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Rating: The homepage of DeBaser can be delightful. You can find the random DeSample that changes your life, the editorial that brightens your day, the review of that album you forgot you loved. It’s a place where stories begin.
It’s there, for example, in the "De-gigs" section, that I learn that tomorrow, just a few steps from my home, Faust is playing (exclamation point). A lightning round of phone calls to summon a few adherents and arrange for presale tickets. There are three of us: myself, a friend, and my ex. Faustian scalene triangle, it’s called.
So, I’m nervous enough, I get ready for the event by blasting myself with all their albums in my possession in just a few hours (if you know what I mean), and I reread a delightful interview with Juan Hervé Peron that I recommend to all of you like honey on strawberries. He speaks of six figures who, at the end of the '60s, driven by the spark of genius and the demon of Stockhausen, occupied a building in foggy Wümme, Northern Germany, the most anonymous place on the planet. From those years comes the monumental debut tetralogy of the musical collective that sublimated Krautrock. A whirlwind of thoughts floods my brain; at times I feel like a lucky man: tomorrow I will see Faust. Am I jumping to the past or the future?
I inform myself a bit: in Naples, there will be the aforementioned Peron and "Zappi" Diermeier. One third of Faust. Along with them, Amaury Cambuzat from Ulan Bator. The question is valid: how much will they give me back of the soul of one of the most ingenious and apocalyptic music the planet has ever heard? However, I know one thing: Rudolf Sosna left us about ten years ago, and that rules out those tragic-Brechtian frequencies that upset me so much, I also know that this is one of the two ensembles named Faust from the dissolution of the group itself. In short, I know that I don't know.
I arrive outside the Galleria Toledo with a medium-high level of excitement, damn it, two minutes and I have the myth in front of me. Those outside seem to think the same way as me; after all, few of those thirteen euro-paying attendees were born when "Miss Fortune" was released. Inevitably, this increases the collective interest. For a moment, we seem like a colony of sea lions, but maybe it’s just the osd atmosphere that’s spreading. For my part, I celebrate the wait with a lukewarm Ceres + my last cigarette, I meet my ex who barely looks me in the eye and my friend whom I convinced to come with the money-back satisfaction guarantee. The last thing I think before entering is that soon he will thank me.
It’s a small theater, upper floor, in the center of the row, of the speakers, of the world. A few minutes to study the stage: in the middle, a kind of drum set caged by tubes, full of strange objects to hit (here it is). Scattered here and there, basses, guitars, a huge contraption full of wires and buttons, a green barrel, microphones, a chainsaw, an ironing board, tubes of various kinds, a white projection screen. Dismay paints on the faces of my two oblivious companions, to the point that she speaks to me, the friend already laughs. A voice from the back: "It was a good idea to smoke that joint...."
The time has come, here they are. Zappi is a giant, bald, cheerful, schizoid, red shirt and calf-length pants. That sort of drum set is his throne, he climbs on, and it’s a real spectacle. Peron, for his part, is barefoot, psychedelic t-shirt, and long hair, round glasses. The 55-year-old next door. Amaury has already strapped on his guitar, looks cheerful. There’s the acrid smell of legend in the air. It’s hard to describe the next two hours. Peron is possessed. He plays divinely everything that comes his way: basses, barrels, soldering irons, guitars, wind instruments, his own voice, drills, tambourines, and certainly more I forget. Otherwise, he weaves long monologues in French, recites mathematical formulas, insults Amaury, jokes with the audience. At one point, he calls for a girl from the audience, opens the ironing board, and begins to iron her t-shirt. "Nothing is serious about music. THIS is serious," says Juan Hervé. Zappi is a Buddha in the center, pounding like mad from start to finish, drilling metal sheets. A great thing to see, and hear. Faded images of Faust from thirty years ago scroll on the screen behind. It’s the same as it was then, Zappi.
There’s "Krautrock", there’s "The Sad Skinhead" and other material from Faust IV, there’s "Jennifer", there are pieces from the more recent works and those to come. Shreds of Faust I, mantric excursions, improvisation delirium. A Dadaist caravan, cosmic and bewildered sounds, yet terribly concrete. We’re all open-mouthed, like kids at the circus. Moments of panic instead in the front row, where there are sparks to dodge from the drill on the barrel, and the heavy metal pipes (sic) that Zappi and the unsuspecting Cambuzat throw from the stage (sic). Not to mention Juan Hervé who, in full "flower power", frolics carefree while wielding a chainsaw. The key word, I’m sorry it's so cacophonic but there are no others, is de-dramatization. The tragedy, which Faust explored with soles of wind, dissolves in nonsense. Every gesture of Peron is devoid of any "value," if I can say so. There is nothing serious, and yet there is. At the moment I can say no more.
After the farewell ovation fades, I manage to produce a very clear thought: I don’t want to go back out there. Among common people and real life. How real is a life where everything carries the weight of a definition, and the mire seems to preclude any escape from the intellect anxious for derailment? I would have reached nirvana in a few moments if my ex hadn’t called me to order, reminding me that the theater was closing soon. What a wise woman! In this case, the script is inescapable, and alas, I went back out there, immediately assailed by the nostalgia of the blissful Faustian unconsciousness. A rum merchant saved me, leading me through sweet mists. It was time for our triangle to take stock: unanimous judgment was that we had fun like jackals after the carnage of the "Wild Bunch," but there was something more, that none of us managed to articulate, nor can I do so now.
Weeks later, I remember the last words of Faust I: "Nobody knows / if it really happened."
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