Home » Venezia Hardcore is a scream of scorn and anger – Marco De Vidi

Venezia Hardcore is a scream of scorn and anger – Marco De Vidi

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Venezia Hardcore is a scream of scorn and anger – Marco De Vidi

There is a festival, born as a meeting place between friends, a concert organized by the groups of a shabby rehearsal room, which in ten years has become one of the reference points of hardcore punk music in Europe, where bands from all over come to play. the world, from Japan, from the United States, from every corner of Italy and the continent.

And there is a place, overlooking the most beautiful and fragile lagoon in the world, which for more than a century has become the repository of all that Venice, gentrified and dazzled by the chimera of tourism, regardless of its inhabitants, wants to all costs forget, hide from view, silence. The history of its factories, the pollution, the deaths of poisoned workers in the workplace. The struggles of the workers and the trade union achievements. Terrorism. Real estate speculation, the abandonment of entire neighborhoods. Poverty, housing deprivation, heroin who continues to kill. Unrecognized migrants who support the city’s economy. A community, perhaps tired and disillusioned, but still united, supportive, generous.

It is here, in Marghera, that the Venezia Hardcore festival has found its home.

The Rivolta, with its colored walls, is visible from the large road that divides the town from the borders of the first industrial area. In the large spaces of the social center, occupied since 1995 after the closure of a historic spice factory, fans of all ages gather, very young punks and metalheads, you can see crests of colored hair and girls with the Chelsea cut, skaters ready to challenge each other on the ramp set up inside the large hangar, where the area dedicated to the merchandisingto the sale of T-shirts, records and vinyls.

Concerts begin around 8pm. It is Friday, the first of two days of the festival. Twenty-nine bands will alternate on the two stages, with very precise times, and the public will shuttle between the two rooms. Followed by all aspects of the organization, from logistics to fast soundcheck before the performances, it is the many volunteers who are part of the Venezia Hardcore band collective.

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I Klasse Kriminale, 24 settembre 2022.

(Roberto Graziano Moro, Venezia Hardcore)

This is one of the greatest strengths of the festival: a cohesive and very active local scene, which thanks to the festival has grown a lot also from the point of view of the quality of the musical proposal, with the younger bands often opening to the more experienced ones. . Above all, the Slander, led by the Italian-Kurdish frontman Samall Ali, among the few Italian hardcore bands of the new generation capable of touring all over the world, from Russia, to Mexico, to South Africa. Here Nabat and the columns of the Italian hardcore Raw Power have played, while from abroad in recent years have arrived groups such as the American Trash Talk or the Japanese legends Death Side and Mustang and the Swedish Satanic Surfers.

Konquest and Game Over give joy to those present who grew up on bread and classic metal, while with the concerts of Guinea Pig and Fulci the darkness seems to take over, with sounds that seem to come directly from hell.

Then the headliners of the evening take to the stage, the Americans Dropdead, active since the nineties and always very politically involved. Frontman Bob Otis at one point addresses the audience: “You have the voice. You have the power. You have the numbers ”, and his is an appeal that would like to avert the return of fascism, a gloomy omen of what will be the beginning of the week after the festival and after the elections.

The next day, the words of the Milanese singer Golpe are similar, who reminds everyone how we choose, decide what to consume, who to boycott. Even if or with very different meanings and nuances, even if each band comes from scenes with very distant stories, political awareness is a constant of the festival, which holds together anti-fascism and veganism, criticism of capitalism and anti-consumer ethics of sufficiency.

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Saturday is the day with the most audience, the concerts begin at around 4 pm. Despite the clouds that are looming, many people gather on the outdoor area of ​​the Rivolta, including families with children equipped with large ear muffs. The entries registered in the two days will be more than 2,500.

There is a lot of room for nostalgia, especially for those who grew up attending punk and hardcore concerts in squats or in Italian circles in the nineties. There is the reunion of the 400 Colpi, there is the return after fifteen years of the Turin band Frammenti and the original formation of Melt, from Vicenza, is found among the many bands that have crossed that scene of fast and melodic punk exploded among the nineties and early 2000s, with many formations active especially in Veneto.

The Big Cheese, September 24, 2022.

(Roberto Graziano Moro, Venezia Hardcore)

But there are two of the most exciting bands of the second day: Big Cheese and The Flex, both from Leeds, who play in two different moments, swapping a few components.

In both concerts under the stage a wonderful chaos is unleashed. People flying, doing stage diving and coming from one side of the room to the other. Others who run in circles, collide, jump, push and shoulder each other. For those who have never been there, what happens at these concerts can seem violent. The pogo in reality it is a dance, which is done by many. It is a simulated fight, a chaotic, disordered collective dance, yet with its own harmony. Nobody really gets hurt. If someone falls, ten hands quickly come to put him back on his feet. It is an exuberant and disordered way to bring out all the anger, the energy, the adrenaline. It is a cure, and here there are many who appreciate it.

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Inside the social center there is a tavern that offers shadows and cicheti, then a larger space used as a pizzeria. On one wall there is a blow-up of a photo that portrays the activists on the roof of the Rivolta, in March 2001, when someone had ordered the eviction, which was then revoked. Among the tables, on the walls, there are the testimonies of the battles of recent years, from the protests against acquittals at the Petrochemical at the G8 in Genoa, to the struggle to bring large ships out of the lagoon. There are posters for concerts, theatrical events, book presentations. Posters of transfeminist events, Carnival parties, public assemblies on the house.

From housing occupations to appeals against wars and imperialism, from the march for climate justice to the protests of the youngest students after the death of Giuliano De Seta during the alternation between school and work, while he worked in a company about forty kilometers away from here. This is a wounded territory, where anger flows underground, at the risk of overflowing. Sometimes it happens that you are able to pick it up, to give it a shape. A hardcore gig is still one of the best ways to express it.

It’s starting to rain. To close the evening will be the stoner chitarrone of the Ojm, but now on stage there are the Klasse Kriminale, who with a light-hearted and always busy style have told in their own way the Italy of the last forty years. Part Oi! Have a laugh, a hymn known by all, sung in chorus from the overflowing hall with the beers raised. Here it is the meeting between friends, the party from which no one wants to leave. The Venezia Hardcore is a scream of scorn and anger, an outpost that from Marghera makes his voice heard, as long as there is breath, as long as there is life.

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