Maximum Fest

Photo by Deborah Brugnera

We all have that one gig of a lifetime. Being a simple soul, mine was at the Fontigo beer festival (deep in the hardcore countryside of Treviso) about twenty years ago. On stage was a Paul Di Anno still in great shape but, clearly, in financial trouble, playing alongside Children of the Damned. I remember it as something powerful and visceral: Di Anno (yes, HIM - the voice of "Iron Maiden" and "Killers"), even on that tiny stage, was a real beast, howling into the mic ten feet away from me and a hundred or so other diehards, while we screamed the songs from the first two Iron Maiden albums like our lives depended on it.

Seeing Maiden live a few years earlier at the Monza stadium hadn't given me the same thrill: too much distance, too much professionalism.

Last Saturday, in yet another undefined spot in the Treviso countryside (getting to Altroquando without a sat nav is like navigating the Goblin King's labyrinth), I witnessed a gig that seriously threatened to dethrone that one from the late, great Paul.

I've already written every good thing there is to say about Maximum Fest and Go Down Records, who organize it. This year, I made sure to get there as early as possible and arrive just in time for the performance of:

Phantom Paradox: an enjoyable band devoted to the most energetic strain of brit-pop, with a hefty dose of new wave neurosis. On stage, given their young age, they look like one of the bands playing your high school's end-of-year concert. A solid pass, but I hope that next year they aim for at least a 7. SCORE 6 ½

Loyal Cheaters: they play criminally early. But even under the blazing sun, they're a Molotov cocktail hurled at a gas station while the tanker is filling up the tanks. Their Hellacopter-worshipping rock-punk is arrogant, but couldn't care less about it. If they strike you as unoriginal, it's because someone once stole a DeLorean to go back in time and rip them off. By the end of the roughly fifty-minute set, there was no counting the broken drumstick pieces scattered across the stage and the crowd. Lena draws attention like a black hole draws light. Last time I saw them they had a bassist who made me reconsider my heterosexuality, but today they've replaced him with a lovely young woman who thrashes the strings like a demon. Traditional values are safe, and so is rock 'n' roll. SCORE 8 ½

Cyborg Zero: falls under the category of "masked guitar-and-drums duo," hugely popular these days. No artistic pretensions or microtonal temptations here, though. Just relentless garage rock played divinely and rendered deliriously stupid by bare-bones arrangements and idiotic lyrics (a random title I can cite: "Tu Tu Tutu Tu Tu"). While you're dancing, you wonder how the singer manages in that heat wearing a welder's mask with a built-in microphone. Robots, presumably, don't worry about these things. SCORE: 8.

Hobos: the extreme metal slot. They walk on stage dressed exactly how you'd picture American hobos, and you almost buy it until the singer drops his inhuman screams (the lyrics are in Italian, though they could just as easily be in any other language) and comes out with an accent that couldn't be more Venetian. Their death metal, heavily laced with hardcore punk, hits the mark and has the right punch. SCORE: 7.

Bila: a Maltese trio just signed to Go Down. Amid so many bands whose strong suit, let's face it, isn't exactly originality, they stand out with a molten sound that carves its own bed in unexpected directions, between sudden accelerations and doom slowdowns, melodic openings and lyrics declaimed in English and Maltese, with a welcome dose of anti-fascist commitment. SCORE: 8.

Guitar Wolf: hard to explain to anyone who wasn't there. Unlike the other bands, the three samurai take their time. They do their soundcheck after Bila have finished, come off stage, then go back up after about ten minutes, comb their gelled hair, pick up their instruments, and it's pure mayhem. I already knew them and I know their discography is pretty massive (the Japanese are workaholics on that front too), but there's really no point referencing individual songs, because Guitar Wolf basically just play rock standards that could pass for originals, as well as covers distorted by a deliriously demented English pronunciation. The point is HOW they play! Like Luffy stuffing his face, to stick with Japanese references. It's impossible to tell whether it's them shaking more, or the strings of their instruments. Seiji screams "rock'n'roll!" in about ten different ways. All while a glorious pogo pit erupts in front of the stage and the festival's polystyrene set gets smashed to pieces. Beyond that, they hold nothing back: from guitar played behind the back, to the bass wielded like a machine gun, all the way to stage diving that puts the venue at serious risk under liability law. At one point Max from Loyal Cheaters ends up on stage with his guitar slung over his shoulder, and even he looks out of his depth as he trails the other two, watching Seiji with the look of someone about to shout "rabbi!" SCORE: 11.

Photo by Deborah Brugnera

Organ: a smart choice to have them play after Guitar Wolf, since they're playing a completely different sport. Instrumental droney doom, cinematic and just oppressive enough, ideal for cooling tempers and accompanying dinner, since it's already nine by now. In the end, Pluto is a nice place to rest. SCORE: 7.

Uzeda: there's always been something monastic about the music of these four musicians from Catania. Faith in a singular idea of sound, unpredictable in its geometries yet extremely rigorous. You don't earn that kind of respect with such a difficult proposition unless its sheer quality is obvious to everyone. Their noise isn't off-putting, just challenging. Their funk is abstract, but never cold. From the dry, bass-driven chords of "This Heat," which opens the show, the audience's attention is total, and Uzeda repay it with an intense performance. Giovanna Cacciola gets on stage and instantly stops resembling your kids' math teacher, turning into the powerful, theatrical singer we know, riding the rigorous architecture of the rhythm section, over which Agostino Tilotta's guitar brushes on acid colors. You had to be truly great to hold people's attention after a Guitar Wolf show, and Uzeda, unquestionably, are. SCORE: 9.

Photo by Roberto D'Aloia

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