Anna Calvi

Beyond the skill of whoever is on stage, the songs being played and the mood that, one way or another, can build up, there are moments, in certain concerts, when the air starts to vibrate differently, grows denser, moments when it's as if the last piece of a mosaic finally found its place, as if the missing part of some complicated mechanism slotted in and the whole contraption started truly working as it should. Moments in which whoever is listening, shoulders pressed against other shoulders, eyes worn out by the lights and the heat, cannot help but sense that something has changed, that something big has happened. When this young Londoner, blessed with an Italian name, surname and half-Italian blood, picks up her guitar, not caring one bit about the injured arm that has, up to now, forced her to sing her songs clinging to the mic stand – well, everyone understands they're right in the middle of one of these moments. The gig has been good so far, no question, and many of those filling almost every square inch of the Locomotiv, on this absurdly sweltering April Saturday even by the standards of sweltering Bologna, are already thinking they'll one day be able to say they were there, the first time Anna Calvi played in Italy. But now the story takes another turn. It's obvious, and it's a turn that delights.

The girl is a woman of few words, and of those few words, it seems, she has no intention of uttering a single one in her father's tongue. The only real statement she makes in her barely-whispered English, not counting the various "thank you"s scattered between songs, is one that pleases nobody among those who, helped by some fairly eloquent body language, understand it: her left arm is hurt, injured – "injured", she says, as if she were a tennis player, or a soldier – and she simply can't play guitar. Handling the six strings instead is a tall, slightly dazed beanpole, a kind of indie nerd trying to draw as little attention as possible, to her right, while behind her, pounding away at the drums, is a spaced-out guy, a sort of android or alien on a reward trip to Earth, who would probably pay just slightly less than his bandmate not to be here right now. Neither of them amounts to much, and it's a shame. Luckily, on the remaining sliver of stage, the one closest to the passage down to the dressing-room underworld, a blonde hippie with the face of a bad girl thrashes about tirelessly, armed with a set-up that would make a circus acrobat jealous: all sorts of things to hit, be it scrap material or some synthetic contraption, plus a big accordion played as if it were a piano. She really knows what she's doing, and for a good three quarters of an hour, the length of the eight songs making up the first act of a gig that, everyone knows, can't help but be short, the whole show rests on her shoulders. As well as on those – less birdlike than they might appear – of scarlet-lipped Anna, who, obviously, can only sing, and does so masterfully, with a powerful, silvery voice that never wavers, not even by a millimetre.

The big question before the gig was how something universally described as an album produced with almost obsessive care, a sound built from a thousand sounds and a thousand interlocking parts, could possibly work live. Well, perhaps that doubt turns out to be more of an affectation than a real concern. Because the wall of sound gets recreated this way too: with a modest guitarist and a dazed drummer, with no bass and none of that top-of-the-class guitar. If anything, the trouble lies in the creaks – not real cracks, but creaks – coming from the male side of the stage. But the power of Miss Calvi's voice is such that the whole thing takes off regardless. Maybe not straight away, not with the martial "Suzanne & I" that breaks the ice, but certainly by the time of "Blackout", which follows immediately after.

And then there's the intense "Surrender", the "Torna a Surriento" reworked in English by Elvis, and a "Desire" that sends shivers down the spine. The first half closes on a crescendo, and it's also the closing track of the record: "Love Won't Be Leaving", which ends "Anna Calvi", keeps its whirling momentum in the live version too. An astonishing voice, gorgeous songs, yes – that's what you tell yourself when the four of them step off to catch their breath: it's a very good gig.

What happens a couple of minutes later, though, is as extraordinary as it is unexpected. Three of them come back on, all but the beanpole, and Anna walks straight to the guitar, putting it on almost like a suit of armour. It's big, bigger than she is, and it makes her invulnerable. The crowd stirs, incredulous – surely not. Then her fingers start moving across the strings, the flamenco chords of "Jezebel" take shape, and if anyone bothered to explain that it was simply a matter of finding the magic formula to conjure the spell, no one would dream of disputing it. After all, the spell is real, and undeniable. Anna Calvi plays the guitar as if it were a lyre, she bewitches, she makes wrists tremble. And now that voice completes the picture. The performance changes nature entirely. After paying tribute to Edith Piaf, Anna plays "The Devil" and everything melts away. Then she leaves again, comes back, says "grazie" in Italian, and anyone who hadn't already been moved when she said how thrilled she was, this being her first show in our country, is moved now.

Finally – and everyone senses right away that this can only be a real, definitive ending – the scarlet-lipped girl sings and plays "Morning Light", divinely, and an hour has already gone by, the setlist all but exhausted, the light of a new day still, in truth, far too distant, but outside a wind fitting for the season has picked up, sweeping away the heat and fixing the memory of the gig like a flash of magnesium on a photographic plate. It was her first time in Italy, and "I was there", everyone will say. You can bet on it.

Photo: Alex Poltronieri

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