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Imagine an evening at dinner, spent having sausages and
salad at the benches covered with wrapping
paper as it happens at those beautiful and honest Party feast, with
the beer drunk from the bottle, the air
finally cooler and the grass under the feet. As
you can see, there isn't any feast without music. And in
places like these ones, you would expect
uncle Raoul's reassuring Valzer, that polka sung by a little bit
provocative young lady dressed in light green silk, not so
young in years, with a beautiful voice like
those our grandmothers used when they sang out of the balcony.
But no.
Here comes the Blues Road Band, that has nothing to do with the
little bit provocative young lady and the
feast begins. While you are swallowing the second
sausage , a strong, powerful and suburban voice, that holds
inside a thousand cigarettes, reaches your
ears deprived of a certain sonority. And it sings Feel my
eyes on you, Hammerhead stew and Caledonia.
And the sausages remains halfway between the palate and the throat.
There is rush to run and see why there isn't
the young lady in the light green silky dress, but
without running the risk of leaving the queue for the chop.
It doesn't matter, because you can listen to
something you've never heard at the village fairs: the pork
can wait.
The BRB surprises: it plays with consuming elegance, precision, and
when you hear a flaw, you think it is studied
and programmed in the economy of all the vocal feeling.
There are five members, mostly very young with a good rehearsal room
experience, the cheek like those who haven't
reached the age of thirty, a solid and precise
technique, always in the observance of the piece: Paolo
Gardiello's guitar doesn't leave out
anything, on the contrary, it sometimes adds something, ranges,
enjoys itself with moderation and style. That
could be thanks to the bandana.
There is
still time for the old unplugged and little by little that slow
Layla's shuffle comes out without the famous
Duane Allman's riff: everything becomes
sorrowful and relaxed because after all, this was the reason why
Clapton had written it and this was his mood:
Layla was Patti Boyd, George Harrison's girlfriend and
unhappy wife. Clapton, who lost his head for her, dedicated
to her a whole album - Layla and other
Associated Love Songs - and, always for Patti, George Harrison wrote
his So Sad when their marriage was already shattered.
Do you think
that the BRB could ever play below par for such a woman?
The evening goes on with Guard my heart (convincing), Got you on my
mind - more bluesly than ever - Over the
rainbow (perhaps the less incisive of the concert
because one is nostalgic of the bucolic Garland's great big
eyes; she sings sighing to the sky among the
bales of hay and the hens), You are so beautiful and a great
Sweet home Chicago, that switches off all the lights of the
city at the last moment and becomes Sweet
home Olginate, with opportunistic and cheeky parochialism.
People -
mistrustful - approach each song, reduce distances and then - what a
miracle - dance, brandish the glass with the
beer, move the bottom and smile.
The BRB greets and plays Hellhound on my trail as if
Robert Johnson was there to clap, just above
the stage: and perhaps he is there, just a little bit.
Someone has written that Johnson made a pact with the
devil: well, when you listen to those five
ones, unbridled and scratching but precise, english, watchmaker of
the notes, you think that perhaps the devil
has done something.
It seems to be the America of the white skirts and
crinoline, of the sax on the Mississipi, of
the cigarettes and of the damp of the air.
I remembered all of a sudden that the blues is first of all an
emotion built in theory like "The house near
the waterfall". When Wright planned it,
thinking that architecture was a formal, established system was the
range: he, on the contrary, planned it light
and deep-rooted on the ground, cut to measure for a man,
just like a suit made by a tailor.
He used all
the modern technology and added glass, cement and iron. He used a
natural stone for the foundations, cement for
the walls and the House took life: overhanging
stabs on a vertical supporting structure, stony and facing.
It looks
like a strong flower that withstands the forces of nature and it
takes after us. The music is like this and
only the one who listens to it thinking about the
sausage to reserve at the festival on duty will find it
emotional but not moving. The touching music
is never casual; it is sometimes only early in the years of the one
who plays it, like in this case.
You could only
imagine that behind that concert worthy of musical jewellers, there
were hours and hours spent in the rehearsal room in order to
square the maniacal mechanism of the notes.
The guitar is magic, the keyboard is decisive, the drums are
enthusiastic, the bass is sexy (do you know a
less sensual sound than the thumb that beats on the bass
strings? I defy you). A swaying, perfect, surprising whole,
with a sound that has personality and respect
for the one who listens to.
These boys are like a light, fresh ale at midday in August.Humble,
enthusiastic as they are, they can do their
duty to the end, from the assemblage of their instruments
to the check and resolution of small/big technical problems.
The music is a butterfly in the paunch, like
love.
The Mayor
forgive me: Olginate is a little bit for all that Mississipi.
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