Date: 2nd November 2019
Location: CSOA Strike
Price: 8 €
Service communication:
if you don't still know the existence of it, my ebook about the first wave of black metal called "Nel Segno del Marchio Nero" was released on 24th March 2019. Unfortunately, it is written only in Italian but, surely, into it there aren't the over-rehearsed sounds à la Lord of Chaos. If you want to buy my ebook, you can order it through the best Italian and International stores like Feltrinelli, IBS, Amazon and Google Books. Thank you in advance!
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I saw incredible things this 2nd November 2019 at the Strike squat! In fact, that night the second edition of the HC punk festival Marci su Roma was held, and there is need to say that this festival has now become a great appointment. If you remember well, the first edition was located at the 360 pub, but this location is so little that the fest was slightly a mess since there were too attendants. This year the organizers thought well to keep the fest at the Strike squat, that, instead, is a great place fit for this kind of important events. Another notable difference with the previous edition is that the fest, while it featured only Italian bands in 2018, is international now because, among the 12 bands in the bill, there were two acts coming from abroad, precisely from UK and Scotland: I am respectively talking about The Restarts and, especially, the Scottish legends Oi Polloi. Instead, the political sense, in a strong anarchist way, of this fest is essentially the same, and it isn't a case if Marci su Roma 2 was organized at the Strike, a squat under menace of eviction since some months.
Conscious of the classic delays that are typical of the HC punk gigs/festivals in Rome, I went intentionally late, exactly at the 9 pm, at the fest, even though the concerts were supposed to start at 6.30 pm. In fact, when I was arrived, I knew I lost only two bands, that were the very young opening act Urto Nudo (HC punk from Rome) and the now well-experienced crusters Culto del Cargo. So, I was there just in time to see in action Minoranza di Uno, a talented HC punk quartet that this year released their new album "La storia si ripete". What is amazing about them doesn't comes strictly from their music (a classic hardcore punk in the Italian way but with some metallic influences) but from their very poetic and revolutionary lyrics, that, for me, are totally sublimated in their "Schiavi (Il galeone)", that's a cover originally written in the '60s by the Italian anarchist Belgrado Pedrini. Apart from this, their exhibition was really engaging, and there was already a good amount of moshing heads into the pit... but we hadn't seen anything yet!
The following band were The Restarts. Coming from London, the punk capital par excellence, and strong of a new album called "Uprising", The Restarts played at their best their fast street punk with ska influences and characterized by lyrics, also dealing about the LGBT+ community, shouted by the guitarplayer and by the bassist through screeching and particular screams. There was a total delirium during their performance, and the moshpit started finally to be violent as it should be. And I remember also that I started to mosh just with The Restarts, so they engaged me a lot.After the British trio, there was already a long, revolutionary speech. At this point, I remember to you that this fest was, in practice, was a benefit "whose proceeds go to pay the legal fees of every comrade deprived of their freedom". As I said many times on these pages, HC punk isn't only a music but also a way to fight the injustices of this society and of this reality in which we are forced to live.
Speaking about the fights (into the pit), the moshing heads gone made also with Contrasto, a band featured even in the Marci su Roma 1, so it was good to see again them here in Rome. Useless to say, Contrasto is one of the best Italian HC bands out there, and this is confirmed also by the many attendants that sung the songs of the band also directly on stage. And I've to say that I love their music also because it is often very very fast, not in an ordinary hardcore punk standard. For a lover of the extreme speed like me, this is fukken good!
Essentially, I am a metalhead, so I was truly excited that in the bill there was a band of the calibre of Undertakers, whose second album "Vision Distortion Perversion" was reviewed just on these pages many years ago. Well, Undertakers didn't play live since plenty of years, so this was an unmissable occasion to see their long-awaited comeback on stage. And I must say that they are now a sort of all-star band because, apart from their historic members (the guitarplayer Stefano Casanica and, especially, the singer Enrico Giannone, famous for his militancy in the grind speed freaks Buffalo Grillz), they features people coming from acts such as Dr. Gore and Inferno Sci-Fi Grind'n'Roll. With musicians of this kind, their performance should be necessarily devastating! In fact, they kept every expectation by crushing us totally with their intense mix between brutal death metal and hardcore, reinforced by the very special way to keep the stage of Enrico. And there was also a furious moshpit, in which I took part, doing even some circle pit. Welcome back, Undertakers... and don't disappear for other plenty of years, okay?
But the peak of the fest was surely reached by Oi Polloi, one of the last '80s hardcore punk legends, among Circle One, One Way System, Avskum, Asocial, Madball and Exploited, that ultimately played here in Rome. As for many aforementioned bands, also Oi Polloi amazed me a lot despite their long-time career, spitting out a great intensity. Of them, I appreciated especially their singer Deek Allan (the only original member of their line-up), always ready to do some long speeches between the songs, also in the sign of a strong anti-fascism and showing even a good knowledge of the Italian political situation. It isn't a case if the band played their anthem "Donald Trump Fuck You" but morphing its title into "Salvini Fuck You", so engaging more in this way the various attendants (if you know nothing about Matteo Salvini, then, he's a famous right-wing politician). As last thing, I remember that a member of I Maiali (a post-hardcore band from Rome) went on stage for several minutes to "play" the (air) guitar along with the same band haha!
Maybe the fest could be ended just with Oi Polloi because there were the 2am and some people were going to be tired... but the real end was still so far! And so Affluente, an important Italian HC punk band active since the '90s, took the stage to do a very good concert. They played not only old classics like "Proprietà del governo" but also some new tunes such as "Un piccolo gesto", "Cosa è successo?", "Genuflettersi", "Francesca" and "I giudici vostri", all taken from their last split along with A Fora de Arrastu, that I reviewed enthusiastically during the first days of this year. I remember that Affluente were supposed to play at the Strike in the February 2019 but they didn't, so they finally recovered that gig with Marci su Roma 2. Well done!
In according to the original bill, IX Bolgia (from in and around Viterbo city) should play as the second band but, for some reasons, they follows Affluente. Despite the public of the great occasions went out, IX Bolgia did their best to play with the maximum intensity, even though with a remarkable chaotic attitude that created funny situations. This because, at a certain moment, the singer said to have no voice, so he invited to sing with him some people, included the singer of Urto Nudo, with the result that some of their tunes were sung through a particular and brutal intensity. Said that, this band is very young and, along with Ira and Urto Nudo, represents a nice promise for the Laziale HC punk scene.
After the young Tuscia HC heroes of IX Bolgia, it was the turn of Overcharge (from Varese). I knew nothing about them before Marci su Roma but I've to say I fell in love with them because, in a fest dominated mainly by hardcore punk bands, they awoke my metallic side thanks to their raw and punkish speed metal assault with raucous vocals à la Lemmy, making us moshing like damned men at the 4am! What I can do with this trio that released two full-lenght albums so far is simple: TOTAL METAL ADORATION!
At the end of the fest, almost at the 5am, the situation was, in practice, dramatic because you could see somewhere sleeping people directly on the ground, so to speak! But Motron, the last band, didn't give a total fuck about this and, so, they destroyed definitely our last forces through their ferocious crust punk à la Doom with fantastic guttural vocals... even though, after a while, also their singer had no voice! Another problem of the Motron's performance is that the setting of the volumes was really noisy and sometimes annoying, and without forgetting that 10-minute break circa because Motron had some technical issues (with the mic?) I don't remember anymore. But musically, Motron (from Varese, too) are fantastic and, plus, they consist of members coming from other oustanding acts like Miseria or Campus Sterminii.In brief, the fest ended their hostilities at the 5.15am! Yes, it was a full-immerson journey into the HC punk madness but it was also an excellent moment of aggregation, even because I met some interesting people, included Manuel, the 19-year old guy that co-released the new album of Minoranza di Uno through his Pirate Crew Records; and an old friend of mine of the University times! Unfortunately, it's a shame that the all-female crust band Hyle (from Bologna) couldn't play, so I hope to see this act in Rome as soon as possible because I was very curious to see them in action. But now let's end this endless report with this curiosity: I came back home by taking the subway at the 5.30am, already after it was reopened! It was "LEGEND... wait for it... DARY", as Barney Stinson says!
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