“A fucking rock concert!”. This is the sentence pronounced in the final farewells by Piero Pelù, after two and a half hours of performance without any flaw, 64 years carried in a truly enviable manner. The triumphal tour with which Litfiba are taking one of their manifesto albums, “17 Re”, around the peninsula, is exactly this, there couldn't be a more apt summary: a fucking rock concert! A concert of guitars and energy, a profoundly anti-fascist concert full of meanings, both musical and extra-musical. And anything but nostalgic, because the vision of Litfiba – which we espouse – is to re-propose “17 Re” – originally released in 1986 – in its entirety, with great respect (while shuffling the cards on the order of the songs, to allow at least a tad bit of surprise factor as to what will happen in the following five minutes), but dressing the tracks with a guitar sound contemporary, updating the work completed forty years ago. The operation can be said to be perfectly successful, because it feels like listening to the presentation of a newly released album, although it is fresh and current, both in sound and, unfortunately, in the themes covered. The names of the people to be targeted have changed (today they are called Netanyahu, Trump, Mask, Vannacci, Putin, La Russa), but not the critical socio-geo-political situations. Piero Pelù waves the flag of Palestine, demanding attention on the many wars that man continues to generate, and later the Italian tricolor, asking loudly to ensure that this glorious banner can continue to represent a nation free from any form of fascism.
Before each song, Pelù introduces a theme, a topic, even more prophetic than in the past, he talks about algorithms, the environment, nuclear power, popes, everything that changes without ever really changing. But then there is above all the music, and that album, “17 Re”, which today returns to shine with a renewed light of its own, with songs (many of which have not been performed live for decades) that have never managed to become national-popular heritage (as instead happened to Litfiba tamarrock of the nineties) but which forty years later sound more integrated within their path. Today, after more than a few negligible works, Litfiba appear determined to want to reclaim the centrality of the Italian rock-wave scene, they want to be perceived as an unshakeable bastion of national rock, aware of having been the generators of many bands that blossomed after the trilogy of their debuts. Just think of the extraordinary work carried out for third parties over the years by Gianni Maroccolo, who helped launch many alt-rock bands and who today continues to hold the reins of Litfiba's rhythm section, together with drummer Luca Martelli, the only non-surviving member of the original line up (Ringo De Palma left us prematurely in 1990, and is rightly remembered tonight). To complete the quintet, on stage there are also Antonio Aiazzi on keyboards and accordion, and obviously Ghigo Renzulli on guitars, the lost and then found friend: without him no possible reincarnation of Litfiba can exist.
More than someone in the very hot (in every sense) audience of the Ippodromo delle Capannelle arena (the event is included in the Rock In Roma 2026 programme) expected to hear at least a few more popular songs, and the encores manage to satisfy this desire, remaining however relegated to the first three albums, plus a couple of takes from the immediately following “Pirata”. And then “Il vento”, “Istanbul”, “Santiago”, “Eroi nel vento”, “La preda”, “Tex” and “Cangaceiro” parade in sequence, one more triumphant than the other, to finally strengthen a blood bond with the audience of the early years, who felt deeply betrayed by the overly commercial turn of the subsequent Litfiba. Today Pelù and Renzulli feel they want to be remembered not so much for “Queen of Hearts” and “Elettromacumba”, but for profoundly more artistic projects, which they claim with pride. Hoping they don't fall back into yet another one soon defaults driven by the hunger for money. Even if they no longer need to sell out: they can also monetize by going back to truly being themselves, playing their true warhorses with passion and sincerity.
Final mention for Spleen, a very young Florentine band who opened the evening by presenting some songs with a decidedly grungy edge, contained in their recent debut “Gush”. At times they reminded us of the first Verdenas, which was certainly an auspicious sensation.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
