25-26-27/08/2023

TOdays Festival 2023

sPAZIO211, Turin

by Claudio Lancia

La Regina di Francia

I'll start from the end to tell you about the ninth edition of TOdays, because the last image is usually the one that stays with you the most. I'll start with the intensely powerful performance by Héloïse Letissier, the mastermind behind the Christine And The Queens project: graceful, theatrical, magnetic, melodramatic, the star of one of the highest points ever reached at the Turin festival. Built around a set that touches on half of the twenty tracks on the recent album “Paranoia, Angels, True Love”, the French singer-songwriter's set (who has recently stated a preference for male pronouns) stands as a manifesto of freedom of expression. For a good part of the show he performs bare-chested, effectively claiming equal treatment between men and women. He plays with every element at his disposal to shape an ever more queer femininity, free of limitations and dense with refinement and pathos.

At least two performances were truly sublime: the moving "Full Of Life", performed in complete solitude, and the ten stunning minutes of "Track 10", wild and dramatic. "To Be Honest" will be missing from the setlist, but that's perfectly fine. A fearless icon capable of instilling confidence in every woman who doesn't feel at ease with her own body, a joy for photographers thanks to the sculptural poses he strikes, Héloïse makes the third day of TOdays unforgettable: an hour of intense emotion in which words, body, lights, movement, sound and staging all contribute equally to tearing down every barrier and prejudice.

The presence of a dense, unrelenting rain, which thins out the crowd as it goes, creates an atmosphere that may never be replicated — perfect, too, for marking the end of summer. The rain had been forecast to fall heavily, and it threatened to cause more than a few problems for the smooth running of the three-day event on Piedmontese soil. Yet it's under this rain that the crowd's wild dancing finds its own kind of sublimation, during the two sets that preceded Christine And The Queens. Very different from one another but equally compelling and dense with groove, the deeply Nigerian-rooted afro-funk of Ibibio Sound Machine and the funk-tinged synth-pop of L'Impératrice turn the park on Via Cigna into an open-air dancefloor, with the bassists of both collectives stealing the show as the rhythmic engines of a sound that crosses every geographic and stylistic boundary.

These are two live acts perfectly suited to shining in a Festival setting;

in particular, L'Impératrice rises to become this year's true revelation, thanks to a mix that blends Air, Jamiroquai and Daft Punk, and bears witness to the resurrection of French Touch. The gorgeous closing night had opened at 6:30pm sharp with the occasionally anemic indie-rock of Porridge Radio: dressed somewhat haphazardly, with a credible frontwoman going by the name of Dana Margolin and two well-received albums released within just 14 months of each other, the Brighton four-piece prove they already have a handful of good songs in their pocket, among which "Sweet" stands head and shoulders above the rest.

Among the greatest of all time?

The second set that came close to perfection this year belonged to Wilco, extraordinary as they closed out opening night, Friday. There's nothing left to discover about them, yet every time you still find yourself slack-jawed in the presence of Jeff Tweedy's sublime songwriting (who celebrated his birthday right there on stage) and the extraordinary technique on display from Glenn Kotche on drums and Nels Cline on guitar, two untouchable giants. Many count them among the best live bands working today, if not among the very best of all time.

Tonight the six-piece leans into the country roots brought back to the fore on their most recent record, "Cruel Country", OndaRock's Album of the Month exactly a year ago, while still leaving, as ever, the right amount of room for some of their great classics, chief among them the long electric ride of "Impossibile Germany". But the crowd also goes wild for the instrumental experimentation at the core of "Bird Without A Tail/ Base Of My Skull", and for evergreens of the caliber of "Misunderstood" or "A Shot In The Arm". Among the less predictable choices, the live rendition of "Dawned On Me" shines, as does the liberating, hyper-energetic closing one-two of "I Got You"/"Outtasite".

The first night had kicked off beautifully with a performance from the hotly anticipated King Hannah, who prove they deserve the title of best debut of the last two years. Showing no sign of fatigue after an exhausting twenty-hour journey, they earn the first applause of the 2023 edition by chewing over the Portishead lesson through a far more incisive use of guitars, which often veer pleasantly into shoegaze territory. One track to remember is the closer, "It's Me And You, Kid", and even the most skeptical are won over.

After King Hannah, the hurricane that is Les Savy Fav tears through TOdays, playing in Italy for the first time, with singer Tim Harrington throwing himself, as always, into an uninhibited performance spent largely clowning around in the middle of the crowd. The true nightmare of any stage tech, Harrington shows no mercy, making full use of a microphone cable that stretches for a hundred meters or so. One fan can even boast of having Harrington's face printed on their white t-shirt, a sort of Shroud of Turin 2.0. And it hardly matters that almost no one pays attention to the rest of the excellent band, who are on stage playing a superb cross between post-punk and post-hardcore. Right after, the set from Warhaus, formerly of Balthazar, drifts by almost unnoticed, the kind of performer used to leaving little trace of his passing. As pleasant as it is forgettable.

A touch of Italy

Always an event with a foreign-leaning lineup, this year TOdays sells out its second night, Saturday, thanks above all to the presence of Verdena, for a quarter of a century now (!) one of the most beloved names in Italian "alternative" rock. As powerful as ever, and more relaxed than usual, they offer a set that draws in particular on their "heavier" repertoire: "Logorrea", "Don Calisto", "Lui gareggia", the recent "Volevo magia". Great classics like "Luna" and "Muori delay" do the rest, for a setlist that also ensures some pleasant shifts of pace through the acoustic moments offered by "Chaise Longue" and "Angie" and the piano-centered passages, with Alberto Ferrari sitting down at the keys for a few minutes to play and sing "Scegli me" and "Miglioramento".

The day kicked off with the uncompromising Gilla Band, the ones who lit the fuse that set off the explosion of the Dublin scene in recent years, a fundamental inspiration for bands who went on to become far more famous, such as Fontaines D.C. and Murder Capital. Gilla Band's sound is a hard, raw post-punk, with a decisive noise-rock component shaped in particular by the technique of guitarist Alan Duggan, who plays his instrument with the sole intent of producing noises that read like interference — the very interference that for a long time disturbed singer Dara Kiely's mental health. Gilla Band's sound is psychic distress translated into music, a confused state from which shines through an innate ability to control noise and the feedback it constantly generates.

Bringing the sound back down to a more "human" level right afterward is Anna Calvi. Great guitar and vocal technique, a stage presence that leaves no one indifferent, lovely songs, and only one complaint: the somewhat skimpy length of the set, which was over in just nine tracks across roughly half an hour. The best moment, the one that strays furthest from her usual mold, is the Suicide cover "Ghost Rider", performed right at the close.

Anna Calvi plays so little that those two jokers in Sleaford Mods can kick off their own show a good thirty minutes ahead of schedule. A thoroughly road-tested show, with Andrew dancing wildly and Jason looking more and more like a forerunner of Joe Talbot, both in his movements and in certain vocal inflections. While musically the Sleaford Mods' songs are fun and danceable, the duo also represents one of the Festival's more politically charged moments, thanks to lyrics that narrate slices of working-class life, captured in the industrial North of England.

The ambition to grow

Outside the Via Cigna venue, over the three days of the Festival, a number of other events on the bill took place: an exhibition dedicated to Bob Dylan, a workshop featuring guest Johnson Righeira, and a performance from Enrico Gabrielli, who presented his "Canzonine" with support from numerous guests, including Roberto Dell'Era and Giovanni Truppi.

TOdays thus consigns to the archives another important, substantial edition, cementing its place among Europe's best boutique festivals, while making no secret of its ambition to grow, to become something bigger, staying a step ahead of any foreign competitors eager to find a foothold in our country.

With more space at its disposal, TOdays could certainly make that qualitative leap that would allow it to bring in a greater number of big names, while also rounding out all its ancillary services, starting with food and beverage, currently somewhat lacking on the busiest days. Should foreign brands make their entrance into Italy (there's been a lot of talk about Primavera Sound these very days), it will need to be handled in a way that doesn't strangle the small ventures that have taken root in our territory against all odds. A special round of applause must go - as always - to Gianluca Gozzi, TOdays Festival's Artistic Director, and to his invaluable staff, who for a decade now have been building nights that will forever remain etched in the memory of everyone who was there.

Ride the wave of great music

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This article is an English translation of the original Italian text by Claudio Lancia, published on OndaRock.it. It was translated with the help of artificial intelligence, under the editorial responsibility of OndaRock's editor-in-chief, Claudio Fabretti.

Read the original in Italian · About the English edition

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