•
Rating: I will spend a few words on Devendra Banhart's performance. It might have been because it was still daytime, or because the time available was relatively short, or because the volume and sound quality were not very high (a serious flaw typical of the Lucca Summer Festival), but the show of the ex-indie-folk prodigy of the third millennium took on the contours of inconsistency. Nothing to complain about, especially from someone like me who only knew him by name, but if I had been on a Caribbean beach instead of in Piazza Napoleone in Lucca, I would certainly have enjoyed it more. Our folk becomes choral, with rhythms and atmospheres too often looking towards Latin America. That the “young squatter” discovered by none other than Michael Gira, the boy full of neuroses and a shrill voice who recorded his dazzling debut with the answering machine, that boy still handsome and at ease on stage with the movements of a music professional, that this man, Devendra Banhart, over time has let down the expectations held for him (the short-sighted Blow Up included his now-famous “Oh Me Oh My…” among the six hundred rock albums to have, sharing the 2000s with only Xiu Xiu) now seems a fact, also because in the indie world (the most sensitive to the hype of the moment) he is no longer talked about. Experts tell me that there are several of the most beautiful songs written by the American singer-songwriter present in the setlist, so those who knew him were surely not disappointed. A luxury guest, in the end, Devendra Banhart, an honest appearance, but in all honesty it seems to me that his set is experienced by those present with the same attention they would pay to a pleasant background during an aperitif: hearts and eyes are directed at the clocks, waiting for ten o'clock, the time when the HISTORY OF MUSIC will take the stage.
Neil Young: the singer-songwriter, the rocker. The forerunner, the anti-hero par excellence, the Loner. And forgive the rhetoric, his appearance is an epiphany that lights up hearts and sends enthusiasm sky-high. Dressed in black, cowboy hat, bloated physique, wrinkles furrowing his face, awkward movements, electric guitar, hair in the wind, a fan blowing in his face to add legend to the Legend. There is no more room for bullshit, for winks, for soft Caribbean atmospheres, here it gets serious, and it's clear from the outset: the “old” dominate the “young” without contest. With the attack of “Love and Only Love” I have tears in my eyes, thanks to the electricity of the two guitars, thanks to that living rock icon who stirs on stage a few meters from me. The historic Crazy Horse are not the peak of scenic impact: Frank Sampedro is a brute in a white tank top (featuring the face of Jimi Hendrix), Billy Talbot is a relic with white hair who if we met on a sidewalk we would ask if he needs to cross the street; Ralph Molina accompanies the others with his calm but steady drumming that is a prerequisite to enhance Neil Young's torrential guitarism. Who actually carries the entire concert heroically, epically, titanically, with a vocal performance to say the least perfect (the voice, that one, seems miraculously unchanged over the decades), but above all with a six-string soloing verve that reconfirms him as a purebred guitar hero.
Among the big names seen live (like Lou Reed sitting and unmotivated in a granny version mending pants, or Roger Waters who would set up big shows, but ultimately did nothing but occasionally shout with that fanatic face), Neil Young, with his energy, with his melancholy, with his courage, with his heart, with his ability to generate emotions, is certainly the one who struck me the most, even though I cannot consider myself a big fan of his.
Obviously the excellent latest double album “Psychedelic Pill” is the one that gains the most space in tonight's set among his works, and the absence of many classics (which we wouldn't have expected anyway, by now there are too many, they wouldn't even fit in two days of concerts) is not something that concerns us much. Tonight's performance itself takes on the appearance of his latest masterpiece, that of the infinite, electric, endless jam session, a river of emotions that will homogeneously blend a journey starting from '67 to indefatigably reach the present day. Tonight's opener “Love and Only Love” “bends,” without even much effort, to the dictates, to the spirit of the latest work (or vice versa?, it probably does!), and with it goes the first quarter of an hour, amid the shattering roar of electric guitars and acid solos, a tour de force mid-way between the most visceral rock-blues and the psychedelic suite. No sooner is there time to breathe than another classic launches, “Powderfinger,” which of course needs no introduction, but certainly deserves the highest praise we can imagine. It’s the electric Neil tonight prevailing; the “Psychedelic Pill” tracks will soon make their entrance, indeed following the title track and the titanic “Walk Like a Giant,” which can rightly stand alongside the classics without embarrassment (or vice versa? hard to say). More than forty years of rock history coexisting, embodied in that giant of music who tonight may not be very talkative, but will attract the gaze and attention of the spectators gathered in the crowded Piazza Napoleone in an almost morbid way.
Neil Young, the grandfather of punk, the father of noise, indie-rock, grunge. Tonight he is simply Neil Young, because every comparison melts like snow in the sun. The scene that follows is surreal: Neil approaches the amplifier and turns up the volume dangerously, plays with the feedback, generates chaos (can we say Neil Young is also the father of drones?). Seeing this old man with clumsy movements, hugging his amplifier, slapping his guitar, grappling with noise is something that makes me chuckle (after all, didn’t he invent these antics? Yes, maybe with some ideas borrowed from the Velvet Underground!). We are talking about another ten minutes of fried guitars and drones shot into the sky, slowed rhythms, the jam decomposes and becomes a rite, a Hymn to Noise, the celebration of a true myth of Rock History.
Then darkness, the roar of a storm, lightning and thunder projected on the screens, Neil changes guitars and dons the proverbial harmonica holder: he is alone, the acoustic set begins. For many, it will probably be the best moment, as there are many Young fans who remain attached to the atmospheres of an album like “Harvest.” But even for a type like me, who can't stand country even on a postcard, these were moments of extreme suggestion and participation. It is the notes of “Red Sun” that open this intimate parenthesis that aims to encapsulate in a handful of songs the folk singer-songwriter Neil Young, but it is with “Heart of Gold” that the crowd goes wild and the chorus is sung by all, making the event alive and throbbing, as if even we present here, “young people” of the third millennium, were granted to live for an instant in the Music History. "Human Highway” follows and, as if that were not enough, as if by magic a heartfelt reinterpretation of “Blowin' in the Wind” materializes, which again forces the audience to sing in unison with the Canadian, who, great among the greats, decides to pay tribute to his great mentor Dylan. The Crazy Horse return to the stage, but it's not yet time for electricity: Young settles behind the piano and gives the audience, now overwhelmed by emotions, a haunting version of “Singer Without a Song.” Any further comment is useless.
Roaring applause, the audience is now ecstatic, but it’s time to start again, and we start again in grand style with what for me will be the peak of the evening: the full rendition of “Ramada Inn,” another colossal contribution from “Psychedelic Pill,” another fifteen minutes or more of scorching rock and textbook solos that follow each other to the verses seamlessly, in a flood of emotions that is difficult to describe. It’s the epic of rock’s stage uniting with the intimate lyrism of someone who, perhaps more than others, has been able to marry these distant and opposing souls that have always populated the Rock universe. With a homogeneity, fluidity, and ease that allow songs to coexist without clashing that span entire decades of rock history.
The engine is warm and there is the impression that the concert is only just beginning now: it's the turn of great classics like “Cinnamon Girl” (short but intense) and “Fuckin’ Up” (devastating in its electric majesty). By now Piazza Napoleone has become a festive rock arena, no one can stop Neil Young anymore, and his three worthy companions keep up impressively. The return of a track that rarely shows up in Young's setlists and that, in my opinion, proves to be another peak of the evening is very welcome: the epic “Surfer Joe and Moe the Sleeze” (from a minor album like “Re-ac-tor”), pure rock with chorus lines by the Crazy Horse and a vocal performance that winks more than once to Dylan's “Hurricane” (a comparison we do not dislike at all). The set closes with a thundering “Mr. Soul,” directly fished from Neil Young's prehistory and specifically from the Buffalo Springfield repertoire. But at this point, it speaks the language of proto-rock pounding at maximum power (the piece is from '67 and has a main riff that reminds us of “Satisfaction”), ears are now to be thrown in the toilet, but the enthusiasm is plenty despite the pain.
After the apocalyptic finale, our guys leave the stage, but as per script, there's still room for two encores: the inevitable “Roll Another Number (for the Road)” and “Everybody Knows This is Nowhere,” two heavyweight pieces (interspersed with a long utopia-tinged speech — this too is Neil Young) that paradoxically flow without clamour, as many were the emotions that preceded them (the show lasted almost two and a half hours in total).
It took me three days to digest the event; right then I still had not been able to grasp its magnitude, its enormity, the many and contrasting incarnations of the artist Young (the rocker, the singer-songwriter, the folk singer, the pre-punk, pre-indie, pre-noise, pre-grunge etc.) kept clashing in my head, not realising perhaps, right there, that all these faces were present on stage, a few meters from me and embodied all in one in that awkward figure of that little man who, frankly speaking, still kicks the ass of many young people.
Frankly, I would never have expected it.
Loading comments slowly
