Spring Attitude is a festival that builds bridges with music – Patrizio Ruviglioni

It is just after half past ten in the evening when Fulminacci is about to conclude his concert on the main stage of Spring Attitude, in Rome. It is Friday 16 September – the first of the two days of the festival – and we are in Cinecittà, in a large open space with a scenography that refers to ancient Rome: stairways, columns, terraces, balconies.

Daniele Silvestri had arrived shortly before, “the reason why I make music”, said Fulminacci; they did a cover of his I will go up appreciated by an audience where there are even children, in a handover between old and new. The rest continues in karaoke style, including choirs by Hey Jude of the Beatles and the various Tactics e Santa Marinellafor which Fulminacci is considered one of the freshest singers of the new generation.

On the other stage, more perched, begins the set of the Israeli Red Axes, an electronic duo that ranges between disco and house. It is a dark and intense moment, to dance, the opposite of the live just finished. The spectators are also partly different: who was there before is now at dinner, and vice versa.

This is not even the appendix of the day: immediately after the main plant the Cosmo show starts – a hybrid between traditional pop and liquid and experimental, club sounds – and the confusion increases.

But soon it all comes back. The Red Axes make the atmosphere grow, it seems like a warm-up for the next step, which begins around midnight with the crowded and eager parterre. Cosmo sets up a party that is a hymn to dance, to corporeality and to letting go, closing the circle opened in the afternoon by the electropop of Ditonellapiaga and passed to the other guests, including Fulminacci. The strength of Spring Attitude are the bridges it creates.

The capital lacks music festivals for the general public. In the summer, for example, there are only reviews such as Rock in Roma: two months of single concerts inserted in large billboards, for which you must still buy the single ticket every night.

There is no appointment that in a few days offers a selection of different but coherent live shows all together, building sound paths and representing a real experience for those who participate and with a link with the place that hosts it, as often happens in the rest. of Italy.

Spring Attitude is the exception. It is the only event of its kind in Rome to attract thousands of spectators; and if five or six years ago it was an institution for electronics producers, over time it has increasingly involved that pop influenced by electronics itself. A little for necessity, a little for the desert that surrounds it.

And for this edition, fully booked after two years of pandemic, it has relaunched: music from the afternoon in Cinecittà, with ancient Roman-style sets to create a connection with the history of the place, the possibility of attending shows in various ways (in the crowd , wider on the terraces, sitting on the steps) and a selection never so rich and varied, including Italians and foreigners, pop stars and DJs.

The names of Iosonouncane and Nu Genea stood out, perhaps the two best shows around this summer for our country, but in general all the performances seemed engaging. Just as the choice of a program with tight schedules, which invited a rebound game between the two stages, was a winner, apart from a few sets that perhaps it would have been better to attend at another time.

For example, the Kokoroko, with a jazz bent by the afrobeat, would have found a better atmosphere at aperitif time rather than at eleven in the evening, when it was better to turn up the rhythm already. And Iosonouncane himself was not exploited to the maximum: his cerebral and dense live – which mixed the monoliths of the last album Ira (2021) with classics from the previous one Die (2015) in a mix between post-rock, pulsations and world music – it must be listened carefully and maybe it would have been lost in a stage as big as the main one, yet it was difficult to follow well from the smallest space that was reserved for it. .

But beyond all this, the liveability that makes participation in a festival an all-round experience has been a bit lacking, especially in the early evening. Some spaces were too crowded, while the queues for food, drinks and bathrooms lasted as long as an hour.

Too bad, because from a technical point of view it was one of the best festivals of the summer. For variety, the ability to create connections between distant worlds and involved artists.

Saturday 17th it was a privilege, for example, to be able to listen first to Calibro 35 – super band with Massimo Martellotta, Enrico Gabrielli and Fabio Rondanini – who at sunset broke up some of Ennio Morricone’s classics in a funk-jazz key, with emphasis on the theme of The working class goes to heaven and its physical size.

Then, Venerus and his seventies show, with sax and guitar solos to rearrange the various Every thought flies e Love anthem, no.1, bringing them from the original, urban style, towards Pink Floyd and glam rock. Then, the Nu Genea circus, who brought the Neapolitan funk tradition of the seventies into a hybrid and dance show, popular and sought after, with synthesizers on one side and traditional instruments (acoustic guitars, percussion, female choirs) on the other.

And in closing, Ellen Allien’s DJ set brought the festival back to its clubbing roots. In the two days there was also the Venetian province pierced by the psychedelia of Post Nebbia; Whitemary who overturned stereotypes (the straight bass drum sung in Italian by a woman); and precisely the transversal pop of Fulminacci and Cosmo.

Beyond the abundance, they themselves are very different artists, but who share a courageous, alternative approach to music. The way they use the electronic element is often the tool to break with tradition and established canons. To Spring Attitude the merit of having shown it.