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Rating: I missed it last year, when three weeks in advance the ticket seller told me it was sold out. At first, I thought it was a joke: "Who?! Yann Tiersen?" Then, when I saw him again on the lineup for the concerts at Villa Ada's lake this year, to avoid risks, I booked online. And I did well: I didn't believe that the French multi-instrumentalist, already the composer of the soundtracks for "The Fabulous Destiny of Amélie" and "Goodbye Lenin" was so followed by my fellow citizens. After waiting half an hour in the queue of cars driving up the narrow Ponte Salario road, I finally found parking and followed the flock to the location.
The island on the villa's lake was crowded. Villa Ada - for those who aren't from Rome - is one of the city's largest and most lush parks, and in my opinion, the most beautiful. A bit because of this, and a bit because the Amélie soundtrack considerably pleases me (despite the nonsensical film it's associated with), even without knowing much else about Yann, I decided to give him a chance.
The Breton made us wait quite a bit: half an hour late, the stage holds six band members including drums, bass, guitar, keyboard, and synthesizers. Our man - mainly on guitar - starts by tackling a violin, and accompanies what I believe is one of the pieces from "Dust Lane," the album he's touring with.
How to define Tiersen's music, if possible? There's a lot of rock, a strong presence of electronic elements and a few glimpses of those melodies - playful but vaguely melancholic - that I liked so much during the Amélie era. The instrumentalists dominate the music, even if occasionally vaguely eighties vocal harmonies make their appearance. The mixture of rock and electronics by the Frenchman sometimes reminds me of The Cure (which, alas, I detest).
However, the sound isn't excellent, the sound engineers could have done more. The performance is very good, and the musicians are in sync with each other, although we are certainly not dealing with stage animals: linguistic gap aside, Yann limits himself to thanking us occasionally; he does not seek emotional feedback from the audience, among whom I feel like a good representative as we were all there hoping he would delight us with his more famous and catchy repertoire.
At the end of an hour and a quarter of music, when they returned for the encore, Yann's band brings out a very interesting piece bordering on noise (putting his violin's bow to the test) and in closing, unexpectedly, there's the Amélie waltz, but in a rhythmic, almost electro version. Pleasant evening, but without any particular emotional peaks. I might give the talented Frenchman's experimentation a chance on a record, although the total absence of any accordion was noticeable.
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