Grizzly Bear

Anyone who has heard (or read) anything coming from the hands of the four members of Grizzly Bear knows well the almost obsessive precision with which the Brooklyn band tends to operate. That's why, last September, when their set as headliners at the End of the Road Festival was abruptly cut short by a scheduling miscalculation – paradoxically, too short compared to the slot allotted to them – leaving the musicians visibly embarrassed on stage as they scrambled to find a solution and a fitting way to close the show (namely an even longer, more stretched-out version of “Colorado”, preceded by Ed Droste inviting the crowd to light up whatever they had to smoke), what took hold of my impressions was sheer astonishment at such a naive slip-up. A real shame, given the extreme skill – not just technical – of Droste, Bear, Rossen and Taylor.

This is also why expectations for the band's Milan date were extremely high – on top of six and a half years' absence from Italian stages, as Droste himself pointed out, and two albums, “Veckatimest” and “Shields”, released in the meantime. Waiting for them is an Alcatraz that isn't sold out, but hosts one of the best crowds seen in recent times: quiet, respectful and engaged, so much so that the band itself compliments them.

In Milan, Grizzly Bear complete the magic that had been broken amid the Dorset rain. Live, the precise, studied sound that defines the band's studio work sheds some of its polished perfection to make room for the empathetic connection between the musicians, becoming even more complex and complete.

As expected, the set revolves around the last two albums, though it doesn't skip incursions as far back as “Horn Of Plenty” for an incredible “Shift” and “Yellow House” for the encore with “Knife”. There's no hierarchy within the band, but rather a rhizomatic structure: you can tell right away from how they're arranged on stage, but also from the ease with which Droste (whose contributions are mostly vocal) moves through the moments when Rossen takes over on vocals, or the effortless multi-instrumentalism of Chris Taylor.

For those watching, the feeling is of floating on a cloud. The low, grazing lighting on the stage, the smoke, the hanging lanterns that seem to float all make the atmosphere hazy, suspended, enveloping. The show is long, the sound is full, at times even tedious, but the result is one of sheer wonder. It's impossible to look away or tune out from what's happening on stage and reaching your ears. It hardly matters that, at times, the pursuit of “doing it right” still wins out over letting go – as on “Knife”, whose psychedelia stays trapped in the woodenness of the rhythmic phrasing – the result remains magnetic and hypnotic regardless.

This time, the spell only breaks when the house lights come back on, an hour and a half after it began.

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