65daysofstatic

What's most surprising is discovering just how many fans 65daysofstatic really have. Hundreds in the Bologna area alone. Packed like sardines into the relatively spacious Locomotiv Club, which has walls dripping with sweat well before the show even starts. There are plenty of people pushing their way toward the stage, ready to shove each other in a cursed, unstoppable dance – whereas just three years ago, for the same occasion, they would have stood still with heads bowed, soaking up slow, reflective melodies. But now it's 2010, the sixty-five days of stasis are over, and it's time to shake things up a little.

Yes indeed, for anyone who still hasn't gotten the message of the new "We Were Exploding Anyway", the mandate is to respond to the music on instinct, forget the post-rock ecstasies of the past – it's all obsolete, it no longer belongs to us. All hail Rhythm, the blood pumping through your veins and your tensed muscles: become fully aware of your body, then abandon it in the middle of the crowd, un-consciously.

Dance dance dance.

Now your response to music is randomised and yet razor-sharp, because instinct guides you; just as it guided 65daysofstatic through their transformation, and still accompanies them as they thrash about on stage, jerking as if at the mercy of a hit of LSD. Despite the abrupt electronic turn, the band are fully aware of what they're doing: it's what they want, it's not an experiment, not an attempt to stir things up – it's their new voice, plain and simple.

The wall of restraint is torn down from the very first notes of "Go Complex", the track that opens what could, in the end, be considered a single electro-rock suite, through which both band and audience allow themselves few interruptions. Two "classic" tracks punctuate the first half of the show: "Await Rescue" and the evergreen "Retreat! Retreat!", though even these are folded into the deafening cauldron of the new album, stripped of their original sound and rendered moderately danceable.

The air is scorching but there's no warmth to it, the Locomotiv has turned into a genuine idioteque: "A Failsafe" and the brand-new "Mountainhead" drain what little strength is left in the diehard crowd, while quite a few others abandon the improvised dancefloor before the encore, bored if not outright disappointed. Once the much-requested "Radio Protector" has also come to an end, the house lights help distinguish those who had a great time from those who, by this point, could have done without it. I believe 65daysofstatic themselves are aware they've lost part of their usual following, but it's almost certain they've gained new fans too: listeners less concerned with the end result, more interested in the present moment, happy to be swept along by the four Sheffield lads' mighty sonic tide without asking too many questions about quality.

To those still crying over spilt milk, I can only say this: take it or leave it. And there's little chance of turning back now.

(02/06/2010)

Special thanks to deSna B. for the invaluable photographic contribution

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