Cristiano De André
De Andrè Canta De Andrè

I wonder how one can approach this product without suspicion.

And this is coming from someone who, for obvious reasons related to personal musical journey, has nothing against covers or tributes (as long as they are not imitative).

Playing someone else's song, if it is, as it should be, an act of love, can only be a beautiful thing, and it doesn't matter whether it ranks above, below or beside the original.

And here the matter is particularly strange.

Julian Lennon is a son, Giorgio Conte or Luigi Grechi, two brothers. To name two. But none have played with the famous father/brother (except for some minor joint appearances by the De Gregori brothers).

Then there are the tribute bands. Some identical or almost to the originals (acts of cloning and thus not of love, except of a perverse and slightly ugly love), others paying homage and adorning, but above all interpreting, disrupting, reshuffling. These are the most interesting. However, even these have never had any personal or musical connection with the originals.

Cristiano is different. Faber's last live album sees the son in the key roles that once belonged to Pagani and Fossati, replaced truly excellently. If Faber hadn't believed in him, he wouldn't have dueted with him in "Anime Salve," nor would he have entrusted him with the imposing and fundamental pagan instrumentation.

Here the son retraces the father's pages. He updates, adds his own touch. He is a philologist just enough and an innovator as needed. His arrangements reflect recent influences, impossible for Faber, but perfectly integrated. Many acoustic and electric guitars, much less classical. Keyboards are excellently included, and bass and drum parts often follow the originals, but always with an additional modern touch that is never rhetorical, never winking or banal.

In short: we are faced with a truly remarkable work where seemingly untouchable scores have been touched with love, tact, and skill. Even the voice, similar in high notes but inevitably different and inferior in the low notes, is nonetheless very beautiful, very well used and also not stupidly imitative.

Not a simple live/tribute, therefore, but a beloved tribute and partially dedicated to oneself, to one's own blood, to one's own history, which in the long run, is the story of all of us.

Cristiano has put on a concert at least worthy of a careful listen, without prejudice, and, in the end, surely pleasant and enjoyable.

We cannot help but thank him, knowing what he knows very well himself: that he is not Faber.

And waiting for him on the next solo trial (reminding everyone that the previous ones were beautiful, more than a little).