Diaframma
Live @ Mumble Rumble, Salerno 24 .03.12

A street-level garage. Well kept, clean, welcoming, but a damn street-level garage. I mean, the shutters next door were parking garages, and upstairs was a family's apartment. And above that, stacked one on top of another, the apartments of other families. There were lights on in living rooms, bathrooms, and bedrooms, signs of everyday life in full swing above us. A bit further along, a bar that could only exist there, with purple walls and magenta-colored furnishings, the owner out of shape, and a limited selection of alcohol. Typically, there’s a crowd of twenty or thirty people of all ages from 15 to 50, representing almost every social and fashion background. This number would gradually grow to around two hundred as time went by. It's funny to think there's the supernormal guy, in jeans, shirt and cardigan with the inevitable dandruff-sprinkled glasses, alongside the goths and those strange beings known as hipsters who actually yammer on about David Foster Wallace. I think of I Cani (the band) but now's not the time.

We are in Pastena, a district of Salerno, on Via Loria at Mumble Rumble, a club suggested because it really has that indie feel, being situated in a yellow-lit suburb, as anonymous as it is deserving of such a place. It's a typical DIY club, presumably run by fans of live music of a certain kind. No semblance of a canonical venue. The fresco of Hendrix in the concert hall speaks volumes and tells you that here, the healthy and banal idolatry of the province meets the genuine desire to escape.
I didn't go alone. Federico Fiumani doesn’t know but as of last night, he can count two more of my friends among his followers, who unlike me, were there in '77 and fully enjoyed the Italian new wave era. I contributed the car, a stroll to stretch our legs through the beautiful city of Salerno with several alcohol-filled pit stops and that's it. The rest was done by the man from Osimo, Florentine by adoption, delivering a fully convincing performance, despite the strains of the previous night in Naples.
I return, without following any logical order, outside Mumble Rumble because I'm not ready for the concert to start. There are other memories of yesterday that take precedence. Yes, because I found myself particularly moved. The pleasantly warm temperature, the melodic chatter of those present, the volume of the conversation rising in step with the increasing alcohol intake, the color of a dark night irradiated by artificial orange and yellow. Some scruffy stray cats. My two friends hadn't connected with new wave for several years. Their skepticism. A few puffs of the best weed in recent years. My personal difficulties, the part of me that tames them to remain sub limen. The need for a strong jolt that only a Diaframma concert can give me (I've seen about 8 of them in the last year throughout the peninsula, it seems I really needed it). The need to release tension to turn it into something else, or rather, to see if there's energy beneath it. Ultimately, the need to escape reality.
Entering for a strategic walkthrough of the hall, I thought that live I surely wouldn’t hear either "The future smiles at people like us" or "Laughing" as they don't seem to be among the fifty or so songs the band rehearses for the concerts. If I had Fiumani in front of me, I thought, I'd ask him about that Sardinia, the one of "Laughing": I'd like to know what happened in Cagliari and even more, in Sassari. What fantastic internal adventures did you experience there? I'm sure they resemble mine. How many damned interviews you get, always with the same questions, always with the same tone. You also seem the same there. No one capable of bringing out the one who toasts with demons.
These thoughts are interrupted by the announcement from my two friends who pull me from my suspension in the void with a tight-lipped announcement: "Fiumani is coming." He is there, as usual, walking decisively and with a grim look across the hall. I know that if you get him talking he turns cordial right away but this time I'm too deep in thought. I watch him give a precise indication to the technicians and then return and disappear through the door at the back of the stage.
I think that we’re about to begin and indeed the hall fills quickly and this time I feel part of the shared collective anticipation. The time to finish a beer that one of the two handed me and the lineup is assembled on stage: Fiumani (voice and guitar), Luca Cantasano (bass), Lorenzo Moretto (drums). Obviously, I expect the opener "Siberia" and so it is. The guitar whistles its sounds, bass and drums join. Just as the piece gets into full swing, everything stops. Fiumani curses at the lighting technicians because the stage is practically dark. With the lights on, everything restarts and from the following "Gennaio" you can tell the wave is the right one. The rhythmic foundation guaranteed by the two musicians backing the leader is, as usual, solid and well-structured. Perhaps it's Fiumani from whom you never quite know what to expect. Last night he surprised me with his energy and his desire to never hold back. It’s always like that but last night it was even more so. The certainty that everything is falling into place is felt with "L’odore delle rose" and "Elena". The concert is now set, the audience actively participates, Fiumani is amused by a young girl listening with her eyes closed, leaning against an amplifier. The younger ones bounce in the little space available but, as usual, it's the old guard that carries the biggest emotions inside: my two friends, stuck in the times of "Boxe" / "Gennaio" / "In perfetta solitudine", are wide-eyed despite their thirty years of experience with concerts of a certain kind.
The sound is really excellent, perhaps I'm more sensitive than usual, but the guitar sounds really good and Fiumani’s stage performance is aggressive and of great quality: excellent vocal delivery, excellent handling of challenging situations, immense energy spat at the audience through spasmodic and epileptic screams at various moments during the concert. I internally rejoice at those beastly flips over the notes of "Madre superiora". I can't help but think this is rock, and I don’t give a damn if Elvis knew how to sing it too. I prefer this crooked, sweaty and dreamy kind. And I like the atmosphere, I love the place: everything works together to create the ideal setting in which the precious centerpiece fits, Fiumani, who lives - believing it - in the shoes of the perfect loser who perfectly bathes in the perfect provincial basement. He is the king here. At certain times, and in some respects, it reminds me of Cobain in a local flavor. Riding the crest of this energy that receives only applause and appreciation, the concert continues with the main tracks from the latest album - no room for "Carta carbone", though - before returning to the classics after the wonderful "Grande come l’oceano": for my friends it’s the first listen and I must say that "gli anni verdi di orgogliosa solitudine" and "la camicia gialla con la svastica da punk originale" produce their immediate Cupid effect. While the two of them become young again, I am abducted by the question "wonder if I’ll ever be a man one day, wonder if I'll become one?". By this point, it seems clear to me that it was time to water the dinner being digested in the stomach with more beer, and to smoke up. Among the various, as usual, I remain listening to "Caldo" and "Verde", in religious self-flagellation, just as I would have listened to a reading by Giacomo Leopardi of any of his compositions. It goes strong on "Diamante grezzo", evidently the track Fiumani prefers to play live due to the enthusiastic response of audiences across the peninsula, and "I giorni dell’ira" literally demanded by the younger ones. It lightens up with "Io amo lei" and everyone joins in on the cheeky lyrics of "Io sto con te (ma amo un’altra)" and "L’orgia". Among the many songs proposed in stifling heat and in a smell of smoke and sweat condensation, the words of "Un giorno balordo" make their way through all those present - and especially into my heart. Compared to two weeks ago in Rome, the setlist is more varied and draws from more albums. At the Jailbreak, after an opening segment almost entirely focused on the latest album, the concert homed straight in on the first three albums and "Anni Luce", leaving little room for anything else. It's always good, always great to listen to. Every time I find those three in front of me, I think I have some kind of internal ubiquity gift: it’s as if I’m in the company of my favorite writer, while my favorite band is playing elsewhere, and meanwhile, deep down, I’m looking at myself in a mirror lost somewhere in the recesses of myself. It’s a good feeling, sometimes it brings your head to places that don't exist, where you are your own roommate, other times it requires your presence on the spot.
We’re outside again, we think everything is over but it’s not. Like in a movie, we are on the sidewalk across the street and suddenly we hear "Siberia" start again followed by other songs. It is, perhaps, the best moment of the evening. Walking through a remote street in Salerno while hearing Siberia played live, muffled by the walls, without seeing the band. We laugh happily and contentedly.
I close like this: "The last time I saw Diaframma live, Sassolini was there. I didn’t come with prejudice but feared I’d encounter a clown, a faded copy of a memory, something ridiculous. Instead, Fiumani believes in it, he takes himself seriously (despite the title of the latest album, editor's note), he is credible because he has always done what his head told him, after all, and he manages to lighten things up on stage, even after maintaining a fearsome gloomy look for several minutes. In all this I would give him some advice: damn, use the diaphragm (!) when you sing. But maybe not, what could one teach him. He screams like that because it's like that for him. Damn, it’s like that for me too! And maybe he doesn’t care if a phrase feels tight because, it seems evident, that’s it for him. But how beautiful is "Grande come l’oceano"! Will you lend me the new record?" "No, buy it". He played in a damn garage. Nothing new, perhaps. Nothing serious, for sure.