Ex-Otagos still ‘angry boars’

The voice of the actor Massimo Mesciulam explains how ihe Marassi neighborhood in Genoa is special and at the same time equal to the others. A physical and soul place which pushes those who live there, inevitably, to change, either to adapt or to escape. Ex-Otago take to the stage at Crazy Bull in the Lantern Citytheir safe haven, and attack immediately with “The youth of today” and “Anxed boars”: two sharp shots, two posters. It’s as if they were saying that “Marassi”, ten years later, the album that projected them as aliens into the mainstream at the time, shouldn’t be explained, it simply needs to be experienced again. “Cinghiali incazzati”, in particular, remains one of the most representative songs of the pop band’s journey. Not only for the energy, but for what it saysreconnecting to the initial monologue: the refusal to be labeled, the idea of ​​identity as something mobile, animal, in transformation. The will to remain indomitable creatures.

This is exactly what Ex-Otago have been along their path, and still are today: a band capable of shedding skin without losing itself, of going through phases, sounds and contexts while always remaining recognisable. This tour is the prelude to a new metamorphosis: “A few months ago we went to Milan and spoke with our manager, with booking, with the press office. With great affection, we said to them: ‘goodbye’. We no longer wanted to feel like we were in the wrong place: we felt the need to start again, surrounding ourselves with different collaborators and people. ‘Marassi’, in this sense, represents a return to a certain way of conceiving music and it is the first step towards something new. It is not a celebration of the past as an end in itself, but a first window into what we hope our future will be”, the team told the 19th century. The lineup is naturally centered on “Marassi”, which is re-proposed in its entirety, but not as a museum exhibit.

Songs like “Sea”“which for some time I had difficulty singing because it talks about people who are no longer here”, explains Maurizio Carucci, “When I’m with you” and “It takes a lot of courage” emerge today with a new emotional layering. The latter, which already then included an explicit criticism of the League, remembers how political the indie pop of those years wascrossed by a clear stance, while remaining accessible and popular. A detail that is not secondary, especially if reread today. The melodies, the refrains, the symbolic phrases: it is as if “Marassi” had remained attached to the bodies and thoughts of many. You can tell by the warmth the audience exudes. Alongside the heart of this album, Ex-Otago choose to open time, not just celebrate it. They go all the way back to “Central bar”a song from twenty years ago, ea “Patrizia”, obvious gifts for those who followed the band well before the 2016 leap. Songs that don’t serve to say “look where we come from”, but to show continuity: same interior places, same looks, even if everything around has changed.

Then there are more recent incursions, such as “This night” from “Corochinato” or “Con te” from the last “Auguri” of 2024which hold past and present together seamlessly. This is where the meaning of the tour becomes clear: not a nostalgia operation, but a step back to take a leap forward. Understanding whether those songs, born in a specific historical moment, are still capable of withstanding the weight of time, of personal and collective transformations, transmitting new energies. The tour in small clubs, which will end with the big final party in Genoa on 16 July, has a precise value: it is affection and gratitude towards spaces that have made entire musical scenes in the country possible. They are fragile places, often threatened, and bringing a generational album like “Marassi” into these contexts also means defending them, remembering their fundamental role in music and society. In clubs, the distance between stage and audience is minimal, the energy more concentrated, the contact more real. That’s where music breathes, gets dirty and becomes real. Something that sometimes we no longer seem accustomed to, immersed in the gigantism of increasingly gigantic shows. The Otaghis want to start from here.