Built To Spill

The third of a series of three Italian dates (alongside Rome and Bologna), the October 26th show at Interzona is the crowning moment of a 2008 tour that saw Built To Spill perform "Perfect From Now On" (Warner, 1997) in its entirety, as part of the "Don't Look Back" series promoted by the prestigious "All Tomorrow's Parties", which has already involved bands like Sonic Youth ("Daydream Nation"), Slint ("Spiderland"), Gang Of Four ("Entertainment!"), Dirty Three ("Ocean Songs"), Low ("Things We Lost In The Fire"), Tortoise ("Millions Now Living Will Never Die"), Comets On Fire ("Blue Cathedral"), and others.

The live performance of an extraordinary work like "Perfect From Now On" is already a memorable event in itself. What makes it even more memorable, in any case, is an inextricable set of factors: the anticipation in the venue as it gradually fills up, the good-natured attitude of the band and of Martsch in particular – bordering on rehearsal-room informality – the tightness between the members, the sheer completeness of the project's execution (three guitars, rhythm section, cello and electronic keyboards), all backed by exceptional sound engineering.

Opening the show are Disco Doom, the support act, a Swiss quartet dealing in ballads that marry Beatles-esque melodies with the neuroses (here sweetened) of Neil Young, not forgetting a few thoroughly lysergic jams along the way.

Built To Spill deliver an inimitable sound, aggressive yet tempered. The opening blast of "Randy Described Eternity", detonated by a superb hammering of keyboards, is spine-tingling. The same goes for all the album's gems: "I Would Hurt A Fly", the perfect chance to admire Martsch's guitar playing (among the greatest of all time), "Stop The Show", "Made-Up Dreams", "Out Of Site", "Kicked In The Sun" (a real rarity), and the spectacular "Untrustable pt. 2", whose moving coda – heard live – seems almost to heighten the Beethovenian spirit with which Martsch conceived his most cherished album. The high point of the whole concert, and perhaps the definitive Built To Spill masterpiece, is the 10-minute "Velvet Waltz", moving from a melodic caress in the form of a lullaby to a psychedelic vortex, then a catastrophic typhoon of guitar effects, wah-wah, fuzz, feedback and noise blasts at unbearable volumes, all following an insistent martial cadence.

What follows almost pales by comparison with a set of such monumental scope. "Car" sounds like power-pop dressed up as a serenade, and "Paper Planes" is an odd cover of M.I.A. Either way, "Carry The Zero" and a vibrant "Time Trap" (both from "Keep It Like A Secret") fully redeem things, and while the version of "Traces" ("You In Reverse") is somewhat disappointing, Martsch chooses to close the concert (and the 2008 Italian mini-tour) with the classic-sounding "In The Morning", the opening track of "There's Nothing Wrong With Love", a ballad that proves (and reconfirms) the Idaho musician's solid songwriting mastery.

The few rough edges that do crop up (Martsch's occasional vocal dips, the imprecisions in the amusing experiment that is "Paper Planes") don't detract from the excellent stature of the show, further supported by Interzona's fine acoustics and a warm crowd. Built To Spill's final, thrilling, even legendary Italian live date of 2008 is also an event in itself, a live-format masterpiece that reformulates – more than ten years on – a work that hasn't aged a day and remains firmly projected into the future. The leader's guitar is thus the pivotal instrument, a foil for quasi-religious contemplation, an archetype of ecstatic exploration, and the backing becomes as sprawling as it is heartfelt in its choral quality. The encores, weaker by comparison, are and will remain memorable postcards from an unforgettable live set.

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