Interpol
Live @ Velvet RIMINI (02/12/2004 )

I have never seen the Velvet so crowded, perhaps only for Muse a couple of years ago.
I even spot a De-Baserian (t-shirt-clad), leaning against the left wall of the venue: I feel among friends.
The evening kicks off with Bloc Party's performance.
These young lads have a great merit: they are probably unknown to much of the audience, but despite this, they are excellent at managing the situation. Thanks to the frontman, eager to the extreme to prove his abilities, with their sharp guitars and relentless rhythms, they abundantly charge the spirits. For as little as I knew them before this evening (I had gotten their self-titled EP), they were not bad at all, acidic at just the right point, but with the ability to clearly delineate their tracks, at first glance assimilable to a lot of other indie material from recent years, but with very personal touches.
Not to mention their merchandising: the orange t-shirt is truly delightful... the time to make this compulsory purchase, drink a beer, and try to gain a good position to enjoy the concert (after a meticulous consultation with my two adventure companions), and the lights go down.

An Alex straight out of Kubrik's memory approaches the microphone: but what's the head-Drugi doing here tonight?
A purple ray starts and lights up the face: now it's all clear, it's Paul Banks with the entire cheerful company (Carlos D., Sam Fogarino, Daniel Kessler). Maybe it's for that pseudo-top hat Paul wears, but for the entire duration of the concert, I felt like I was watching the offspring of A Clockwork Orange perform. Despite their completely black outfits with jacket and tie (nothing like the white pigimini from the Droogs). Well, that's my problem, even though a bit of panic touched me at times: could the concert unexpectedly erupt into a display of gratuitous mass violence?
The first chord and we dive into a succession of fast tracks and ballads, songs from 2002 and the brand new Antics, alternated with wisdom... and that divine, deep, dark voice that dominates everything and everyone (Say Hello To The Angels live, even though it was the second track on the setlist, had already made the €20.70 worth it). I don't have the official playlist, but I believe every track from their production was truly played in an hour and a half of guitar strumming, drum pounding, bass firing at a speed limit. These New Yorkers certainly cannot be accused of holding back: everything that could be desired was granted.
Slow Hands, PDA, Obstacle1, NYC,... celestial performances.
Never a smudge, never a note out of the staff, never a slip-up: maybe this is the only little flaw I can attribute to them.

When I go to a concert, why do I do it? To test the artists' ability, to feel good vibrations. Certainly not to hear songs performed compared to the album with the same perfection and cadence I perceive listening to the CD in my stereo. I recognize that for many bands achieving this equivalence between live and studio (which usually costs a long and exhausting mixing to make up for certain missing qualities) is an insurmountable mountain: it's certainly not the case with Interpol. I reiterate that they are phenomenal in execution.
But a different playback order of songs from two albums, however successful and well executed, nearing perfection, does not fully satisfy me. At concerts, I want to hear the artist's soul and a touch capable of personalizing the evening, making it different from all other dates on the tour. This is what was missing. The only flaw attributable. Certainly not a sin for which one loses Paradise.
Indeed 4 stars out of 5.
Am I asking too much?
The only REAL negative note (I don't know if attributable to Interpol or the Velvet): the poorly positioned lights behind the band, which almost made it impossible to recognize them... perhaps this also contributed to fuel my Kubrickian disturbances, that is, never really seeing who was actually playing....