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Rating: Alberobello, a cheerful town in the Itria Valley famous for its Trulli, becomes an ideal location for concerts in the summer. This year's edition of the Experimenta festival featured an unmissable event: Jon Spencer with his new project Heavy Trash.
Here's a brief chronicle of what happened that evening.
I set off from Bari with a group of friends and we arrive at the end of the Recchiabilly show, the opening band, just in time to slip into the crowd, and the band takes the stage and begins to play.
The sound is raw, direct, with few open microphones on stage, essential lights, and the audience very close.
The band members don’t hold back and deliver a mix of rhythm n’ blues and rock and roll, and the audience seems to truly respond in unison, dancing, some even moshing.
Mr. Spencer has charisma to spare; from his lateral position, he dominates with his stage presence everything and everyone, signaling to the drummer who must intuit his every move, especially when the group launches into a series of improvised tracks.
Matt Verta-Ray, busy on the electric, alternates with Jon Spencer and sings some songs.
The audience is captivated, even when the voice suddenly becomes hoarse and gritty thanks to the divine intervention of a distortion pedal from who knows where, the eardrums pierced by the equipment just a few meters from us are not a sufficient excuse to back down.
Jon then descends into the audience, people crowd around him, but the tour manager signals to the security team that everything is alright.
Mr. Spencer seems to want to speak to the whole world from his microphone, but first, he wants everyone to get down, it seems incredible, he repeats into the microphone "get down, get down..." and people orderly crouch down, even the guys clinging to him who won’t let him go easily...
When the setlist ends, Heavy Trash pretend to leave the stage but they already know the audience hasn't had enough...
They return for encores, and there's room for everyone, even the double bassist, who will showcase a powerful voice and jailhouse teeth.
Jon, still elegant even when quenching his thirst with Raffo Beer (!!!) from a three-quarter bottle, makes sure to introduce the sound engineer, who from his position in the room contributes by playing guitar and synthesizer.
And after the concert?
The audience, now free of any inhibitions, invades the stage to grab all the merchandise on sale, while the security team looks perplexed and powerless.
The banter from the now-drunk service crew members directed at their colleagues busy dismantling the stage is broadcast over the PA, a certain anarchy is in the air.
But it doesn't end here; after a beer and sandwich break, we discover that a jam session has started backstage that will last for hours. Together with Jon Spencer and his band, the opening band members and an incognito guest (Vinicio Capossela) create an event within the event, everyone invited, everyone involved, everyone equal. And this time, the recordings made with camera phones truly seem pointless, you just had to be there.
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