Slint
Live in Bologna - TPO - 04.03.05

LA RECENSIONE

It's an evening where distant worlds touch, align, and generate doubts, embarrassment, and tension which, ultimately, is released. All those who, like myself, had a semi-compulsive crisis at the news that they would hold a concert in Italy, probably had the same doubts: will it be worth it? What more will they have to say compared to what has been gleaned from years of listening to their (concise) discography? Will they reaffirm the same emotions with equal strength?

Generally, I don't care much about a concert in itself if the event can be enjoyable regardless of the music: I just go. It was a celebration, not only for the de-meeting, because it felt like one being surrounded by slintomania from the most diverse places. Of course, Slint-music is not a party and this generated a schizoid situation.
It was difficult (almost impossible) to get in the right mood, despite having snubbed (sorry) the Radian to keep myself "pure"... it probably was the same for Slint themselves: once on stage, they started replaying their tracks (in an impeccable manner, oh well) amidst the crowd's cheers and ever-present chatter... but they are not Springsteen; their music is a private experience like few others, and it's no surprise if they might have seemed distant.
Brian MacMahan mumbled his words more quietly than ever (bad acoustics? I doubt it), almost wanting to fold into himself even more than usual, in search. They never seemed so far away to me as they did on that stage, just a few meters away, despite a new sound that exploded in the 'tweez' tracks and blah blah blah...

Everything seemed intangible, shielded, until... tired eyes from seeking the stage and legs weary of holding the body upright, we found ourselves once again lost among feedback and solitude; then it was "Washer", and the communion with darkness returned in its sweet-cynical journey to the end of pain.
When at last, Brian screamed with the power I knew "I miss you" at the end of "Good Morning, Captain," the doubt became certainty: Slint had found their soul again, screaming an absence just seconds before unplugging their instruments and leaving us once more to deal with theirs.
Slint is dead, long live Slint.