Duel
FEARS OF THE DEAD

Duel Live @ Circolo Libero Pensiero 15.10.2016

My city is notoriously averse to concerts.

It happens that due to some fortuitous celestial alignment, two bands played here last week, one Dutch and the other Texan from Austin. And I repeat, this is a very rare event here, where not even the bagpipers dare roam with their bagpipes during the Christmas period, searching for a small offering. It happens cyclically during this period that my musical preferences lean towards heavy, rocky, desert-like, off-key, and psychedelic sounds capable of bringing joy and carefree gaiety to my eardrums.

It happens almost involuntarily that yesterday, stopped at a traffic light, with Duel’s music in heavy rotation on the stereo of my four-door, I feel the urge to recall that concert from the previous week with some words.

I arrive at the venue monstrously early before the concert starts as if I were meeting someone to tell tall tales. In reality, I arrived early because it’s been a while since I’ve attended a concert, and the idea of practically having it in my living room excites me, and I want to enjoy even the moment of waiting.

I pass the time with a sambuca on ice (yes, I need ice with sambuca, which, come to think of it, I haven't drunk since 2000, I believe...) accompanied by a cigarette on the venue's steps, in the company of young people who could be my children or more precisely, my grandchildren. The cigarette, for an ex-smoker like me, acts as a detonator, and for five minutes I feel like I’ve smoked something different from a simple cigar.

The venue, a former provincial disco, is small, and during the week it hosts all sorts of local musical events, from the Tuesday mazurka course to Friday Argentine tango.

In the center of the room, a magnificent strobe light is displayed, once an indispensable object in discos, now relegated to an ephemeral dated item hanging from the ceiling, which upon sight brings to memory the image of Maurizio Sejmandi and his - alas terrible - Superclassifica Show. Memory plays strange tricks on me; I suddenly remembered Maurizio Sejimandi.

On the sides, mirrors and some tables here and there. Here, time has stopped in 1984.

The quartet opening the concert, Komatsu from Eindhoven, plays a rather monotonous and one-track stoner; the first song recalls the second and from there to the last in an altogether acceptable but somewhat tedious sound mix over time. The thing I remember most is the bassist’s cap with the Karma to Burn logo. Let’s put it this way: they might be Karma to Burn in the minor key and, coincidentally, like uncles, they give their best in purely instrumental songs, which I enjoyed the most.

The audience is sparse, but as mentioned above, my city does not love concerts; rather, it warmly avoids them, especially Rock ones.

Stage change: down guitars, bass, and on with the Duel from Austin, backed by two members with past experience in Scorpion Child, I’m told, which I actually don’t know. At first glance, they already seem like a more solid and seasoned group than the previous one. The singer-guitarist, such Tom Frank, stocky with jet-black hair that would make Harlem Globetrotters envious, is adorned like a true Yankee with jeans hugging his thighs, Texan boots, and a belt with a USA buckle. The guitarist on his right is a long-haired freak and hard rock type in his flared pants and further down, battered black boots at his feet. The drummer, a man of 40 kilos thin, wiry, and all nerves, is in a black dark look and seems to have stepped out of a Ramones record - dressed in XXS sizes - devoted to the Bauhaus cult; on the back of his sleeveless shirt stands a phrase like “Southern rock free” or something equally daft. I later discover he’s JD Shadowz, formerly in Ripper, an obscure horror metal band active since the mid-eighties. The bassist, on the other hand, has a mole on his face, and he reminds me of Lemmy from Motörhead, just like the singer’s voice, which raw, after a promisingly good instrumental intro with high psychedelic content, opens with Fear of the Dead, the opening track of their debut album with a hard rock flavor indebted to the Seventies metal sounds. In Feel to the Earth they remind me of the early rocky Kyuss, irresistible are the solos in Electricity, up to Locked Outside with a vaguely Pink Floydian flavor. The concert continues non-stop in a tight hard rock imbued with whiskey and Bourbon with Sabbathian reminiscences and vigour to envy a twenty-year-old.

The quartet moves well on stage, the singer plays with the guitar giving us royal solos, the drummer sweats, contorts, and displays really interesting facial grimaces; no one holds back in this over an hour-long concert with a high hard rock content, with stoner shifts, psychedelic splashes, and granite riffs with a metallic flavor.

I had fun, too bad the city, for the umpteenth time, preferred to lounge under the covers.

I dive into the merchandise and whatnot, and, being the spendthrift I am, fall for yet another very cool T-shirt depicting the logo of the Roman label Heavy Psych Sound Records, who produced the album, and with my ears ringing, I ride my scooter back home. Next time I'll bring a windbreaker because it's all well and good to be rock, but dressed in just a black hoodie at one o'clock at night on a bike risks catching me a bronchopneumonia.

It happens that right here, today, I reach 4,000 (four thousand!) days and I wanted to celebrate with a review. See you at 8,000.

And to think I didn’t want to go on too long.