•
Rating: When the guy with the coat and ponytail walked across the venue, I thought I had seen him somewhere before. He silently climbed onto the stage, picked up a strange three-necked guitar, and sat down on a platform in the center, like an Indian guru. With extraordinary serenity, he began to explain what that strange instrument was, of his own invention. And he let us get a preview of a suite composed precisely for those unusual strings. The sound was similar to the sitar. Paolo Tofani, guitarist of Area, has certainly pursued a musical path by delving into the ethnic and Middle Eastern flavor that has always been the band's trademark. It was certainly strange to see him fiddling with his tablet to maneuver the pedalboard using some app.
The concert began like this, with Tofani explaining how each member of the band over the years had taken their own paths, aimed at achieving greater musical awareness. After a while, Patrizio Fariselli on piano and keyboard, Ares Tavolazzi on bass, and Walter Paoli on drums made their entrance. The Area, what remains today of the International Popular Group. I didn't believe they were still doing live performances (they started again in 2010). How could I miss the chance to hear a piece of music history live? And not just Italian?
The "Reunion tour" is essentially an instrumental re-proposal of Area's tracks, with inserts from Tofani and Fariselli's solo experiences. One could argue that a too peculiar ingredient is missing, namely the voice of Demetrio Stratos, but given the vitality and experimentation inherent in this music, there are plenty of reasons to relive it live. And besides, didn't they release albums until 1997?
For someone like me who wasn’t around in the '70s and therefore missed their golden period (I was born in the penultimate year of that decade), at the start of the concert, they proposed a provocative eighty-second piece containing all their sampled repertoire: "Sedimentation." For the rest, it was a succession of semi-instrumental improvisation on the most well-known classics, from "Arbeit Macht Frei" to "Cometa rossa," from "L'elefante bianco" to "Nervi scoperti," passing through "Gerontocrazia" and "Luglio, agosto, settembre (nero)." Semi-instrumental, I said, for obvious reasons: the only mention of Demetrio Stratos came from Patrizio Fariselli before performing the beautiful "Epitaffio" for solo piano, a revisitation of the oldest piece of Western music ever found. It was Tofani who slyly attempted "La mela di Odessa," and in closing with "Gioia e Rivoluzione," the only tracks to be performed sung.
The intersection of free jazz, progressive, avant-garde, and Middle Eastern melody is always an emotion, and the energy, the style! that these four gentlemen still master filled me with enthusiasm. Over forty years of career behind them and showing it all, in the best sense of the expression.
Loading comments slowly
