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Rating: Sordid evening... I return from Bologna where I am completing my thesis on the total commodification of the human body and its expressions, including good and bad feelings... tabula rasa... well, I return only to see Earth and understand if an old-fashioned band like this keeps its promises...
This is a somewhat strange period for the music world in general: especially in Italy, where bands not worth a dime behave like rockstars from one month to the next: first they beg for dates everywhere, even at school parties, and make heartfelt appeals about the pitiful state of music in their country, then they embark on pseudo-alternative adventures, demanding sums with 2-3 zeros as if it were nothing, giving as motivation (with a tone now conceited and predictable, with the flavor of hidden defeat) that "they want to make a living with music, not have to go to the factory every day!!?"...
This discourse is easier if you don't live in Italy (land of blowhards...), indeed, I believe the problem doesn't even arise for certain bands or projects: Earth is probably one of those bands...
I was telling myself: here it is!! This cover of the new album already looks tacky!! Then, seeing the slew of releases from Southern Lord under the name Earth (which denote the entrepreneurial savvy, as well as the artistic one, of S. O'Malley and co...), almost as if there were a witch hunt (that is, the bootleg made underhandedly at a concert, with a rotten cassette recorder, 80s rules...) and it's heresy not to necessarily own the triple Ultramarine Blue vinyl... well, I was smelling something stale....
What??! Even these guys have "jumped on the bandwagon"??!!!
Persistent question in my mind, until entering the concert... How great it is to CHANGE YOUR MIND!!!
It's true that Earth's records, unlike in the past, are now much more available, both online and at your trusted store, not to mention they are now touted left and right as a "seminal band"... but fortunately this hasn't affected the creative vein of Carlson, Davis, and the other nutcases... Incredibly intense pieces, all from the new album without leaving anything to the nostalgia of Pentastar or Thrones and Dominions, let alone the obsessive thrombosis pre-Sunn... the vibration is still there caressing your limbs, it seeps into the creases of your jacket, and gives you the chance to play with it at every slightest movement, while the new narcoleptic, very desert-like suites, with some jazzy echoes, make the air vibrate and leave me spellbound and lost in the void... even the new member of Earth, the bassist whose name I don't remember and don't want to Google, you might try... is quite good indeed, he meshes excellently with the few phrases of the chick, making the mood even more cosmic! At the end of the concert, I noticed a grim, crooked look from the bassist directed at Carlson, as if to say: "AHHHooo, how many damn bars do I still have to count!!!" :)
Six pieces plus an encore, the usual phrase "Thank you very muuach" at the end of each piece pronounced by Carlson, with an affected Seattle accent (reminded me a bit of Layne Staley??!), makes me smile under my breath...
Incredible also was the solo set of Sir Richard Bishop, former flamboyant guitarist of an absolutely insane band, the Sun City Girls, whose records have already become a relic of eBay at crazily high prices... His sound is close to that of guitarists like Jack Rose, with various finger-picking style reminiscences, as well as a somewhat Spanish, somewhat Indian aura, to seal his virtuosity, which lasted at least an hour: his mumbled gags with some audience members were very entertaining...
Few people in Ravenna, many outsiders (Bologna, Cesena, Rimini, and more...), very few locals (my fellow citizens don't lie... they are okay with light house music for aperitifs), no more than 50-60 people...
If you were there, good... if not, even better...
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