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Rating: I Live by Sidekick No. 13 - A story in two parts.
"And while I take poetry lessons and social engagement lessons from the first idiot that passes by/f**k off/I sing of you" (Lezioni di Poesia)
Starting 2012 with Giorgio Canali is a boon, it reconciles you with the Christmas dinner table serenity and is a taste of physical condition. It’s warm, which helps, and it allows you to adjust two small things:
1) Buy the album after months of clandestine listening;
2) Get the ARCI Card so you're covered for the whole year.
It's the usual story: I propose, the enthusiasm of friends goes from zero to zero. They will arrive with the passing of the songs yet I will be somewhere else. In truth, I managed to convince one person. Alessandro, when it came to musical listening, trusted me and was waiting for the concert, beer in hand, watching the stage. The amps placed in front like a monitor intrigued him a lot. I, from the height of my ignorance, nodded and went to settle the second of my small pending matters. Then it begins, five of us. The same as on the album. Canali, haggard in the face and veins bursting from the hands. Rule #1: smash everything. It wouldn’t take much; "Vinile 45" is rather small. But only a few are thrashing around. Some appreciate my enthusiasm, my energy. Others less so. I understand them; it's hard for me to regulate with my big foot. Yet there was someone who thrashed more than me. In fact, there were two. Below the stage, facing Canali who meanwhile was complaining about someone positioned far away and with "Elio e le storie tese." Maybe it was irony, but I can't catch it. Here I am, below the stage. Next to them. One of the two girls turns: red hair, petite, and a big smile. In her hand, a plastic bottle with mulled wine inside. She offers me a sip, pretending it's water. For once I manage to catch the irony. If it were always like that, I would even justify teetotalism. It goes on like this until the guitars and harmonica elbow in. The question arises, strange and direct: "do you understand what he says?" Just before, he had also shouted these words:
"with our fists raised, deluding ourselves happily that No Pasaran! No Pasaran! That No Pasaran! No Pasaran!" (No Pasaran!)
Those words hit me with impact only 24 hours later. I played the first game of the music championship in the warmth, played the first game of the Rugby championship in the cold, and now I'm home. The news broadcasts an announcement: Manuel Fraga Iribarne has died. And it happened like the song, that they passed, and young people like Manuel passed and became important. Then Franco died and Manuel stayed there, to put his country back together "and the child in the washing machine becomes whiter like in the detergent sport." Yet you don't change in a day. Someone discovered it bitterly, because one day Manuel shouted "La calle es mia!" and died. Canali was thinking of many other things when he wrote it but I, with the present news, managed to associate it with a past. And I understood I had given the right answer: "What is needed. The lyrics also need a little interpretation." Who knows what he would have thought after this association of thoughts. Meanwhile, the concert ended and we thrashed around harder than ever because, and I felt it a bit, there wouldn't be an encore to catch your breath. When it ended, she remained there, watching me and smiling. I was happy, I took her hand and led her out. Who knows, she might even reciprocate the tremor of my soul. It would take another concert to find out. Meanwhile, I have her number. It's a matter of courage. All the rest is history... and music.
To Kate.
To Pedro, Francisco, Romualdo, José, and Bienvenido. Vitoria-Gasteiz, 3/3/1976.
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