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Rating: "People here in Naples are peculiar, they're not like in Rome." These aren't my words but a rough translation of a thought from Robert Del Naja (who has Neapolitan origins) that he confessed to me after I waited outside the gate of the beautiful venue for just over an hour along with another dozen aficionados. I found this statement to be the only spontaneous thing he said on this tour, if only because when he said it, that vertical wrinkle on his forehead that we share disappeared. Mind you, these are my impressions and as such subjective, but in this tour Robert is playing, or at least thinks he is playing, his artistic future; I interpret his nervousness before entering the arena in this way when he finds stalls with fake T-shirts and has the staff buy one of each kind; I interpret his presence on stage in this way, as a protagonist, yet so ready to yield the spotlight to whoever is up next, even anticipating his own exit; I explain it this way, his meticulous attention to detail, which translates into a complete, schematic, down to the comma, respect for the "massive" brand.
All of this is present, with a bit of attention, even in the music they gave us at the concert: like every good tour bearing the name of the album, it all opens with the opening of the album. Then comes a good piece, dynamic, from the penultimate LP, the one of consecration, energetic enough to warm up the audience (who for the truth, was already eager for half an hour, and truth be told, so was I, having never seen so many beautiful girls all together). And then? The choice is simple: 2-3 tracks from the new album and goodbye Massive or something from the old and who knows. "Safe from Harm" starts, divine, with that sample that introduced me to Billy Cobham (listen to him, "Spectrum," year of my birth, Atlantic), the audience gets excited and the atmosphere becomes such that all that's missing is Mushroom popping up from a trapdoor as a surprise. Let's say the concert comes alive with "Karmacoma," when the audience stands up to dance, and you anticipate an evening you will never forget. But then...
Then the difficulties of Robert's project emerge: in the attempt to integrate his sound with that of the Massive to create something that has the packaging of the Massive but an identity that he hasn't fully defined yet, weighed down by the continuous attempt to gauge the audience and seek advice on the directions to steer the ship, the program rigorously alternates tracks between the old and the new. As a result, the latter lose the coherence that highlights Robert's extremely high qualities (the soundscapes he's able to create, the clarity of the sound front, etc., see the review of the live in Verona) and that make "100th Window" a generally enjoyable album; on the other hand, the old doesn't get room to breathe. The audience remains bewildered: ready to dance when the new drags start, introspective when the pearls of the old begin. Not by chance, the most beautiful stretch was the one with two from the old opening and closing the third and fourth tracks of "100th," placed successively or thereabouts. At the end of the concert, apart from that annoying habit of making us beg for the fake encore (something that history will remember as outdated much like the drum solo in jazz orchestras seems to us now), we were left with a strange sense of incompleteness, of tension, and still of dissatisfaction.
A warning for the crazy guitarist who started acting up right away with a blitz 5 minutes before the start, where he raised his volume until his chords at times even overwhelmed the drums. A consideration on Andy who, apart from the incredible voice, besides at one point managing to shut up that Steve Vai wannabe by overpowering him with a couple of slaps, dances like a god and with his personality and energy (the one Robert fails to unleash) is the one who reveals himself as the true leader of the Massive orphans. And to think that at lunch at the Vesuvio hotel, he devoured two big plates of mussels!
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