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Rating: At 11:00 PM in the historic Palermo venue I Candelai, Agghiastru opens with his desert folk rock show, the intimate and acoustic meeting of Luca Madonia. Agghiastru delivers one of the most convincing performances of recent years, thanks to suitable amplification, lighting care, and an attentive, adult audience comfortably seated in armchairs. In the room, there is anticipation and electricity; spectators now know that the minstrel loves to surprise and engage.
The musicians take the stage, with Salvador Cusumano on drums, Paolo Liberto on bass, and Franco Barbata on guitar. The piano, placed at the center of the stage, awaits the Sicilian pianist in elegant black velvet, who, after lighting the lamp placed on the instrument, begins the opening notes of PARIA. The entire show, with the exception of SARU MANTICI, is centered on songs taken from INCANTU. The sweet lullaby of TINTATU proceeds slowly and enchantingly, LA STANZA invites dancing to Latin rhythms, FERRU & FOCU offers vibrant rock pulses in the refrain, while on CARENNU, one starts to travel through the Sicilian psychedelic deserts.
Agghiastru is in great form and constantly jokes with the audience while announcing his songs. I Candelai is famously an ex-brothel in the heart of old Palermo, what better place to announce ROSA which, for those who still did not know, tells of a prostitute who, in the ritual of initiation, took a boy's virginity for a few measly coins. The atmosphere is feverish, because the wild master, it's really apt to say, musically creates his dancing structures infusing them with a multitude of rhythmic influences, so here's how in ROSA from a slow brushing it reaches an epic and hammered conclusion of an acid/rock time. The audience enjoys this seismic wave, going beyond the patterns, this musical anarchy to which they have been accustomed by our storyteller. And theater is made with SARU MANTICI and then La MORTI, with the drums marking a tribal dance as an exorcism to death, from which, alas, there is no escape... cinniri t'arridduci o mangiari pi' li vermi è una puttana c'un s'arrenni e pi' ‘sta lotta ‘un ci su armi ("ashes you will become or food for the worms, it's a whore who doesn't surrender and for this fight no weapons"). With the INCANTU, the intense show of tonight concludes.
Agghiastru whispers both with his voice and with keys only to surprise with a growing and revealing finale of cursed omens, and although calm arrives punctually with the final verses, still it will be like a wind that swallows up every semblance of enchantment.
M. Van Hausen
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