Fast Animals And Slow Kids

Aimone drumming in the middle of the crowd, Aimone letting himself be carried crowdsurfing all the way to the venue bar for his customary beer, Aimone climbing onto the railing leading to the gallery just to drink it, Aimone downing it in one go from the floor above, then sprinting back to the stage. He's always the focal point of the show, but watch out: after two years of restrictions imposed by decree, after two years of near house-arrest, after two years in which, if they went out to play at all, it was acoustic, Fast Animals And Slow Kids have become even better. Better at commanding the stage, better at running a show, better as musicians, better at handling light and shade, at refining and broadening their dynamics, at playing without necessarily keeping their foot permanently on the gas.

Today you shouldn't go and see them live expecting a continuation of the celebrations for that masterpiece of Italian-language alt-rock that was “Hybris”: no, FASK have built themselves the means (they'd say “thanks to luck”, I'd say “thanks to the skills they possess”) to deliver a thrilling set even while drawing just a single track from that album, “A cosa ci serve”, played moreover at the end of the set, just to remind themselves where they came from. The rest of this gripping hour and a half is a convincing selection from their more recent work, and if you're down there in the front row and really want to scream out all the rage you've got in you, the furthest back you can go is the material on “Alaska”, another blunt instrument of a record from which “Coperta” and “Come reagire al presente” are pulled, back to back, among the most electrically intense moments of this tour, alongside the cathartic screams unleashed on “Annabelle” and “Maybe It's Not Happiness”, one of the key tracks in their artistic journey.

It's the promotional tour for “E' già domani”: the band believe wholeheartedly in these songs, so half the set is built around its tracks, plus the brand-new single, “Vite sperdute”, belted out at the top of their lungs by the whole crowd, as is the rest of the set. The show at Rome's Atlantico is one of the many sold-outs on this run of dates, which also sold out effortlessly in Parma, Bologna, Padua, Florence, Turin, Naples and Milan, the spring preview of a tour that will continue all through next summer in the peninsula's open-air venues, satisfying the appetite for live music that the pandemic has left us with. Light years away from the hype of talent shows and the glitter of Sanremo, Fast Animals And Slow Kids keep evolving while staying true to themselves, without disowning a single ounce of the genuine irreverence of their early days — an evolutionary path that's gradually turning them into something different, something more “grown-up”, condensing the influences absorbed over the years into a song format that remains unmistakably their own.

The right to change, the choice to evolve, shared by the fans, comes through clearly in tracks like “Nocturnal Animals” and “Lago ad alta quota”, which sound unmistakably FASK, but in a different way from their early days. Then there are the more “pop” moments – let's call them that – the ones built for stadium singalongs, like “Come un animale” and “Cosa ci direbbe”, which become even more effective in their invigorating live transposition. Alongside the Romizi hurricane, indispensable contributions come from Alessandro Guercini's Olympian calm on guitar, the authority of Jacopo Gigliotti's bass, and the “punch” of drummer Alessio Mingoli, backed by multi-instrumentalist Daniele Ghiandoni, switching between guitars and synths. The celebration also draws in the evening's guest, Roman singer-songwriter Giancane, and for half an hour the collective embrace extends to Elephant Brain, an up-and-coming band who, while awaiting the release of their next album, slot into the setlist their new single (due out the following Friday) “Anche questa è insicurezza”. Elephant Brain prove to be kindred spirits of Fast Animals in terms of sound (unsurprisingly, they're produced by Jacopo Gigliotti) and in terms of geographic origin too... they also “come from Perugia”.

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