𝐍𝐎𝐍-𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐆𝐒

Wake up, wake up, wake up

MILAN, ITALY
August
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

He was skinny, passionate and angry. Yellow lights caressing his face, cutting his chest. He said we wanted to fuck Barack Obama. He fell on the stage, crawling until he grabbed the guitarist's leg. He screamed the republic's a banana.

The 1975 were playing and it was brutal.

"He's angry", I pointed out.

Martina told me: "Doesn't sound like Somebody Else."

My friend was right. It didn't sound like Somebody Else – the only song we knew – at all. We had taken a train from Rome and gone to that festival only to see Florence – Florence and the Machine, of course. We had no idea what to expect from The 1975, but surely not this. It was loud, rough. Brutal.

"I hate them", Diana commented. She was scrolling Instagram, not even paying attention to what was happening on stage.

"You know them?", I asked her.

"Kind of. Just look at the singer. He thinks he's so cool", she rolled her eyes.

The singer took off his sunglasses and lit a cigarette. We were so far from the stage that the only way to see him was to look at his image on the screens. He was hard to figure out at a glance: before he seemed so passionate, but now he looked calm, unattached, not even bothered by the loudness of the crowd.

"He looks like a drug dealer", I commented, and I didn't even mean it in a derogatory way.

Alessia, the last friend who joined us, raised her eyebrows: "And like someone who hasn't washed his hair for weeks."

They played another song that reminded me of Joy Division, and then another one that sounded like a plastic pop hit from the early 2000s, and then one that could have been an annoying soul ballad of the 80s. I wasn't sure I liked all the shapes of their style, but I kept watching the singer on the screens. He lit several cigarettes and touched his black hair obsessively. He said his skin was fire, so desired. He said he masked his pain in the most postmodern way. He said he was afraid to go outside. He said he wanted to die, sometimes. He said modernity has failed us.

Martina and Alessia were now finally dancing to the only song we knew – he said he's looking through me – and Diana got close to me and shouted in my ear: "Next time we'll go to a gig, it's gonna be your band's and you're gonna kick his ass! Show him what a charismatic frontman is."

I shook my head. My band? Who knows if we'll ever make it, I thought.

"Why do you hate him so much?", I asked her instead.

"Arianna, just look at him! He's so arrogant! Don't you think he's fucking arrogant?"

I looked at him. He said this ain't the last time that he'll see my face. I was about to say something but no words came out of my mouth. I just looked at him.