I Cani + Calcutta

Together, on the same evening and the same stage, two of the biggest independent Italian success stories of recent years draw a sold-out crowd that was a foregone conclusion—just one of many on this tour. In the hours leading up to the show, fans flood the dedicated Facebook page with messages, desperately hunting for a ticket. But whoever's got one is holding on tight, because tonight the hype is right here, within the steel pipework of the Atlantico, already packed to capacity at 9:10 pm, when Edoardo Calcutta takes the stage.

On paper an opening act, in practice a set of equal standing, since everyone here tonight – fans and the merely curious alike – has come for him too: a performer it's impossible not to love, clad in that same fragility shared by most of those who follow him with boundless affection, in ever-growing numbers. In just a few months he's found himself forced to move his travelling show from tiny provincial live clubs to the most celebrated stages of the national alternative circuit; tonight he's playing just a few kilometres from his hometown, Latina, a city known until now mostly for its reclaimed marshland, for Tiziano Ferro's hits and coming-out, and for Manuela Arcuri's cleavage.

Among tonight's crowd there will surely be many of his old friends, here to celebrate the success of Edoardo, a twenty-six-year-old who, with disarming and contagious simplicity, has built simple, direct songs that have won everyone over – not just the teenagers (or thereabouts) depicted in his lyrics, but older listeners too, who find him a skilled songwriter, and even seasoned music critics, who see in him the ability to fully translate onto record the best possible expression of contemporary youth. Songs that feel sincere because the author is an integral part of the reality he describes, in snapshots that have stepped out of his bedroom to become everyone's shared heritage.

Calcutta sings leaning on his guitar, backed by synth, bass and drums, and starts without hesitation by going straight for the best of his “Mainstream”, namely “Frosinone” and “Gaetano”: the crowd sings in unison, proving they feel perfectly represented by lyrics that describe their everyday lives, portraying unease and uncertainty, dreams and struggles alike.

The real surprise of the evening – though I'd venture to call it more a confirmation – is the man himself, shy yet able to face such an important crowd as if we were still in a friend's farmhouse, trying to string together a few words between one song and the next, and if the emotion is so strong it breaks his words apart, no matter: everyone here today has come to hear his songs and to sing at the top of their lungs the much-invoked “Cosa mi manchi a fare”.

Calcutta proves to be a kind of modern-day minstrel, capable of turning emotions and fragments of lived experience into words and music. If many were wondering what results this young musician's live test would bring – having to break free from the solitude of the singer-songwriter to bring his new arrangements to the stage at the head of a real band – well, I'd say every doubt has been thoroughly dispelled.

Half an hour or so of songs as fragile as they are effective, then a change of stage and off we go with the set from the much-hyped Cani, twenty songs conceived not just for dancing anymore (“Protobodhisattva” and “Le coppie”, placed near the top of the setlist, set the tone for the whole show, which bears little trace of the spatial serenity of “Aurora”, the work released just days earlier), but also, every now and then, for pausing to reflect on ourselves and the world around us. Niccolò Contessa has grown a great deal, and very quickly: already on the previous “Glamour” he no longer meant simply to produce manifestos for his generation, but paused for more introspective reflection, moving from the personal to the universal – a shift in perspective, from detached to engaged, that no longer produced merely crisp snapshots of the surrounding environment but a conscious use of the first person singular, turning everything into a kind of self-analysis.

With “Aurora” the register shifts again: the exploration happens from above, people become tiny, indistinguishable atoms drifting through the universe, the angle grows detached, and more sentimental themes make a decisive entrance.

Behind the hype there is compositional substance, compressed into neorealist snapshots, made by someone who speaks the exact same language as his listeners, talking about WhatsApp, Google, Playstation, posh Parioli kids and evenings spent at the Circolo degli Artisti. And in the live transposition the songs gain in energy and catchiness. What's more, I Cani can now put on a better live set than in the past, with far more variety, cutting the less incisive tracks from the three albums released so far and putting together a kind of greatest hits, pairing the danceable synth-pop of “Asperger”, “Hipsteria” and “Sfortuna” with some more introspective moments, like when Niccolò sits at the piano for the soft, melancholy interlude made up of “Aurora”/“Una cosa stupida”/“Sparire”. And it all works, aside from the technical glitches that caused two false starts as the Roman band took the stage.

In its central section the show reaches its peak, thanks to the explosion of “Corso Trieste” (the cold, biting settling of adolescent scores, with the endlessly repeated slogan “L'unica vera nostalgia che ho”), the spoiled tales of “I pariolini di diciott'anni” and the powerful instrumental closing of “Post Punk”. Everything stays within the electronic architecture, which in the live transposition is sustained by three synths alongside the rhythm section.

“Non c'è niente di Twee” and “Come Vera Nabokov” keep attention levels sky-high, while the following “Questo nostro grande amore” and “Finirà” close the set with great intensity. Two encores are planned, the second of which is reserved for two of the evening's most anticipated songs, “Velleità” and “Lexotan”, the true anthems of I Cani, and then the curtain falls – but looking down over the packed crowd, what strikes you most is the deep sense of belonging and shared feeling radiating from every single body, moving in unison (singing, waving their arms, even pogoing) and spelling out every single word of every song, as if it were all one single, great voice.

Calcutta and Contessa are among the most unifying figures of the 2010s, able to forge the same kind of bond that in the '90s was built by bands like Afterhours and Marlene Kuntz in Italy and by the heroes of grunge worldwide, able to unite and weld together the whole of Generation X. The same force that, a few years later, Verdena and Baustelle carried, two other brilliant chroniclers of bygone youth; the same unifying bond that sparked during evenings spent among friends around a turntable in the '70s and '80s, sifting through and devouring hundreds of records, poring over lyrics and memorising every single detail.

Time passes, habits change, and so do the means, but tonight it was possible to see those very same emotions reflected in the eyes of the many people present, who will make up part of this country's future. A future that will likely be difficult, full of precarious work and uncertainty, but if these kids can be just as united in everyday life as they are in the presence of these young singer-songwriters, then a thread of real hope remains. A little song can't change the world, or our lives, but it can certainly help us smile and feel better, if only for five minutes. If that is the intent of young musicians like I Cani and Calcutta, I feel I can say the goal has been fully achieved.

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