White Lies

By a strange twist of fate, on the evening of July 27th two of the symbolic bands of the European new wave revival found themselves on our peninsula: while in Tarvisio, amid the cool of the Friulian mountains, Editors had the local crowd (and more) dancing, in sweltering Ferrara, overrun by tourists, it was White Lies playing the first of their two Italian dates. The English band hadn't played in Italy since November, and their fans responded enthusiastically to the call, selling out the show weeks in advance.

Opening the show and warming up the crowd at 9pm was Lilian More, a young rock singer-songwriter from the outskirts of Milan - despite the English-sounding moniker - recently named Artist of the Month by "Mtv New Generation". White Lies, meanwhile, kept everyone waiting: at one point bassist Charles Cave even walked through the crowd completely incognito, before slipping away with a smile into the backstage area. Harry McVeigh repeatedly popped out to check on his eagerly waiting audience, but it was only at 10pm that the band, dressed head-to-toe in black, finally took the stage, kicking off the night in grand style with "Take It Out On Me".

The venue, while undeniably atmospheric, obviously can't accommodate the massive crowds of a summer festival set in some endless field, and yet the audience, small as it is, makes itself heard loud and clear: so when White Lies carry on the evening with the big hits "There Goes Our Love Again" and "To Lose My Life", the crowd sings along in full voice, hands reaching up towards the sky.

The show features a seventeen-song setlist packed with all their biggest hits. An hour and a half of music retracing a story that began in 2009 with "To Lose My Life", the first of four albums tied to a brand of new wave that, over the years, has grown steadily less rock and more electronic (a sonic trajectory that puts them in close company with the aforementioned Editors).

The strobe lights, cast in shades of blue and purple, lend the show a consistently melancholic, faintly tormented atmosphere, though there's no shortage of lighter, danceable moments too, as with the seductive "Hold Back Your Love" or the icy gallop of "Farewell To The Fairground".

The staging is minimal, the gestures always composed - the attitude of an English band that simply wants to play for its audience, without excess or empty chatter. The few times Charles and Harry pick up the microphone to speak they seem almost moved; they do so to thank the lovely people they met in Ferrara, and they're keen to point out that they wanted to include "Swing" in the setlist too, from their latest album "Friends", a song they say they're particularly fond of.

Their emotion shows through even more during the gripping "Don't Want To Feel It All" and "Death", which seem to close out the night before the band returns for the customary encore of "Big Tv" and "Bigger Than Us". And so White Lies slip back into the backstage almost on tiptoe, with the same composure and elegance with which they took the stage.

Ride the wave of great music

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