Lemon Twigs

There are those who point to them as the saviours of guitar pop, and those who dismiss them as mere copycats of the "sacred triad of the three B's" of pop-rock, namely Beatles, Beach Boys and Byrds (with Big Star ideally picking up the baton). Those who thrill to their so retro approach to music, and those who accuse them of being far too derivative and retromaniac. Those who find them flawless in their mannerism, and those who admit to being irritated by moments that seem to veer into parody. The Lemon Twigs, in their own small way, are one of those bands that inevitably divide fans. Seeing them live, though, might be enough to bring everyone into agreement. We realised as much on Monday 5 October, when the band led by the D'Addario brothers played Santeria Toscana in Milan, the third stop on a mini Italian tour that had already taken them through Rome and Bologna in the preceding days.

That it would be an evening steeped in vintage sounds was clear from the very start, when it fell to Dutch band Plastic Family to kick things off. If their look harks back to the most pop and colourful side of the Sixties, with a cartoonish aesthetic borrowed from the Archies, their sound instead draws on the early Seventies, looking to the more teen-oriented side of power pop acts like Raspberries and to the bubblegum end of glam (Sweet, but also T. Rex). The Plastic Family's offering nonetheless showed a certain originality, especially on the still-unreleased tracks (so far they've put out just three on Spotify), in which keyboardist and second vocalist Fleur Elman plays an important role, pushing into territory closer to Supertramp. The crowd, who'd arrived at the venue well ahead of time, in any case clearly relished their infectious energy.

The sense of having been teleported to a rock'n'roll party only grows stronger once the Lemon Twigs themselves take the stage, sporting their so adorably out-of-fashion bowl cuts. The opening couldn't be better: they play their ace card right away, launching into "My Golden Years", a song of crystalline beauty capable of making even their detractors waver, one that Alex Chilton would surely be proud of.

© Claudia Argieri

The bittersweet melancholy of Big Star shines through on "What You Were Doing", one of the key tracks on "Everything Harmony", the 2023 album that marked a turning point in their career, helping them reach a somewhat wider audience. That recognition also came thanks to songs like "In My Head", marked by heavenly vocal harmonies (and, as Michael wryly recalled, used in the soundtrack of "Ricky Stanicky", a little-loved comedy starring John Cena), "Ghost Run Free", with its joyful chorus, and "Any Time Of Day", which winks at Motown and is sung entirely in falsetto. The albums from the earlier phase of Lemon Twigs' career are less represented: only "The One", taken from "Songs From The General Public", makes the cut.

Other delicacies that seem to come straight out of the Sixties, like “2 Or 3” and “You're Still My Girl,” open “Look For Your Mind!,” their latest and most rock'n'roll effort, once again confirming the quality of Brian and Michael D'Addario's harmonies, at times downright stunning. Paradoxically, the two brothers' intricate vocal harmonies seem to benefit from the live setting, coming across as less cloying than they can occasionally feel on record. Equally impressive is the instrumental and technical skill of the whole band: the members repeatedly swap instruments, and Michael, around the midpoint of the show, goes back to pounding the drums as he did in the band's early days. The songs also gain in intensity, thanks to more driving solos and an energy that shows itself in constant guitar acrobatics: throughout the show, the two brothers compete to see who can jump higher, with Brian - apparently the quieter of the two - surprisingly coming out on top.

© Claudia Argieri

The rest of the setlist draws mainly on the last two albums, forever balanced between a typically 60s innocence and lightheartedness (songs like "I Just Can't Get Over Losing You" and "Yeah I Do" are emblematic in this sense, tracks the early Beatles might have written) and an end-of-summer melancholy à la Brian Wilson, somewhere between baroque pop and power pop (with the crowd singing along at the top of their lungs to "Look For Your Mind" and "Nothin' But You"). The D'Addario brothers' menu is also seasoned with psychedelic pop spices ("Peppermint Roses") that add extra flavour to the dish. Some might call it mere sixties calligraphy; to this writer, they're simply great songs. Their only "fault", if you can call it that, is coming out today.

Whatever your take, the passion radiating from every note and every harmony the Lemon Twigs sing is genuinely moving. You can feel it, for instance, when they dig up "Transparent Day" by the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band. It's a passion that clearly won over the mixed crowd in Milan, made up both of spectators who lived through the Sixties and Seventies firsthand and of younger fans who perhaps came to the Beatles and the Beach Boys (and who knows, maybe even Badfinger, the Flamin' Groovies and many others) precisely through the Lemon Twigs. It's a role that, on closer inspection, other bands have played before: staying within power pop, just think of Teenage Fanclub in the first half of the Nineties.

© Claudia Argieri

The lively rockabilly of "Bring You Down" paves the way for the encore, which opens with Brian D'Addario taking centre stage alone: armed with just an acoustic guitar, he performs "Joy" and "Corner Of My Eye", letting all his love for Simon & Garfunkel shine through. For the exuberant finale, the full band returns to the stage for "Rock On". A fitting close to an evening in which the Lemon Twigs proved that nostalgia might be the starting point, but it's always the songs that make the difference.

(All live photographs by Claudia Argieri)

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