brothers.
And so, with a song in our hearts, we boarded the buses - just a little bewildered. Rock concerts have us ruined. We expect drama, we expect energy, we expect what looks like effort. Most of all we expect volume. And this is what was missing for someone like me. It was great to see, but it was no different than listening to the man on CD. We were hearing Pavarotti coming through a sound system, and somehow it wasn't the quite the same thing as hearing Pavarotti. At least that's what it felt like to me.
MAYBE I've been entirely twisted by pop and all its works. But I kept asking myself how Sharon Corr can make more noise than the Ulster Orchestra. Or how a weak voice like that of Neil Young can have more punch than that of Pavarotti. I know it's all to do with amplification - but Pavarotti is a pop star, too, and if he's playing to 12,000 people he should adopt a trick or two from his pop-star buddies and turn everything up to 11. Audiences need the full-impact experience - we were brought up on it.
But most of us are never going to hear Pavarotti singing in a small concert hall. Even fewer of us ever will hear him in the shower, and so we must content ourselves with the huge, if slightly unsatisfying, open air experience. It doesn't suit everybody and it didn't suit me - but then how else do you get Pavarotti to Belfast? It's a compromise - even at Stormont.