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Rating: "Zu playing in the area? I'm not missing them!" was my thought when a friend informed me about the concert at La Scaletta in La Spezia. So, unusually for our standards, we manage (me and four others) to organize and set off.
La Scaletta (or La Skaletta, maybe it's a matter of preference, as it's written both ways) is a small venue in La Spezia, set up in a garage: a very punk rock environment, with low ceilings and posters everywhere. Upon our arrival, there's already quite a crowd that strikes me because of the relatively high average age ("incredible! We're not the oldest in the venue", one of the four quotes, recalling the Offlaga).
At midnight, the supporting band, "Repetita Iuvant," begins to play.
The three Ligurian-Apuan guys start right away with their music (instrumental only... no vocals tonight) which falls between the lines of Sonic Youth and Mogway, very improvised and noisy enough, of course. Three tracks (which they confirmed to me after the concert have no titles) that combine noise aggression with a particularly psychedelic taste, alternating more meditative parts with more intense ones.
Just over half an hour of Apuan noise, and our guys make way for that war machine called Zu. The Roman trio appears in top form, starting instantly with their saxophone-dominated jazzcore led by Luca Mai: the songs from the latest "Carboniferous" (unless I'm mistaken, they haven't reprised anything from the past) are executed impeccably, in a single stretch up to the concluding "Ostia," passing through "Carbon" and "Beata Viscera" (my favorites from the album, I even hoped, in vain I know, that at some point Mr. Patton would show up to trill and fiddle with the mixers...).
Personally, I really like the offering of the Romans, and the concert confirmed my views on Zu.
The only, major, huge, sour note of the evening was the audience: okay, between the noise of Repetita Iuvant and the jazz-core of Zu, the music wasn't easy at all, but seeing EVERYONE, while the musicians are giving it their all, standing still (really still, not even moving their heads a few cm to the beat) under the stage is truly sad, as one of the four commented "what are they doing... do they think they're listening to a Vivaldi concert?" (the expression was much more colorful and filled with curses that I won't repeat). What did they think they came to hear? Proof of their inadequacy was given by the fact that after a couple of tracks, the "audience" started leaving, preferring to have a smoke and a chat in the little garden.
"Go figure them out!".
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