Our photographer Antonella Panella, fresh from the Massive Attack concert at the Flegrea Arena, tells us from her very personal point of view what happened at one of the most interesting events of this summer in Naples.
An hour and a half of refined trip hop the performance of Massive Attack, last July 27 in Naples, the final stage of the Italian tour with which they carry around the new ep Ritual spirit which marks the return of the collaboration with Tricky (Take it There) as well as that with Roots Manuva (Dead Editors).
Founders of the style born over the years '90 mixing different musical genres, drawing from jazz, hip hop, rock and soul elements, the Bristol duo hypnotized the audience of the Arena Flegrea, packed for the occasion.
To warm the room a "home" band: the Almamegretta. The collaboration with the British collective in '95 gave birth to Karmacom (Napoli tirp), a remixed version of the historic piece by Massive Attack, which takes on the sanguine character of the "volcano".
The lights on the stage go down and the political-social, passionate, at times angry, denunciation of the Almamegretta, complete with the carnal and vigorous voice of Root, becomes, with the entry of the Masters of Trip, elegant, distinguished, intellectual, profound, engaging; a stage presence, notoriously cold and aseptic, underlined by the thin and cold voice of Robert Del Naja and from the choice of completing “the message”, the true protagonist of the show, with multimedia language, transforming the concert into a sort of video installation of which the public is an integral part.
The darkness is illuminated by the burst of information, news data, images saturated with red, randomly caught in the flow of global information; pulsate rapidly on the ledwall, raping the eyes, penetrating straight to the brain, defining a meticulous and merciless picture of the reality in which we live: ironic political slogans, close-ups of the eyes of Putin ed Einstein and the cry "Je suis Charlie, Paris, Orlando, Brussels, Istanbul, Nice, Baghdad, Bangladesh, Kabul, Priest". The feeling of disquiet caused by the speed with which the data alternates rapidly, supported by minimal but effective graphics and the loneliness caused by the projected claims, is canceled out by the enveloping flow of Daddy G which seems to be able to fill the need to remain united by making the audience a single entity, attentive and ready to receive, listen, think; Awareness comes out of it, reassuring and terrifying at the same time that “We are all in this situation together”.
The distance between the artists and the public is bridged by the few interventions, all in Italian, by Del Naja. "Hello friends. Hello Naples. Hello family. How long! How nice to be here! ”. exclaimed the musician of Neapolitan origins. But the ovation of the crowd comes with the allusion to Higuain's recent football “betrayal”, “Better not to talk about football tonight. Gonzalo, Gonzalo !! There is always Marekiaro ”joked using a nice play on words, Robert, a Napoli fan.
Certainly technically a concert that has been similar to the others for years, but it is the charisma of the English band, the sensitivity and the ability to sink their hands deeply, gathering from the anxieties and desolation of time by mixing with them the possible resources that makes the performances of the Massive Attack.
Before the curtain falls with Unfinished Sympathy, the notes of Karmacoma, Raiz dressed in the Napoli shirt, offer an exciting moment on the revival of Napoli Trip.
