Teho Teardo & Blixa Bargeld

Teho Teardo and Blixa Bargeld had planned everything down to the last detail for the mini-tour to present their new album. Starting off in Rome, where "Still Smiling" was partly recorded. A day off, to rest and fine-tune the performance. Then on to Milan, Turin and Bologna. We happened to cross paths with Blixa Bargeld himself, as he got out of a car, put on a pair of glasses, grabbed a backpack and headed briskly toward the Circolo degli Artisti. When we waved at him, he answered with a faint smile, adding, in Italian: "It's late!". Teho, meanwhile, had already started listing the dates on Facebook back in April.

Everything was clear. Everything was going smoothly, but the two of them hadn't reckoned with A.S. Roma. We're in Rome, after all, and obviously, when the "Maggica" plays, the world stops - even if they're losing 0-1 to Chievo.

So the show starts almost an hour late. The big screen is packed with people, even Federico Guglielmi hastily says hello to everyone so as not to miss a nanosecond of the match, and never mind those who came for the music (maybe after an eight-hour workday) and couldn't care less about Captain Totti's moves than about climate shifts in Nicaragua back in '87. After all, last summer Giorgio Canali spent a good quarter of an hour playing over the England-Italy match, complete with commentary in the background between one song and the next.

On the plus side, the queue at the entrance isn't too long and is fairly orderly, despite the supposed sold-out show that had been loudly announced in the preceding days. People pass the time talking about Federico Fiumani's birthday (7 May 1960) and the steep ticket price ("Let's hope it's good, otherwise I'll make him eat those twenty euros"). But deep down everyone is thrilled to be there, despite someone needing a Cliff's Notes rundown of who exactly Teho Teardo is ("He's the guy who did the soundtrack for Il Divo"), despite the terrible beer that has by now become something of a house specialty at this Roman venue, and despite Roma's precarious position at the Olimpico.

Blixa Bargeld's power of attraction, then, increasingly resembles a riddle that perhaps not even his own fans are fully aware of: because in a show like this, the classic Einsturzende Neubauten repertoire isn't touched even slightly, and yet everyone gets just as excited over the new challenges on offer.

There are no real showstoppers in tonight's performance, and certainly nothing like what the Germans used to bring traffic to a halt outside Spazio Boario ten years ago this past March, but as soon as "Mi Scusi" kicks in (placed second in the set) the roar from the crowd is startling; from that exact moment everything changes, not just surface details like the more carefully arranged stage lighting, the knowing glances exchanged between the performers involved (alongside the two rascals, there's also Martina Bertoni on cello) and the back-and-forth with the audience, but also in the ever-present smile on Teho Teardo's face, which softens the overly professional image people usually have of him and his work.

All to good effect, mind you. As for being good, he's more than good — with an almost otherworldly ease; far from robotic, though that might be a legitimate concern, he manages alone in settings where you'd usually find five or six people on stage. And it's surely no coincidence that the guitar he plays (often plucking it as if it were a bass) gives the whole happening a better outcome. More human, if we don't want to bring up the punk etymology of the word.

To be fully honest, the energy and drive fade somewhat towards the end, giving the impression that everything's fine, but "Zeichnungen das Patienten OT" or "Tabula Rasa" (and for that matter "Street Knowledge", given the year it came out) are a different matter altogether. The cadeaux of "Negroni", unfamiliar to most, and "Millions Of Eels" aren't quite enough to make up for it. "Where's the missing piece?", as a guy behind me put it, cutting straight to the point.

At least a couple of the fourteen songs are decidedly not must-haves, he's right about that, but we can be pretty sure hardly anyone will have noticed tonight. The empathy in the room is off the charts, despite the setlist's often sinuous, understated flow. We realize as much when we step outside for a chat with Joe Lally, who's on hand (among other reasons) for a possible collaboration with the workaholic Teardo, and find the outdoor garden unusually empty. A twenty-euro ticket keeps you glued to the foot of the stage until the very end, that much is certain.

Photos by Massimo Monacelli

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