Shout Out Louds

A shout, loud and clear: that's the best way to sum up the April night when Shout Out Louds won over the Milanese crowd, as spring blossomed with the promise of being tough yet shamelessly fun, all while carrying the sense of a scene now confined to a kind of reservation. The recent closure of the nearby Casa 139 is an event whose implications aren't suited to this piece, but even before this latest episode, plenty of Milan's regular concert venues had already been shut down or repurposed. Salumeria della Musica has thus become one of the go-to spots for Milan's indie crowd, despite being, at heart, an intimate jazz venue, complete with little tables set beside the stage. More to the point, the sound system is still, at least in part, ill-suited to pop-rock shows.

No matter: these days the feeling is that you have to make do with what you've got, so be it. Shout Out Louds take care of steering our thoughts away from such gloomy prospects.

The five-piece from Gothenburg have replaced drummer Eric Edman – and this is the first of their smart choices – with a new member whose energy makes up for all the shortcomings in arrangement (the lead guitar of Carl von Arbin is textbook at best, if precise) and, more simply, in technique (Bebban's "presence" on keyboards and backing vocals).

One thing must be said straight away: Adam Olenius will end the show almost in tears, swept up by the genuine, never-over-the-top emotion of the Milanese crowd. He seems stunned and moved by the singalongs and collective dancing accompanying "Fall Hard", "The Comeback" and "Please Please Please", to the point of climbing down off the stage during "Tonight I Have To Leave It" to shout "Why won't you give love/ Give love/ Give love" together with his fans. Never flawless but still the band's guiding light, Olenius seems to be emerging from a rough patch ("We really needed this," he says at one point).

A latest album of fresh yet elegant pop, on the verge of maturity, now built on extensive live experience and a string of good hits etched into memory: these are the ingredients of a fine show, to which the crowd contributed in an almost decisive way. A crowd with which the Swedish band – Adam Olenius above all – seemed to interact as if it were an extra member of the group.

In short, along with a venue packed with people having fun and being fun to be around (no rowdiness, and with a real sense of rhythm!), let's hope that not just Shout Out Louds but the many bands that now bypass Milan, if not Italy altogether, hear the cry of these young fans: we're here too!

Photo contributions by Francesca Baiocchi

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