Article by Simona Ventrella | Photo by Davide Merli
There is something irreducible about Wednesday: a constant tension between lyricism and abrasion which, live, becomes physical, almost tactile matter. In a set of an hour and twenty, the band led by Karl Hartmann transformed the Arci Bellezza stage into a soundscape capable of alternating rural sweetness and electric detonations, as if the heart of South America were crossed by a high voltage line.
Since opening with “Reality TV Argument Bleeds”the guitars collide instead of intertwining; Hartmann's voice seems to come from a precise point between the throat and a memory that doesn't want to heal. It is immediately clear that the concert will not be a simple succession of songs, but an emotional narrative. Hartmann sings with a voice that always seems on the verge of cracking: not due to fragility, but due to an excess of truth. Every word has the weight of a lived memory, every pause is a crack in the story.
Compact and without frills, the group works on extreme dynamics with surgical precision. In the quieter moments, the guitars intertwine in a melancholic jangle that recalls certain alt-country from the nineties; then, suddenly, the sound material thickens. “Got Shocked” And “Wound Up Here (By Holdin On)” they keep the tension high, but it is already clear that this is not a simple re-proposal of the catalogue. The songs are stretched, pulled, almost put to the test. There is something deeply sustained in their way of being on stage, not folkloristic, but emotional. A melancholy that smells of empty parking lots and crushed cans.
Yet it would be simplistic to read Wednesday only through the lens of shoegaze or noise-rock. Songs like “Toothache” And “Quarry” they show a writing attentive to narrative details: small provincial fragments, bitter irony, askew romanticism. The first is fragile like an open diary; the second grows slowly until it implodes. Hartmann has no need for theatricality: he remains almost immobile, but every word weighs. It is a subtracted charisma, entirely internal.
“Elderberry Wine” it is a moment of suspension, a bitter toast that slows the pulse before new electric ripples. Live, the management of space is also striking: the pauses are not fillers, but collective breaths. There is an almost religious silence before the explosions, an expectation that amplifies the impact of the rougher songs. The rhythm section, solid and never intrusive, holds together the loudest drifts without losing the sense of melody. It's a rare balance: power without complacency, vulnerability without mannerism.
They close with “Wasp”drier, almost nervous, like an insect that stings and disappears. No emphatic encore, no rock star pose. Only instruments placed on the ground and an audience that remains silent for a few seconds before realizing that it's really over.
The final impression is that of a band that has found a distinctive voice in a landscape often crowded with little imagination. Wednesday don't cite the past: they absorb it and reformulate it. The concert ends with the audience's enthusiasm and long, almost grateful applause. There is no theatricality, there is nothing studied to the millimetre. Only the feeling of having witnessed something authentic, imperfect and precisely for this reason necessary.
In an age of hyperproduction and smoothing filters, Wednesday are a reminder that music can still be rough, narrative, deeply human. And on stage this truth sounds louder than any amplifier.
Click here to see the photos of Wednesday in Milan or browse the gallery below
Wednesday – the lineup of the Milan concert
Reality TV Argument Bleeds
Got Shocked
Wound Up Here (By Holdin On)
Candy Breath
Hot Rotten Grass Smell
Formula One
Phish Pepsi
Gary's II
Pick Up That Knife
Toothache
Quarry
Elderberry Wine
Townies
Bull Believer
Wasp
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
