I dare you 2017

Last year I packed my bag eight times to go to listen to music. I've travelled near and far, and the farthest I've ever travelled.
I've travelled in Italy three times, in Belgium, in Germany, in England two times, and in the USA.
It was always worthy. It was always special. I am so thankful for how my life turned out to be in 2016.
And I am so thankful for all the love that music brought int my life.
And for the new challenges.

For this year I just want to keep on doing what I learnt. I want to see all live music I can get, I want to discover all the new music that my time can handle.
I want to get rid of all my prejudice. There must be no "this is not usually my genre but..." Come on, I'm listening to Snarky Puppy while I'm writing, and that was eons away from what I thought would be "my genre" at the beginning of 2016.

Not to mention what was the first thing that I thought when I checked the RavenEye on youtube before the gig. No... How fast you can change your mind.
So go for it, 2017, show me life!

Here I leave two pictures of the first and the last gig that made me travel in 2016.
The Darkness, Gent (Belgium): 4th february: that was sooooo special because it was the first one. That day I woke up and realized that I can do stuff for myself.

The other photo is from Hangarvain gig, Naples, 26th

december. That was so special because it was their last gig. It was heartbreaking to learn that they decided to split. They are talented, and I will miss them a lot. It was the day after Christmas, when al traditional italian families are still spending their time together, eating a lot an playing bingo. The venue was a tiny theatre, and my husband and I were the only not-family and not-close friends of the guys. I felt lucky to be there.

turning points

There have been few turning points in my life, I think all of them related to stop fearing something.
At first I learnt not to fear life, I was a teenager. Later I realized that fearing something should not stop you from doing what you feel you have to, I was a young adult.
This year I finally understood that life must be lived at its full potential, trying not to leave anything behind. I learnt not to fear people, but most importantly I learnt not to fear feelings. I was told more than once to let passion flow, but was really never able to. I learnt to catch every single occasion to have fun, to be amazed, to love. 

But it really was like being born again.

My crazy RavenEye finger tattoo

At some point this summer, an intense dialog between heart and mind began.

Heart: I really really want a RavenEye tattoo!

Mind: No rush, and remember the two-months rule.

yeah but...

do you remember when you wanted wings tattoo on your entire back?

ok ok got it. But I really want something with their logo.

Look what we’re going to do: we’ll find someone who can make a pendant with the logo, what do you think?

that’s a great idea, thanks!

And this ideal dialog reacted at different points during these months.

On November the fourth Giulia and I flew to the UK to see a couple of gigs of the RavenEye. Needless to say, it was awesome. So awesome that the idea of the tattoo got stronger.

I think we should do it
I shall remind you your tattoo golden rules? First: wait two months to be sure you really agree with yourself. Second: please no exposed places, all tattoos must be covered if necessary. You don't want people to judge you, right?
got it
...
listen, brain. I really really want a tattoo behind my ear, something about the music.
follow our rules please, that's a quite fucking exposed place, isn't it?
you're right but... may I have a bass clef?
no way

ok a note will be fine. 

Saturday, december third.
After a hard week, brain is temporarily unavailable due to work overflow. I decided to go to take appointment with a famous tattoist in Rome. You know, they always have a long long queue, so I planned to have a month wait to further think about my tattoo ideas. To keep faith with the two months rule. I wanted to have it earlier next January. 

But. 

The tattoo artist had just finished a beautiful leg tattoo on a girl and he was free. 

WOHOOOOOO Dear tattooist, I'm here for a finger tattoo and a tattoo behind a ear

ZZZZZZZZ

And that's it, taking advantage of temporary absence of some mature conscience in my person, I had these tattoos, breaking all my rules. 

Unstable conditions, a symptom of life

This is the first line of a song by Rush, Vital Signs. Rush was the favourite band of my boyfriend of the teenage years. We had some friction about music taste, and it took me a while to admit that, yes, I like them too. A lot.

And, yes, I love Jeddy Lee as a bass player.

But getting back to the topic of the post, it’s strange how you struggle to get to a stable life and when you get there... you die a little.

I spent maybe ten years struggling so much for my life, for my family and my work. And then, when everything was finally in its place, when everything was stable and balanced, it seemed that my heart freezed and my brain melted.

What an ungrateful bitch, it took me a while to accept that easy life is not for me.

But that’s it, my balance was disrupted. And it feels great. And I need challenges, and I found them.

And I have a project that I know I will hate myself but in the end I will feel like a god.

Courageous convictions
Will drag the dream into existence

A tired mind become a shape-shifter
Everybody need a soft filter
Everybody need reverse polarity
Everybody got mixed feelings
About the function and the form
Everybody got to elevate from the norm.

Come with me

Most of the times you listen to some new music, you get bored, or interested, or you may think “wow cool”, but never think about it again.

You may think “wow cool” and then dig a little bit, spotify, youtube, social media, it’s quite easy now.

Sometimes it clicks, something happens in the head or in the heart or in the gut, and that song remains with you, and you get interested, eventually you become a fan and start following the artist/band. This happened to me quite a lot of times, but I’m not going to enumerate them.

In the Italian language there is a phrase that indicates the love at first sight, and it’s “colpo di fulmine”, litterally “bolt of lightning”, because that is the exact feeling that you get sometimes, very rarely.

Because sometimes music may hit you so hard, like a supersonic bang, leaving you incredulous and dazed and asking to yourself “what the fuck just happened?”

And this is exacly what happened seven months ago, when I first saw The RavenEye playing as support for The Darkness. I’m still a bit stuck there, that day. When I chose my spot to be in front of Frankie Poullain and instead I happened to be in front of Aaron Spiers.

Fuck it, what a mess.

Sometimes I would like to scream “I want my heart back!”

Yeah, because sometimes it hurts a bit, because going to their gigs is so fucking difficult from here.

I sometimes wished my heart could choose an italian band, that would have been a bit easier.

But that’s it. And that’s me now. We’ll see what’s going to happen next.

This is the song in particular that did the spell. Or the wreckage, it depends on the day.