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Rating: An evening of barely concealed egocentrism
"What a woman, huh, Paolo?" says the biznesmèn deputy general director of the kombinator of Lake Bajakal to me.
"Extraordinary", I tell him.
Paolo Nori – National Entity of Popular Cinematography
It was 1999 and probably my life, seen from the outside, wasn't much different from now.
Seen from the inside, honestly, it was a mess.
At that time, I had a black Palio which, looking back, I don’t even know how much money I spent on diesel. It was a calculating machine. A full tank barely lasted from one gas station to another.
Not easy.
But that's another story.
And one day I'll take the trouble to write them all, these other stories, maybe one piece from here and one from there, maybe.
Today I have a very specific story to tell. A story with a beginning and an end. Not quite, but it’s not the day to be fussy. Not today.
It was 1999 and in my black Palio, the Scisma were playing.
A tape recorded from a CD. A tape that melted inside the glove compartment of my black Palio in the summer of 2000. It was 1999 and I was diving in the Maldives.
It was 1999, and I thought I understood everything about myself, but in reality, I understood nothing.
Sunday, March 19, 2006, a day of rain and gray clouds and roasted lamb with a bottle of wine that soaks my fingers. Purple, but not from nail polish.
I spend the day at home. I have the camera charging, I prepared a notepad and a pencil. This time I want to do things seriously. This time I want to write down the songs.
This time I want something more concrete than just my emotions, which I know will trick me in the end.
I even take a nap in the afternoon because I want to be in great shape tonight.
I dress up, putting on my fairy skirt that children love so much.
I make a stop at a baptism party that looks like a wedding. It’s a really beautiful party.
And then I find myself in San Pancrazio with the Alfa, the maestro, and a confused satellite navigator.
Because I don’t know if you've ever driven guided by a satellite navigator. They are almost life experiences. Especially if it guides you on a road you don’t know.
You have no choice but to trust it. It makes you take the most absurd roads from San Pancrazio to Sansepolcro.
But eventually, you get to Sansepolcro. At 10:26 PM on Via Cherubino Alberti 36 at the Circolo Metamultimedia.
Exactly at 10:26 PM just as the satellite navigator had told you when you left.
It seems like a miracle. Because I wouldn’t find that road I took last night even if I had a can of red paint dripping along the way. I swear.
It will become a legend. I can already see myself at 82, with gray hair and a shawl on my shoulders, telling Giulia Jr about that night in March with the dark, starless sky, the night I crossed towns and woods, believing I was lost, the night I arrived in an unknown place and realized there was a very important part of me contained in that place.
The club is on a dark street without lampposts. There’s a small brown two-leaf door, a terracotta floor, one of those old ones, where you can see the precise spot where people pass. Those shiny ones. Those of old houses. There’s a corridor with a small room, inside are them. They smile. I pass beyond and come to a small room. You know those rooms behind churches, kind of like those.
A counter and in front the stage.
A modest place. A place that I instantly like. A place where you feel good inside.
There are low sofas. People are resting on them. A bit sprawled, maybe. Like when I was little and watched cartoons and my mom would tell me that if I wasn’t careful, I’d get scoliosis.
(screw mom... now I can say it).
I don’t even have time to take off my jacket when they enter, passing through us.
And they climb onstage.
Saying the stage is essential is already too much. There are two points of light and then the same lights as at the Prato concert. The guitars and the keyboard, the drums.
A wooden platform and mirrors, some speakers.
I take my little note.
The concert begins with “Schiena” a new piece.
I already liked this the first time I heard it. I like the lyrics and the music too.
Of the four new songs, it was the one that impressed me the most in Prato.
Not a word, and they immediately start with “Cerchi nell’acqua.” A song I'm very attached to.
And Paolo begins to weave my world again.
It’s not that hard, in this context, to isolate from the rest.
I'm standing right behind the little sofas, nobody blocks my view. They are no more than three meters away from me. It’s too easy to make everything else disappear and feel alone. Wrapped in myself.
It’s not strange to meet their eyes. I don’t know what they see. But I know what I see.
The air is red and warm, the music is at a perfect level.
Follows “Mani,” a new song. This one too has really beautiful lyrics. Now don’t ask me how it goes... but I know it’s beautiful... it’s written on my little note..
“Mani” (new) beautiful text.
Continues with “Mare Verticale” that I truly sing with pleasure..
People move in their seats. A guy passes with a tray with drinks on it, like at home when you call someone to bring you water. The atmosphere is special, intimate, familiar. I can’t explain, but it feels like one of those Sunday mornings when you're little, you’re at home, and you have everything you need around you.
Then the first true pearl “Sono suggestionabile” A fast version that I already loved a lot in Prato. Paolo jumps and moves. He’s fantastic.
My little note says “Suggestionabili” fast – merry.
I'm excited. My heart pounds hard. And my world is already complete by the fifth song.
(Better than any God)
“Profumo” Another new song.. “in the silence, your clothes speak” so beautiful I write it down so I won’t forget.
“La verità fa male” This one's also new, in Prato it didn’t impress me much.. listening again, things have changed. I really like the music of this one.
The song ends, He doesn’t speak doesn’t say anything. People hang on his lips. All the gazes are captured by him. And he sings. He stops just for a moment to thank, just enough to breathe. And he starts again with slow music.
I recognize it instantly, “Quando passa lei”... I can’t resist and on the note, I write: sung superbly. Thinking of the adjectives that come to mind sometimes makes me laugh. Superbly. Good thing I didn’t write: with much Pathos. I can imagine myself in the semi-darkness writing pathos while Paolo screams u-uuuhhhhhhh aaaaa.
Follows “Centro,” one of the songs I love the most, absolutely. Absolutely means among all songs ever written by Scisma or not. It immediately starts with the words a different version than the original. The guitars of this song are one of the most stubborn earworms in my mind. In this fast version, they might lose a bit, but you can feel them underneath, and they fall back into the loop. I love these recurrent fixations of mine. The instrumental part of this is truly something to be framed. Love supreme.
After that, he stops and transforms into a jester.
He tells us that through a kind of collective hallucination we hear in Italian but really they are an Armenian band or Trans-Siberian... or Tibetan.. or I don’t know... in short... I’m confused, I get lost.
I'm thirsty, maybe that’s why. It's that I like these hallucinations. It’s that I want to have a button, maybe inside my belly button, and be able to press it at my pleasure to have them again.
And thinking about it, if I had a button inside my belly button, I would press it while I'm in the living room.
So I’ll make some noise for the lady upstairs, so she stops walking with clogs in January. With a decent sound system and them playing in my little living room, her clogs would reach Pratomagno all at once. Interesting option. In case, I should remember to remove the glasses from the cabinet before pressing the belly-button button.
Then it starts with “In dissolvenza,” this real pearl for connoisseurs... that in fact, I have to concentrate to understand where it comes from...
It ends, and the others get off the stage. He remains alone and after silently cursing at a guitar, he begins “Catherine.” I can barely breathe. I can hear my voice singing along with him.
This song always moves me too much. Too much. It starts with just the guitar and then enriches with other instruments. Just like that night at the Flog in November.
After which the Gnù Pettegoli perform.
A spectacle with talking puppets, narrating jesters who improvise and take over. A chair about to fall, a kiss via lollipop.
I laugh. I smile.
It’s stupid to say. But I feel comfortable in this place.
And tied to this moment, a version of “Troppo poco intelligente” in which Paolo sways singing, in which everyone is so ironic that the whole thing sends back a surreal fantastic image.
Fantastic. I go crazy for this thing.
Cocacola
Pepsicola
Ossoduro
Vaffanculo
Then it's time for “Simmetrie.” I have a tear balancing on my eyelashes. Its equilibrium doesn’t last long. This thing is whirling inside me. Perfect description.
They pretend to leave again and again: MORE AGAIN
The concert ends with one of their sweetest songs. As if wanting to leave us with a caress, like my grandmother who when I was about to leave stroked my hair and kissed my forehead.
Because even though she knew I'd be back the next day, she gave it to me anyway.
”It’s only a dream”
You tell me I’ve changed, that you don’t understand what my priorities are.
I remember how I was in 1999.
And I know how I am now, maybe I haven’t understood everything. Maybe I haven’t understood anything.
But I know why I have so much admiration for these people.
It’s not easy to take your own fragilities and analyze them and it must be even less to make them your strength. And when it happens to find the same kind of sensibility in others that I recognize in myself, it’s impossible not to feel attracted. It’s impossible not to admire those who manage to stop such clear images of themselves to give a real perception of it to others.
”Sensitive beings are not so few, but often this sensitivity reduces to just extreme
vulnerability, to having unprotected skin, to not being indifferent
to what surrounds them, even the smallest. But all this almost
under a negative light, as if they were made only of bundles of
nerve endings. You instead, as open and naked as you are towards
everything, elaborate your feelings and emotions, and if there's beauty within each single thing, you know
how to bring it out. And the most amazing thing is that - not being simply a sensitive person - you know how to communicate what you feel.”
This is what Paolo Benvegnù manages to do.
A concert that I really appreciated.
And within a room in a place I thought was unknown to me, I saw the part of myself that I absolutely want to nurture.
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