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Rating: It's difficult to talk about people you've "met" only through records, whose voice, sounds... emotions you've listened to a thousand times, and then suddenly you find them in front of you, talking to them as if you're speaking to one of your best friends, discussing everything, women, music, politics, with a disarming and refreshing naturalness that does your heart and mind good, especially when I think of the many bigwigs roaming around Italy, thinking they're Jimi Hendrix or Jim Morrison.
Doug and company are wonderful people first and foremost. We play soccer in the square adjacent to the Estragon, yes, even Americans play soccer and Scott Plouf is quite good; we eat with them in the dressing room and linger until the last moment with Brett Netson (guitar and noises for Caustic Resin and the fifth Built To Spill member), so much so that they have to come and call him because it's time to go on stage.
I'm already aware of the setlist, having seen it drafted in the afternoon, and when they go on stage, I naively think I already know what's coming (confident from having seen them the night before at the Rainbow in Milan), but as soon as they strike the notes of "Goin' Against Your Mind" I find myself bewildered and incredulous, floating on the notes, with Doug Martsch's soft voice rocking me into hyperspace. Intense and precise, they unfold the evening through well-established hits like "Car", "Time Trap", "Conventional Wisdom", or "Center Of The Universe" (at the end Doug breaks a string, and the other four start a progressive distortion of the song, allowing him to fix the instrument and return in full sonic vortex); or pearls taken from the Built To Spill's cabinet of wonders, like the disorienting "Nowhere Nothin' Fuck Up", the oblique "Virginia Reel Around", or the soft "Dystopian Dream Girl". Magnificent, as magnificent is the finale, where the splendid "Randy Described Eternity" is stretched to the extreme for a finale of piercing cathartic distortions, reconciling you with the world waiting for you outside, which does not promise anything good.
I'm in the car for the long drive back, and I can't help but think that everything I expected from the meeting with these people wasn't even remotely close to what it was... a heartfelt thank you.
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