•
Rating: It seemed as if all, absolutely all, the lights of the power plant needed to be turned on to break through a gray-black sky, heavy with rain, with a bitter Brazilian flavor. And there was light, so much light, so charged with electricity that it gifted a rain of stars and a vague sense of satisfaction mixed with disbelief.
A quiet Brescia evening became the excuse to go see Le Luci Della Centrale Elettrica in a location off the usual commercial-music routes, in Rezzato, at the cascina San Giacomo, a gigantic (more or less like “The Gigantic Coop Sign”) farmhouse from the early 1900s that must have appeared very lively and frequented by farmers, laborers, breeders, old people, women, and children at that time. On June 26, 2014, it was frequented by about three to four hundred people with an average age between twenty and twenty-five, more women than men (it's known, Brondi's abstruse and incomprehensible lyrics are extremely suitable for female cerebral complications), settled in a large yard where once very different animals roamed. A very large and rich stage could immediately spark some doubts about the show that would go on: percussion, drum-machine, an acoustic guitar, an electric guitar, a microphone naturally, a moog and other electronic fantasies, a complex lighting system and a solitary cello placed there like an old Hollywood star surrounded by aspiring actors. And indeed...
At 9:45 it starts and Vasco seems truly charged, unexpectedly energetic-vitaminic and dancing. In an hour and a half, he alternates some pieces from the latest album (“La Terra, L’Emilia, La Luna” – “Macbeth Nella Nebbia” – “Le Ragazze Stanno Bene” – “Ti Vendi Bene” – “Blues Del Delta Del Po” – “40Km” – “Padre Nostro Dei Satelliti”), a couple of high-ranking covers (“Summer On A Solitary Beach” by Battiato and “Emilia Paranoica” by CI-CI-CI-PI-CHE-NON-CI-SONO-PIU’, CI-CI-CI-PI-CHE-NON-CI-SONO-PIU’), a carefully selected set from the first two albums (“La Gigantesca Scritta Coop”, “Cara Catastrofe”, “Piromani”, “Quando Tornerai Dall’Estero” and others I don’t remember) and three or four songs never heard before, perhaps due to my ignorance, perhaps because it was unreleased material as Vasco tells on stage.
What to say? Khedira? I expected something else entirely, I expected the usual solitary Vasco Brondi, in a bad mood, and instead I found him very danceable to the rhythms (perhaps too pulsating) of the drum-machine and his percussionist. I had the pleasure of enjoying many of his songs “defaced” by a strongly rock-electric and very rarely acoustic outfit. What memories will I carry with me? Maybe the deafening sound explosions, a medium beer that's a bit too expensive, his unexpected pop attitude, the chilling cellist when she rose above the rest of the group (she will be the most applauded during the final pre-encore presentations), the girls (but also ugly thirty-somethings) who perfectly recited the convoluted and cryptic verses of the Centrale Elettrica, a violent stench of manure coming from the neighboring barn where the poor steers destined for our intestines were protesting “loudly and materially” with their intestines, an ambulance that, upon exit, insisted on chasing me to run me over to give purpose to its evening (and an end to mine). And Vasco Brondi? He surprised me, I didn't expect it (as a true Emiliano would say) his vital charge and his voice absolutely over-revved and on the verge of being out of tune as soon as he moved away from his traditional spoken-shouted. Everything I had imagined listening to the latest album seemed to come true: after two photocopy albums (“Canzoni Da Spiaggia Deturpata” and “Per Ora Noi La Chiameremo Felicità”) Brondi seems to be searching for a new path, different from the one he angrily and poorly took at the beginning of his career. His youth is finally gone (and he prays for the end of his/my youth, maybe it will remain on YouTube for eternity…”), he has become a man (oh my, what big words), maybe he understood that it's useless to shout and rant at the world because in the end, the world doesn’t give a damn. The pop, pop-rock turn is just around the corner? Who knows... with the next album, we'll see if he will be ready to welcome a larger following, to commercially elevate himself from the myriad of singer-songwriter names (I deliberately do not use the word “cantautori” because I am a serious person) that populate today’s national musical underground.
I will not be ready to follow him. I will suffice with listening to him again and remembering him confused, alienated, angry, and paranoid. I will settle for what many don't like, what's pleasing to me.
Loading comments slowly
