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Rating: «Excuse me, is this the Locomotiv Club?».
And you're asking me, when it's my first time here?
It's just that I arrived yesterday and the first thing I did was come and find the Locomotiv Club.
So, yes, the Locomotiv Club is here, I discovered it not even twenty hours ago, but I'll keep that to myself.
Friday, October 27th, Bologna, Locomotiv Club.
Tonight at ten, the Dream Syndicate will take the stage.
Or rather, the fabulous Dream Syndicate.
It's just past eight, but I want to be early.
Apparently, the guy who asked me if the Locomotiv Club was here does too, and he's off to grab a bite.
I've already eaten and so I set myself up to guard the entrance waiting for the doors to open at nine, and I watch the movement.
Nine o'clock strikes.
I collect the membership card for entrance on one side of the booth – you can only enter here with a club membership – and I rush to the other side of the booth, show my ticket, a guy stamps the back of my right hand, I don't know why, but I don't ask questions and hurry inside to get a spot within sweating range of Steve Wynn and company.
About twenty already registered have snatched the first two rows, so I settle for the third.
It's ten past nine, and after a few minutes, the guy who asked me for directions at the entrance arrives, suitably fed as well.
With full stomachs, we chat to pass the time, we’re practically the same age and the Dream Syndicate have been in our hearts for over thirty years and this is the first time we find ourselves underneath the stage and them on that same stage.
Great thing.
Also great that I turn around and behind me I find a burly guy in a Ramones t-shirt, the historic one, with Dee Dee and Tommy's names alongside the eternal Joey and Johnny.
The evening is off to a promising start.
Next to the burly guy there's another one in a Fuzztones t-shirt, and that's fine too.
However, I think to myself, what’s the sense in coming to a Dream Syndicate concert in a Ramones or Fuzztones t-shirt?
Maybe it's to shout to the world how cool they are, but just being at this concert makes you cool, like I'm cool too with my short-sleeved shirt and jacket, otherwise I'd be cold.
With nonchalance, I capture the two burly guys behind me.
Not for nothing, it's that I need to practice, my big brother who can't be present instructed me to make a video at least of «That’s What You Always Say» and «Boston», otherwise I wouldn't even be allowed back home.
So a few hours earlier I studied the set list from Milan and Turin concerts on a website and learned when it would be time to handle the phone complete with a camera.
Also, I take a photo of about twenty heads in front and the stage still empty.
Empty, but not for long.
Because, with not quite Swiss precision, a little after ten, first Jason Victor emerges, followed by Chris Cacavas who positions himself at the keyboards – great that he's there too, it seems to dive deeper into the Paisley atmospheres – then the indomitable Dennis Duck, the last ones being Steve Wynn and Mark Walton.
It begins.
With «Halloween», and just the opening notes make me snap to attention like a hundred others, and sing along with Steve; because we all sing, even I who know little of the lyrics, but at least understand and know when to shout «That’s Halloween».
It closes, almost two hours later, in the chaos of «John Coltrane Stereo Blues».
That's enough to repay me.
Though in between there is much more.
Of course we are all there for the history of Dream Syndicate, the one of the days of wine and roses and the itinerant shows of the quack doctors.
But they are here with a new album, quite good too, to support.
Equally obvious that seven tracks from that album get played on stage, only «Kendra’s Dream» is missing simply because Kendra Smith isn't there, otherwise it would have been something I can't even imagine.
Less predictable that these new songs already sound very good, a particular mention for the more intense ones – in order «The Circle», «80 West», and «Out of My Head», and the infinite kaleidoscope of sound that is «How Did I Find Myself Here».
Even the rendition of the sharp-edged ballads «Filter Me Through You» and «Glide» is textbook.
The moral of the story, in short, is that the Dream Syndicate are in great shape, they proved it in the recording studio, they're proving it on stage tonight.
And it becomes secondary that Steve candidly admitted to reviving the historic band name also (perhaps mainly) because it's more attractive than the solo one; because as long as he continues making music of this level, for me he can even do a featuring with Justin Bieber and I'd let it go without blinking an eye.
On top of Justin Bieber, I mean.
So seven tracks and the hope they become classics.
Then there's the History.
Eight songs, four from «The Days of Wine and Roses», as many from «Medicine Show».
Let me go in order.
I’ve talked about «Halloween» in the opener.
Towards the end of the set comes – I know, I know, I've already got the phone ready – «That’s What You Always Say», with that bass line recognizable among thousands, simple, linear, and clean, inviting Steve and Jason's powerful and dirty guitar work; this one, I know the lyrics by heart, there are fragments I quote repeatedly, especially that story of sitting down to talk and waiting a few days but then the mood and feeling, those always change.
I'm yelling at the top of my lungs holding the phone high up, damn phone, I would've liked to move some way, but instead I just scream.
Then, to close, «The Days of Wine and Roses», as raw and furious as ever, just like in the days of wine and roses, just like the night at Raji’s.
Now there’s some pogoing, I think the burly guy in the Ramones t-shirt is the one shoving me from behind and I shove the one in front who turns and shoves me back and I bump into the guy who asked me about the Locomotiv two hours ago and he catches me smiling and I laugh too.
In the sense that it's a gentle pogo, fitting the survivors of those days.
Same as always, of course.
Steve waves goodbye and exits followed by the others.
Imagine that.
A «Moooooooooore» rises immediately, echoing and roaring and the Dream Syndicate, after less than a minute, are back on stage, in full force, for the first of the encores.
And here come the big chills.
«When You Smile» I catch by mistake, a small variation from the set list of the two previous concerts, there should have been «Boston».
But I'm so happy.
Because that feedback guitar sends me straight back to my fifteen-year-old self, when I heard this wonder for the first time and wondered what the hell that sound was and right then and there realized it would be one of the bands of my life and tonight under the stage with the phone in hand I can't help but agree with my younger self from thirty years ago.
Then I don't understand anything anymore because Steve and Jason really kick in with the «Boston» riff and I just know I have to hold this damn phone as high and as still as possible because my brother is crazy about this song and I went along with him.
And I don't even know what to say, perhaps the most sensible thing is what I said to DeMa after the concert, that «Boston» until you're under the stage you don't fully understand it, no matter listening to the vinyl, perhaps not even the final concert at Raji fully conveys the idea.
Actually, one thing comes to me, and that is placing a tribute to Tom Petty before the finale makes these guys on stage even greater than almost forty years of rock history would suggest.
So ends the encore, so ends this little page.
There's still «Armed with an Empty Gun» and a «Medicine Show» as storming as I never imagined; the final handshake with Steve, Dennis, Mark, Jason, and Chris; Gabriele from Trento who asked me three hours earlier where the Locomotiv was and whom I lost sight of after the concert and I would've liked to say goodbye again, so if you ever end up on this page and remember, I am Danilo from Bracciano, hi.
But I'll stop here once and for all.
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