Tre Allegri Ragazzi Morti
Piccolo intervento a vivo

SMALL PREMISE
“A code can be used to include the members of a circle and to esclude the outsiders...”
Communication implies a certain amount of "complicity" between sender and recipient of the message. Indeed, since the relationship between the signifier and the signified is almost always completely arbitrary, if the act of communication lacks the aforementioned "complicity," the message is misunderstood by the recipient. In particular, every language is based on this arbitrary relationship. Within every language, there are small/large social groups that use codes understandable only to the members and incomprehensible to outsiders.

A JOURNALIST
I live near a small, lovely town. In this town, there weren't any large indoor venues for concerts. One day a new, lovely small venue opens. The opening was not a big event, but big enough to deserve a small column in the friendly local newspapers. In this lovely venue, the first evenings were animated by Italian and non-Italian bands, whose names my poor memory doesn’t recall entirely. Some I do remember: Derozer (I think), Baustelle, and Tre Allegri Ragazzi Morti.
As an old aficionado of the now not-so-young band from Pordenone, I decided to attend the “incredibile spetaculo della vida,incredibile spetaculo della muerte” sung, played, and danced by Tre Allegri Ragazzi Morti. Davide Toffolo sings with the usual energy, and the complicit audience ignites the pogo...he tells us about someone (him?) who would like to live and die like an animal, but as a man, he cannot, he tells us, he sings to us, he entertains us...he dresses as a mouse and returns to the stage and shouts to the audience: “la vita è cattiva, ma non l’ho inventata io, il concerto è finito” and the many "dead kids" in the audience shout back “vaffanculo.” And so for three, four, five, six times... then the concert resumes only to finally end... tired, happy (some more than others), entertained and sweaty.
Now a journalist. Now, unfortunately, it sometimes happens to me to read. Now, unfortunately, the day after this nice and satisfying concert, I happen to read an article about this evening. Now, we know “un codice...può essere usato per includere i membri di un gruppo e per escludere gli altri”. Now, you funny man, who is paid to write immense nonsense, it is unlikely that you knew the code used to communicate that evening. Now, you're lucky because you get paid to write. Now, let's say you were unlucky and were sent to a concert of a band that you hated. Now what should you do: write nice phrases explaining what and why you didn't like it. Now I was there that night, and I assure you that the "seven hundred spectators" did not leave disappointed. Now why do you have to write your contempt on behalf of everyone? Who are you? Now why do you want to make me angry, making me read that I left disappointed. Now if you don't understand that those "vaffanculo" were in agreement, why not try thinking about something else. Who are you to say that seven hundred people left disappointed? And that's why I feel I have to say only one word to you, in the only code which I can use to communicate with you: “VAFFANCULO!”

A JOURNEY IN TIME
I go back to 1997. In 1997, Tre Allegri Ragazzi Morti had only three demos behind them. In 1997, a small disc was released that shows us what a "small live intervention" by Davide, Luca, and Enrico could have been back then. The presentation of the live is already the same as the current one: the incredible show begins. The punk attitude of the group, which over time and especially in studio CDs will diminish, here is at its peak. There are sixteen very short songs for forty minutes of duration. The strength that Fortunello, the mythical Ettore Petrolini, takes in a punk version is incredible. A nursery rhyme with a punk twist. Per me lo so by CCCP is performed in the style of the dead boys, with the addition of some choruses, a sort of punk'n'roll, a punk a bit more danceable. In the other songs, Toffolo's cartoonist lyrics can be said to be simple and intelligent. The concept is based on a hypothetical adolescence-conformism opposition. The idea perfectly expressed by the oxymoronic name of the group is: to die as adolescents, to remain adolescents forever.

January 17 a beautiful child was born
the greatest joy of the whole family
then they sent him to school
and he became part of the life project of his parents
but that child died when he was a teenager
and did not care about his parents' ideas.

Overall rating: 3/5
Rating within the Italian punk rock scene: 5/5