As we go up to the terrace where Ypsigrock’s welcoming aperitif takes place, out of curiosity, I ask those who deal with press relations for the festival how many other Italian colleagues, besides me, are on the way. Not many, it makes me understand. On the other hand, there are many foreigners, mostly British, including one from the Independent and, perhaps, one from the Guardian. This is nothing new: the alternative rock festival that has been taking place in Piazza Castello in Castelbuono since 1997 – nine thousand inhabitants perched in the hills in the hinterland of Sicily, twenty kilometers of curves from the coast of Cefalù, Palermo – is the most international of our , the one that takes the major European events as a reference and, albeit with relatively small numbers, as a niche, plays a league apart from the other Italians.
This can be understood, for example, from its website and promotional materials, both in English, but also from the bilingual information that appears in the country during the days of the event, mostly cards written in pen with instructions to pay (“Cash here”, ” Credit card here “) or welcome phrases (” Benvenuti ypsini / Welcome ypsini “) hanging outside the many restaurants and takeaways. These are the first contrasts that make the stay at the festival unique – this year from 4 to 7 August.
Contrasts
Ypsigrock is an institution, which for years has hosted the best of international alternative rock (and not only). Only in 2019, before the pandemic, were The National, Fontaines DC and Spiritualized. We have been writing about the festival, its quality standards and its mythology for years: it is known that it is a “boutique festival”, a festival on a human scale, reported by the Guardian and renowned abroad; that those who play it once then will not be able to do it again later, unless they come up with a new artistic project; which has a close link with the territory; and which boasts a faithful, attentive and polite audience from all over Europe, comparable to a large family. What is surprising, however, is how these elements fit together every time, including this year when the car was back at full capacity after two years of reduced traction.
Ypsigrock, in fact, works because it keeps these contrasts in balance: on the program there are quality concerts, desired and exclusive, organized in a small square (just over two thousand paying people) that looks like an oasis, where you are wide, there is no it’s the anxiety of having to stand in the front row to see the performers on stage and drink prices are popular. The concerts take place in a country where in the rest of the year life flows slowly and far from music, between a separate collection made with donkeys, an enviable traditional cuisine and a main square colonized by clubs of retirees.
But it is precisely in the encounter between these worlds that the magic is triggered: in the affectionate welcome of the locals, in the way in which an audience usually coming from European metropolises manages to immerse themselves in the local rhythms, which make the festival a unique experience. all round. We start in the morning, breakfast with Sicilian granita and brioche; lunch in one of the typical places of the place or at the campsite, where the first concerts begin; then from 6 pm, at the cloister of San Francesco, an aperitif with live set (among a lot of dream pop, the intersectionalist rap of Denise Chalia and that of the Ukrainian Alyona Alyona stood out); then, dinner in the alleys of the town and live in piazza Castello.
In the relaxed atmosphere of those days around, Italian artists meet as an audience (Colapesce, Dimartino, The representative of the list, Dente) and international musicians on the bill, perhaps in a restaurant or in line for an ice cream.
“The best place we have played”
It is no coincidence that those who go on stage almost always compliment the festival and the spectators, whether it is for the punctual organization (the times are respected, all, per minute), for the glance on the parterre or for the experience to stay in Castelbuono. It happened again this year: for a historical group like the American Flaming lips, which has existed since 1983 and has traveled the world, the concert on Friday 5 August was the concert in the “best place we have played”. And their show was the best of the festival, with the staging of the usual circus of confetti, inflatables, deliberately kitsch videos and the bubble inside which front man Wayne Coyne moves, for a show between glam rock and psychedelic pop that it involved everyone, including the onlookers on the windows.
Saturday evening instead proved how Ypsigrock is managing to clear itself from the exclusively alternative rock matrix, keeping up with the sounds of the time and expanding the entertainment offer. First, in fact, there was the elegant and star pop of the British Self Esteem, with choristers and corps de ballet. Then the Belgians 2manydjs (the Soulwax dj set project) made people dance for an hour and a half with straight and visual speakers, slicing twenty years of pop culture starting from the remixes of Beatles and Stooges and arriving in Rosalía.
The only episode a bit out of tune, together with the icy performance of the post punk band of the Goat girls on Sunday, was the one in Italy, that is the Manuel Agnelli concert on Thursday. Beyond the audio problems, it is the operation itself that is perplexing: with a solo album out in September, the leader of Afterhours has played solo the classics of the band in a more distorted and physical format, in line with the traditional rocker image he has built on television in recent years. Despite being accompanied by the Little pieces of marmelade and Beatrice Antolini, the show seemed quite flat, orphaned of the “three-dimensionality” that the originals Xabier Irondo, Rodrigo D’Erasmo, Roberto Dell’Era guarantee.
In any case, the Americans DIIV took care of things on Sunday. And when during their hallucinatory set, which mixed shoegaze and post punk, refinement and attitude garage, fascinated children and balloons typical of village festivals also appeared in the square, no one had anything to say. Indeed it was clear to everyone, once again, what the unique identity of Ypsigrock is.