Siren Festival

Once again this year, the Siren Festival confirms itself as one of the most interesting music events in central-southern Italy, able to draw a crowd as diverse as it is attentive and curious. The festival's four days unfolded, as usual, against the magnificent backdrop of Vasto, one of the most characteristic and evocative towns on the Abruzzo stretch of the Adriatic coast. Amid sea, sun and good food, audiences were able to enjoy performances by internationally renowned artists such as Public Image Ltd, Slowdive, dEUS and Lali Puna, not to mention the more electronic side of things with a live set from German duo Mouse On Mars and a dj-set by 2 Many DJ's.

Thursday the 26th's evening, besides the beach party at Siren Beach following a screening of the famous Beatles animated classic "Yellow Submarine", featured a screening of the documentary "B-Movie: Lust & Sound in West-Berlin 1979-1989", a film by Jörg A. Hoppe, Heiko Lange and Klaus Maeck about music, art and chaos in 1980s Berlin, and about the creative melting pot of the underground culture of the period: spanning punk, new wave and the earliest stirrings of techno. Through a collage of unreleased footage and archival material, it was possible to retrace the spirit of those years with Nick Cave, Gudrun Gut of Malaria, Einstürzende Neubauten and countless other protagonists of the Berlin counterculture. Crowning it all was the presence of one of the directors, Klaus Maeck, an underground legend who had already directed the famous dystopian film "Decoder" (1984), who introduced the film and answered questions from the audience.

Friday the 27th saw the festival get into full swing with a bill that featured a performance by the sacred monsters of shoegaze/dream pop, Slowdive. The English band didn't disappoint the high expectations, delivering a sharply focused live set that revisited the classics of their catalogue with songs drawn from landmark albums such as "Just For A Day" and "Souvlaki", performing in the splendid setting of Piazza del Popolo with a lunar eclipse unfolding in the background.

In the courtyard of Palazzo d'Avalos it was the turn of Lali Puna, a historic indietronica act born in the late Nineties, when the bands on the German label Morr Music first emerged. Unlike Slowdive, Lali Puna came across as a bit flat, so it was better to relax in the gardens of Palazzo d'Avalos and enjoy the astronomical spectacle of the Blood Moon. Meanwhile, Cosmo drew a decidedly younger crowd with a concert that proved a solid success in terms of attendance.

In terms of quality, though, the highlight of Friday evening, besides the Slowdive concert, was the gripping, adrenaline-fuelled live set from German duo Mouse on Mars, who also emerged in the mid-Nineties but have managed to keep reinventing themselves and teaching a thing or two to younger producers and artists. After all, more than twenty years of experience often makes a positive difference, and sometimes a touch of techno, kraut and IDM shards, shot through with funk rhythms and lounge drifts, doesn't hurt - especially when the live set hits the accelerator, helping to liven up the evening's pace with a performance of undeniable quality.

The performance by David and Stephen Dewaele of Soulwax, this time in their 2 Many DJ's guise, also made it possible to stay out late and dance to a rich mash-up, not without an eclectic and at times ironic, irreverent flair.

Saturday the 28th saw a performance by dEUS, another celebrated band from the Nineties, formed in Antwerp, Belgium. Here too, as with the Slowdive concert, you could feel something of the spirit of a certain strain of original indie rock, so different from what many current Italian artists are doing as they gravitate around the frivolous, jokey world of today's indie pop. The band fronted by the irrepressible Tom Barman also dedicated an unreleased track, titled "Sirens", to the festival-goers in Vasto. Once again, we were treated to an excellent performance.

Another key moment of the evening, again in the striking setting of Piazza del Popolo, was the concert by Public Image Ltd, the pioneering post-punk band led by John Lydon, also known as Johnny Rotten, singer of the legendary Sex Pistols, the band that embodied the most subversive, nihilistic "spirit" of English punk.

In the face of a legend, all you can do is bow your head and tip your hat, and even though the years catch up with everyone, P.I.L. put on a good show that fired up the less "indie" portion of the Siren crowd. Many had come almost solely to see them thrash about on stage, and the setlist didn't disappoint, packed with songs symbolic of an era suspended between funk, tribal rhythms, new wave and (post-)punk attitude. How could you not be moved by classics like "Memories", "Death Disco", "Flowers of Romance", "This Is Not A Love Song" and "Public Image"?

P.I.L. also treated us to a version of "Open Up", the famous Leftfield track originally sung by Lydon himself, and closed the show with "Shoom", a track from "What The World Needs Now...", their post-reunion album released in 2015.

John Lydon remains a great showman on stage, a nonconformist who refuses to be swayed by the sirens of the press and public opinion, but it's worth remembering that a full forty years have passed since P.I.L. were formed (and "only" around twenty-five/twenty years since the births of Slowdive, dEUS, Lali Puna, Mouse On Mars and so on). Time is kind to no one, although Lydon's voice remains one of the most distinctive of an era, on a par with that of Blixa Bargeld, whom we heard again in his caustic younger years in the documentary on the Berlin scene. Either way, "the spirit goes on", and P.I.L. are still a source of inspiration today for many other bands "faithful to the cause" who carry on the conversation started by the English group and who (perhaps) might also find their place at mainstream festivals like the one in Vasto.

All things considered, the festival didn't disappoint, even though there were the usual problems with overcrowded venues. Many people couldn't get into the gardens of Palazzo D'Avalos for Rodrigo Amarante's concert (famous for the theme tune to the TV series Narcos) or into the closing show on Sunday the 29th by Nic Cester & The Milano Elettrica, in the evocative setting of the Church of San Giuseppe. There were also a few minor sound issues in the main square and some technical glitches during the P.I.L. concert.

All in all, it was a good edition, even though to the older crowd, the younger Italian bands and artists seemed a bit too mainstream, frivolous and lightweight, both compared to the music of the Nineties and to that of the Eighties evoked by P.I.L.'s appearance — but that's an issue for Italian music as a whole, not just this festival in Vasto.

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