Mogwai

If the venues where live shows take place can be symbolic in establishing a band's recognition, then it's clear that the setting of Rome's Auditorium amounts to a kind of "institutional" consecration for Mogwai, back in Italy just a few months after their last show in Bologna.

They're greeted by a clear summer evening whipped by cool mistral gusts, and a Cavea not entirely packed but still filled to at least four-fifths of capacity by an audience that wastes little time showing itself devoted to and engaged with the Scottish band's music, which in turn rewards them with the usual show: rigorous in attitude and flawless in execution.

When the five musicians take the stage, the twilight behind them is still bright and blends with the artificial lights - warm but very minimal - that will accompany the whole concert. No lingering over introductions, just a simple "we're Mogwai from Glasgow, Scotland" for the few who ended up there by chance and still didn't know, and it's immediately time for the "old" but ever-splendid "Helicon 1", marked by the mathematical timing of Martin Bulloch's drums, dry and typically post-rock, providing irreplaceable support to the three guitars and bass that fuse walls of feedback with more languid melodies, in the band's finest tradition. Barry Burns, however, immediately moves to the keyboards - where he'll stay for almost the entire concert - to sketch out the first emotional chords of "I'm Jim Morrison, I'm Dead": the crowd recognises it instantly and shows its approval.

Contrary to what one might legitimately have expected, both in terms of performance and song choice, the first half of the setlist isn't centred on a granite-like, immediately impactful sound, but rather alternates between older tracks steeped in romanticism ("Christmas Steps" and the magnificent "Ex-Cowboy" from "Come On Die Young") and more recent examples of an enduring inclination to blend languid moods with obsessive guitar textures ("Scotland's Shame", "Friend Of The Night").

Having duly warmed up the room with what have always been recognised as the most salient features of their music, Mogwai offer an admirable confirmation of the substantial continuity linking their early work to their most recent output, moving without a hitch from the splendid melodic-noise surges of "Ex-Cowboy" to the more pronounced electronic guise of "Killing All The Flies" and "2 Rights Make 1 Wrong", whose vocoder-filtered parts end up being among the few words to come out of the Cavea's amplifiers, alongside the occasional stray "thank you".

The guitar explosion and the pseudo-metal charge, feared/awaited from the very start, instead find their outlet in the propulsive drive of the closing "Batcat", as full-bodied and unleashed as on record but rendered dense and cohesive by a performance that smooths its edges without ever blunting its impact.

Ninety minutes haven't yet passed since the concert began - flown by on warm waves of guitars that seem to merge with the wind of the crisp Roman evening - and it's already time for the applause and the ritual calls that precede the encore. The band doesn't need much coaxing before returning to the stage for the soft whirls of "Hunted By A Freak" and the final distorted bender of "Mogwai Fear Satan", kept within a limited duration but more than enough to prolong the pleasant effect of the electric buzz in the audience's ears and to give the impression that the track could go on forever.

Extraordinarily precise and clean in their technical execution, just as compelling in terms of emotional involvement, Mogwai take their leave of the audience having allowed themselves few detours from what they've shown across the various shades of their albums, leaving instead the firm impression that their music can already be considered a genuine classic of these years. In that sense, the effect of almost every song performed, and the audience's own response, can only serve as further confirmation - however obvious that may be to most of those present.

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