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Rating: When I read that this year the Italia Love Wave Festival was moving from Tuscany to Lecce, I expected to see nothing more than people like Sud Sound System, Amoroso, and at most the Negramaro. Scrolling through the article, the name of the indie rock group Kaiser Chiefs appeared, coming from the cold mid-England to warm up the already blazing Salento on a July night. One could not say no! On the same evening, however, the superstar guest is Paolo Nutini; this is the market, so let's accept it for what it is.
After a couple of interesting bands like the Italian duo Bud Spencer Blues Explosion and the Welsh Joy Formidable, around 10 pm it's the turn of the Leeds quintet. The atmosphere is not one of the great occasions, the air is heavy, the audience (about a thousand!?) was largely there more for the aforementioned abstinent Italo-Scotsman. The sound, over the distance, was a bit messy, but we hardly cared.
After an instrumental intro where Ricky Wilson warms up by jumping from one side of the stage to the other equipped with one of his life's companions, a Heineken, the show starts with a classic, "Everyday I Love You Less And Less." The band is more charged than ever and seems intent on delivering a strong performance despite not being considered the superstars of the evening.
It should not be overlooked that the day of the live, that is July 15, corresponds to the release date of their fourth album, "The Future Is Medieval," so naturally, the setlist is a mix of past hits and unreleased tracks. Naturally, I will hardly be able to tell you the names of the new songs because they were unfamiliar!
Great fun when during "Never Miss A Beat" Wilson begins clowning around with the cameras and manages to get everyone jumping. Great curiosity surrounded the performance of the new tracks, including the excellent single "Little Shocks." They continue with the other stadium classic, the hit "Ruby," which made even the police and stewards sing along, entertaining and convincing with the passion with which the group, Wilson first and foremost, performed. After a couple of new pieces (one of the two perhaps "Can’t Mind My Own Business") another anthem of joy with "I Predict a Riot," a classic from the debut album "Employment." It is clear that Wilson sings for fun and loves to entertain, so with great animation and tipsy-toned phrases such as "D' you wantz Paolu Nutiniii ???," the Leeds vocalist decides to 'open up' the audience to walk through them and reach the sound engineers on the scaffolding behind the audience to sing!
And finally, a couple of hits like "The Angry Mob" sustained in their usual manner for 7-8 minutes and the unavoidable "Oh My God" close a near-perfect grand performance that, in my personal opinion, with the utmost respect for Verdena and Lou Reed, stands as the true gem of this festival. Wilson bows to the audience and keyboardist Nick Baines snaps 5-6 souvenir photos of us, small gestures of humility that elevate a band that performed at their best for an audience not entirely familiar.
Charming, impressive, showy, vainglorious, in constant and almost flaunted search for contact with the audience, not cold, not very English, practically perfect for the splendid and warm evening that Lecce offered to them and especially to the audience!
Live rating: 9
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