Skunk Anansie

It's not easy to write a critical review of an Skunk Anansie gig. At the very least, not without feeling somewhat baffled by the crowd they bring along with them.

Back in unsuspecting times, for anyone who saw them live between 1995 and 1996, the English band's fans were likeable people any rock'n'roll lover would happily grab a pizza with, or share an experience with. You could see them lounging around from the early afternoon onwards, beers in hand, wearing T-shirts of thoroughly decent acts like Bad Brains, Rage Against The Machine, Guano Apes, or, at most, the sheep pictured on the cover of Pearl Jam's "Vs". In short, it was pure bliss.

Now things have changed quite a bit. Today's Skunk Anansie fans show up outside the Teatro Tendastrisce no earlier than half an hour before the show (6:30pm — all that's missing are tumbleweeds rolling by and Clint Eastwood glaring at me), and certainly not before stopping off at Accessorize. It's impossible not to notice the incredible jumble of T-shirts, bracelets, necklaces and earrings so "fake rock" that they'd make Irene Grandi look like Exene Cervenka of L.A.'s X. And the men in the crowd are certainly no better. Improbable pink shirts with white collars (worn by a young designer, accompanied for the occasion by a well-known bald record executive in a pinstripe suit) go up against Cass's apache look with reckless nonchalance. Grey D&G belts over light-coloured trousers make you literally ashamed to be there rather than reporting for Vogue or Vanity Fair.

And yet there are also people who travelled 600 kilometres with a backpack and a Nirvana T-shirt on their back just to come and see Skunk Anansie, and that's something I struggle to understand. I struggle to understand it right up until Skin thanks them warmly from the stage for spending their money, especially in times of crisis, to come and hear them. I struggle to understand it right up until she and her band deliver an earth-shattering show (kudos to Mark Richardson's setup, with two bass drums, very few cymbals and a single centre tom, the way Christopher Chartrand of Crystal Castles sometimes does at festivals), in which the radio-friendly ballads (be it "Secretly" or "Hedonism") are held back until the end. For the encores. Just to give some meaning to the ticket price and to part of the audience's life.

For the rest of the show, it's a constant acceleration, as Skin proves she still has an impeccable style, above any stereotype or prejudice one might approach her with, a sheer force of wit worth learning from, and an ability to keep the stage alive for two hours that is anything but mere "professionalism".

Reeling off "The Skank Heads", "I Will Break You" and "I Believed in You" as if it were nothing has, on those present, the same immediate effect Moses had on the waters of the Red Sea. All the posers pushed to the sides, and an incredible surge forward to right under the stage from everyone genuinely interested in experiencing the gig as something physical, visceral. I'll let you imagine what happens to the strains of classics like "Twisted", "Weak" and "I Can't Dream". But if there was one moment of real spannung, it undoubtedly came with "Little Baby Swastikkka". The singer, dressed in black and stripped of all the stage trinkets that marked her entrance, shows she's determined to break down every barrier. She heads down into the crowd, making the audience crouch to the ground or jump into the air on command, depending on the song's sine-wave-like ebb and flow, eventually making her way to the mixing desk — positioned in the middle of the room; once there, she climbs on top of it, then dives into the crowd for some crowd surfing before making her way back to the stage to finish the song. All this while, amid the crush, people lose (much to the sadistic delight of yours truly) their iPods, phones, digital cameras, their minds, and perhaps some even lose their (musical, at the very least) virginity.

All things considered, it's impossible to go home in a bad mood. So forget about their shaky comeback and their last couple of limping albums: Skunk Anansie need to be seen live. At least once.

Photo contributions by Riccardo Arena

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