Barzin

Barzin in Trentino. You could almost call it a "big event" in the alpine and pre-alpine indie underground, usually conspicuously anemic when it comes to opportunities, despite a cultural drive whose scope is often almost too ambitious.

Given this context, it's easy to imagine the expectations this must have stirred among those most attuned to that kind of "offering": a concert by the rising Barzin, on tour to promote his excellent third album "Notes To An Absent Lover", staged at the Teatro Cartiera in Rovereto (Trento) thanks to the cultural association "Dissonanze Armoniche", which has managed to put together a rather solid spring live calendar (before Barzin, the same stage hosted B.Fleischmann and, before that, Carla Bozulich).

The Canadian artist's concert was, among other things, scheduled to close out the bill, as the standout event of the mini-festival, and, alongside it, the evening's opening slot went to a local band, Resada, credited as the best university band around. A band, however, that was frankly unpresentable, both on stage and musically, all the more so since the genre they play — a rather juvenile emocore — turns out to be diametrically opposed to Barzin's intimate songwriting, and could only muster a lukewarm response from the crowd that had come for him.

Their set is thankfully brief, and it's around 10:30pm when Barzin finally appears on stage. He does so with the lights on, guitar around his neck, only to disappear and reappear a moment later once the lights go down. He launches straight into the splendid "My Life in Rooms": at first he seems disoriented and even painfully shy, to the point that the performance of the song doesn't come across as flawless; a hint of unexpected disappointment even creeps in when, with the following track — "Past All Concerns", a live staple pulled from his self-titled 2003 debut album — one suspects our man is a bit short of voice: it may be the lack of the backing vocals present on the recorded version, but the song loses its extraordinary power to transport the listener, and doesn't get much of a reaction from the crowd either.

Crowd... more like a handful of diehards, one might say... Whether it's down to the late-March evening, cold and rainy as if it were early December, or the clash with the national football team's match, the fact remains that the theatre is nearly empty.

But as the first camera flashes start going off, in the meantime, good old Barzin seems to loosen up a little: the setlist includes an unreleased track with an irish-folk feel, built around a cheerful accordion and the lively rhythm of a country dance, and the crowd seems to warm to it more. Without introducing them, as he will fail to do for the rest of the show, he then plays two tracks from the latest record, "Nobody Told Me" and "Queen Jane", and the audience finally seems to thaw: some smile with satisfaction, proudly clutching the vinyl copy of "Notes To An Absent Lover" they've just bought; someone even hums along to "Q. Jane".

Barzin, too, is finally smiling on stage, complimenting Rovereto on its green alpine mountains, which remind him of the colours of his native Canada, and joking self-deprecatingly about his "sadmusic".

Another unreleased song follows, then two more tracks in a row, again from the latest album ("Lost" and "Look What Love Has Turned Us Into"), before closing with a cover of Leonard Cohen's "Dance Me To The End of Love", not before introducing the band that will be backing him for the rest of this Italian tour.

But then it's already all over: barely 40 minutes have passed since the start of the concert, even though there were no breaks. After a short pause, Barzin and his band return to the stage for the expected encore, offering up the beautiful "Let's Go Driving", taken from "My Life In Rooms", perhaps the most striking song of the night in its live version. But that seems to be it: with the lights back on, though, the crowd (finally!) warms up and loudly calls him back. So, graciously, one last song is granted: "The Dream Song". But then the goodbye is final, leaving a somewhat bitter aftertaste. The start was rocky, but Barzin then seemed to find the right chords, on guitar and in his voice, to win over a crowd that had been rather cold up to that point. Yet just as the performance seemed to be hitting its stride, time ran out. Still, it's fine all the same... after all, it is "sadmusic", isn't it?

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