Faust

Arriving several hours early for a concert, in a city you don't know at all, can have its downsides. Especially when you're about to see a cult band's show and already know you won't need to elbow your way to the box office. The first thing that comes to mind is to swing by the venue, take a look around, kill some time, and only afterwards rack your brain trying to find a dignified way to hang around and wait.

So that's what this writer did, in search of Catania's Centro Culture Contemporanee Zo. Part of the "Le Ciminiere" complex, an old brick factory brilliantly repurposed, it has for some years now been the permanent home of the So Far Festival, one of the most important electronic music events in the whole of southern Italy. A setting as pleasant as it was utterly deserted at that hour of the afternoon. An open door at the back was the only reason to venture further in (bless curiosity, sometimes): a modestly sized stage appeared before me, stocked with an array of instruments and paraphernalia rarely seen elsewhere. At first glance you could make out war helmets, sheets of metal and scrap of every kind, chains, a bucket full of gravel, an electric cement mixer, an angle grinder, an electrode welder and, believe it or not, a semi-professional iron. Right at the foot of the stage a man in overalls was finishing the construction of a metal frame, while two older gentlemen, busy making adjustments, were chatting with each other and with the person at the mixing desk. The legend weighing on their shoulders (actually, it's a burden many would gladly bear) is one of the most staggering in the whole history of rock: from their buen retiro in Wumme, a small German town near Hamburg, to their arrival in the United Kingdom, from their long absence from the scene to their dazzling comeback in the Nineties, Faust established themselves as inventors of a sound halfway between rock and the avant-garde, handed down to successive generations of musicians as a source of endless inspiration.

Having cashed in this unexpected stroke of luck (a difficult feat, you might say), and not without long moments of surprise and disbelief, I realize that hanging around the venue watching the meticulous setup of the entire equipment is a far more than dignified way to spend one's time. Besides the already formally introduced and well-known Jean Hervé Peron and Werner "Zappi" Diermaier, two other musicians are moving around the stage: the French duo Olivier Manchion and Amaury Cambuzat, established members of Ulan Bator. It's with them that the two original members have decided to form a stable line-up for this autumn tour (with previous dates in the UK), building on the positive results of a meeting that dates back several years.

The nearly three hours of soundcheck and adjustments make for a show in themselves, helping to better reveal the meaning behind every action performed on stage and hinting at some delicious details of the actual performance still to come.

Too much grace, almost. The wait for the show becomes exhausting and charged with tension, until, after about an hour's delay to the schedule - which doesn't stop yours truly from securing the perks of a front-row spot (could it be I'm developing a taste for kissing Lady Luck?) - our heroes finally make their entrance on stage. The first track offered is the famous "It's A Bit Of A Pain": as brief and heart-wrenching in its original version as it is stretched-out and violent on stage, it's the first of two episodes from the splendid "Faust IV" performed during the night. It's followed, in fact, by the syncopated rhythm of "The Sad Skinhead", with Zappi switching to keeping time on a metal sheet, while Peron declaims the lyrics in a hoarse, violent voice.

With the two masterpieces dusted off, there's room for improvisation. The first piece opens with a placid clatter of gravel on helmets (and on the audience), with all four musicians contributing, using whatever instruments come to hand, to ratchet up the tension until it reaches a cacophonous, destructive delirium. Part of the stage set is dismantled, while the audience seems far from bored, despite being made up, in part, of people who are anything but occasional consumers of this kind of performance.

The second piece, led by Peron along calmer lines (the reviewer's ignorance will deprive you of knowing the name of the strange stringed instrument used), closes with a striking spoken-word passage in three different languages (Zappi in German, Manchion in Italian, Peron obviously in French) that, as far as we can tell, rails against the horrors of war.

It's Peron himself who picks up the acoustic guitar for a special dedication to the fans with the following "Psalter", another historic track, taken from the successful "71 Minutes". As if we hadn't seen enough instruments already, a melodica even pops up, while the classic five minutes of glory are granted to a local saxophonist. The revival continues with "So Far" (curiously, as mentioned, also the name of the festival), a masterpiece of circular repetition from their second, self-titled album. Unlike the original track, there are no horns here, but the propulsive effect remains completely intact; Manchion takes care of accenting every harmonic turn by plucking the strings of his acoustic.

The third improvised piece, tense and violent, appears on the setlist under the title "Klang Block": the listener is also entertained by a backdrop of field recordings while the man in the boiler suit continues his work of deconstruction, scattering sparks over the front rows; there's also room for a chorus of screams from five girls, selected and directed by Peron himself. It's the same theatrical frontman who then performs the following piece of stagecraft known as "ironing on stage", finally giving meaning to the iron sitting on stage: a spectator from the front row gets involved, left stunned and half-naked as he watches the perfect, meticulous ironing of his own t-shirt (try to guess who the lucky one was).

The long detour of "Listen To The Fish", a child of the Nineties and of the band's comeback with the album "Rien", precedes that acoustic gem "Flashback Caruso", also noticeably altered compared to the original on the now-legendary "Faust Tapes".

Tension remains high in the closing "Chromatic" and "25 Yellow Doors" too, which make "71 Minutes" the most-played album of the night. The chemistry with Manchion and Cambuzat (who switches to keyboards for the finale) is excellent, both perfectly at ease interpreting these past masterpieces. The lights go down, there's nothing left on stage to destroy, and the exit is so quick it hints at some treat in store for the encore, to give a fitting farewell.

After a very brief wait and a thunderous welcome, a beat immediately recognized by everyone present kicks in: it's with the famous "It's A Rainy Day, Sunshine Girl" that Faust choose to bid farewell to the warm Catania crowd. The room, though rattled by Zappi's frenzied pounding, sings along as one voice, before breaking into a long, well-deserved round of applause. The emotion is strong and visible even in the eyes of the person standing next to me, as is the awareness of having just witnessed a show that is more unique than rare.

The word "end", in the legend of Faust, is far from even being imagined.

Line-up:

Jean Hervé Peron

Werner "Zappi" Diermaier

Olivier Manchion

Amaury Cambuzat

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google