Antonello Venditti
Circo Massimo

THE REVIEW

Antonello Venditti's first true live album, "Circo Massimo" marks a turning point in the Roman singer-songwriter's career, being either his last significant record or the first step toward the decline that would occur with "Cuore" the following year. To celebrate Roma's second championship victory, achieved with a 1-1 draw at Genoa on May 8, 1983, Antonello gathers his historic band plus the group Stradaperta, for a concert from which 10 songs would be drawn, a yellow-red celebration held precisely at Circo Massimo on May 15, 1983, a week after clinching the tricolor. After introducing the band, namely Derek Wilson on drums, the guitars of Renato Bartolini, Rodolfo Lamorgese, Mario Schilirò, and Claudio Prosperini (who he almost forgets to mention...), the bass of Marco Vannozzi, the saxophone of Marco Valentini, and the keyboards of Maurizio Boriolo and the legendary Sandro Centofanti, Antonello proclaims "The party begins!" and starts with the unmistakable drums of "Eleonora," a song of commitment about cocaine parties in rooms with politicians and "respectable and cultured people who are never afraid of life," taken from "Sotto la pioggia," the album from the previous year. From drugs to motherhood with "Sara" from 1978, but written in 1977, and then Rome and Roma, the dedicatee of the concert, the yellow-red team of which Antonello has always been an ardent supporter: "Roma Capoccia," written in 1963 imagining Rome without ever having seen it, and then "Roma Roma," which is none other than "Roma (non si discute, si ama)", already recorded in 1975 as a single that had "Derby" on the other side. After commitment, it's time for "Buona Domenica," a lighthearted song from three years earlier, perhaps the first truly lighthearted piece by our artist, the romantic "Dimmelo tu cos'è," always to enhance the 1982 album, and then back to commitment and another drug story, with the more famous "Lilly" compared to "Eleonora." At this point comes one of the most beautiful and moving and successful declarations of love for one's city and culture: "Grazie Roma", a super-unreleased track that would accompany the fate of the soccer team Lupa from then on, but also a sentimental song in the strictest sense. Beautiful are the verses "Dimmi cos'è, cos'è (which seems the answer to "Dimmelo tu cos'è"...) that makes us friends even though we don't know each other, tell me what it is that makes us feel united even if we're far apart." Finale in the Roman dialect, just like in the first records, for one of Antonello Venditti's most beautiful songs. Again Rome, in the song "Bomba o non bomba" where in the end one arrives in Rome, in this case precisely at Circo Massimo, the title of another unreleased track, which seems almost improvised on joyful chords and few words, including "Luna sola su nel cielo guarda siamo centomila, stretti stretti stiamo bene, questa notte per cantare". A song that would also inspire "L'amore insegna agli uomini" nine years later, in its way of describing the very evening.

Roma would win its third championship 18 years later, but the Antonello Venditti of 2001 would end up drastically different compared to this one, committed, valuable, and not blatantly commercial as in the nearly two subsequent decades. "Circo Massimo" is the last occasion with the old-fashioned Venditti, before showing the "Cuore" that would divide the public and critics. Rating 3.5.