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Rating: Alright, it’s true that diafragmatic paths are endless or almost, but enough is enough. Or maybe not? Because I realize that, of one's own accord, seeing and re-seeing the same group three times in the span of twenty days is not exactly common. Unless you are an Ultras, a Diaframma Ultras, following Fiumani's lock of hair wherever it goes, from the remote Arci club in some Bergamasque valley to the deconsecrated church in central Palermo.
Frankly, I don’t seem to have the Diaframma Ultras card in my pocket, but between "home games" and away matches within the heavily violated borders of the God Po, we can't complain. And the nice thing is that every time you see our guy again, it’s a different experience, a story of its own, incomparable to the others. At least if you take the "concert experience" the right way and not just as an (in)finite succession of notes and chords. Also because, although there isn’t a real setlist, the songs Fiumani plays these couple of years are more or less the same (and frankly if you have the beauty of eighteen studio albums, you could make a little more effort, right). Except that, to save face, he occasionally pulls out a pearl or two. I remember a beautiful evening in Bergamo last summer, the air of imminent rain, park, a creek I'm not sure how artificial, families with children, practically non-existent stage... and this guy starts pulling out "Illusione ottica," "Pop Art," "I giorni dell'Ira"... stuff that makes you say "oh God, does he still remember these?!" Apparently yes. Where were we? Ah, right, every concert is unique, especially if you go with a really obsessed Ultras, and the pre-concert offers the occasion for some not-so-frugal dinner at some trattoria-osteria in the area, preferably one that’s so hidden even the best GPS can’t find it, the kind where you have to ask a resident octogenarian out on the town with a Venezuelan caregiver forty years their junior to find (and call him foolish...). Then, if to all this, and we're still at the initial preambles, you add that each "away" trip was more or less plagued by delightful unforeseen events that would have discouraged anyone (replace "anyone" with "a responsible adult"), you understand that the picture is complete. Because if you planned two months ago to do Milan-Genoa just to see him, fully knowing that in two weeks he'll be playing half an hour from your home, well, something's wrong. And if those who were supposed to host you with brotherly love bail on you two days before, and your response is "screw it, at worst I'll sleep at the central station waiting for the first train," you need compulsory treatment. Let’s be clear, this is not a review; it’s a pseudo-reflection on diaphragmaticity, neosensibility (what!?), and dedicating one's lost time to a "cause" (ahem...).
Ah, colorful note: after the feast in Genoa, we find ourselves at the Milk, an Arci hole that couldn’t be more of a hole, scraped from an old downtown Genoa building (do yourself a favor and visit it at least once in your life)...black-painted walls, you can’t see a thing, "yes, it's a very 80s dark local." I'll take their word for it, and Capo Ultras doesn't lie. Claustrophobia, sweat, fights, pogo. The tracks are the same as always, and those for which anyone would get off their ass: Siberia, L'orgia, L'Odore delle Rose, Vaiano, I giorni dell'Ira, Elena. Oh, did I mention that amidst all this pogo, we managed to give Fiumani a mic shot in the mouth? At first, he didn’t take it well, screw everyone, dramatic scene, and whoever wins, wins. In the crowd, people have faces like "oops, we messed up." Tension. Someone yells "you guys are a bunch of assholes." Awkwardness, as Gene Gnocchi would say. Then the Lock returns, big smiles, very punk sweat, but this time we "pogo responsibly," it almost looked like a tile dance. The venue guy gives everyone the stink eye, and it almost ends in a mosh pit brawl, with Ultras acting as a security cordon. It feels a lot like a Sunday afternoon at the stadium. Ultimately, "Sorry Fede, we didn’t mean to try to break your face" "Screw it, you hit me right on the teeth." And good night to the musicians, as they say.
Let’s leave aside Bergamo and Milan two weeks later. Setlist almost unchanged, at least if my mind isn’t playing tricks, same sweat, same passion, truly that the age on your ID is just a meaningless number, here there are fifty-year-olds jumping, shouting, and yelling in joy, in a word "living," more than some twenty-somethings I know, always lobotomized in front of Facebook and true lords and masters of the "don't give a damn." Brain death, the sleep of the mind. "The world moves on without you," Fiumani would have said in "In perfetta Solitudine." Ah, the last CD, after some somewhat underwhelming work, doesn't seem bad at all, nice music, nice lyrics, well-played, a little craftsmanship jewel, it's called "Niente di serio," buy it. Bergamo, what a city. It never told me anything, never felt the need to "discover" it more than that, but the Upper City is a must, no doubt. Naturally, they were playing in a rough part of the Lower City, to be clear. Biblical flood over Brianza and Bergamo like hadn’t been seen in years; stuff like "the GPS says to go straight and straight ahead there’s a giant black cloud," stuff that really made you think you’d get there faster paddling than by car. Torrential rain, we’re supposed to meet for a pizza, naturally the wrong address is sent out, and everyone ends up in a different part of town, things that make you say "who the hell are we dealing with?!" A quick round of calls, and you find yourself in a crappy tavern, the kind surely not featured in the Gambero Rosso guide, smoke cloud thicker than the fog in the Po Valley, you, your partner, and...fifty Atalanta ultras celebrating their salvation. A picturesque picture. "Excuse me, how much is polenta and roast?" and from the next table "today I can die because I know Atalanta is safe." And go with the terrace chant. Very "picturesque." The only truly noteworthy factor of the Confidenziale (zero group, just voice and guitar) at the Navigli in Milan was the nice idea of having a painter in, um, the room (a nook) painting figures inspired by Fiumani's lyrics, projected behind the Lock while he strummed about "the approaching darkness" and "him loving another." Noteworthy in the sense that otherwise, it was the usual chaos of passions, eh, even if this time more "reflective": sitting on the ground, dreamy demeanor, listening to the bard in admiring silence. Beautiful beautiful, 5 euros, too bad there are people who think that to see a "cool concert" you have to spend at least 40.
I close this travel diary with an image. Ten minutes to two in the morning, an alley in the Navigli of Milan, four drifters, ages ranging from twenty-five to fifty, but who in mind and heart don't feel more than eighteen, twenty at the most mature moments, spontaneously start singing "Falso amore" a cappella, sing it all and not even that badly. "He never really plays it, what a shame." I still wonder why we didn't get a bucket of water thrown down on us from above. These are Diaframma, band and fans are one and the same. Come to terms with it, if you made it this far reading (I doubt it). And the next concert? Who knows, but since each time here feels like the first, it can only be one way, beautiful.
The concerts:
April 6, Milk Club, Genoa
April 24, Druso Circus, Bergamo
April 28, Spazio Concept, Milan
The musicians:
Federico Fiumani, Lorenzo Moretto, Luca Cantasano, and all of us
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