 Finardi, who had started performing live often on his own with an acoustic guitar and sitting down, was now touring with a four or five-piece Rock band.His introduction of Rock'n'Roll in the genre of socially and politically aware Italian singer-songwriters was what made Finardi stand out and endeared him to the counter-cultural youth of late 1970s Italy, which in 1976–78 was in the midst of political upheaval and almost civil war, with the occupations of factories, universities and high-schools, demonstrations which ended in pitched battles with the police – often with fatal casualties – and the rise of political movements like Autonomia, the Indiani Metropolitani and terrorist groups like the Red Brigades (Brigate Rosse).This eventful period of Italian contemporary history is known as the Anni di piombo (Years Of Lead) and also as the era of the Movimento '77, the youth movement for which 1977 was a pivotal year, somewhat an Italian equivalent of the Punk Rock upheaval in the US and Great Britain.