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Rating: San Giuliano is a town in the Milanese hinterland, with a park next to a school. From the park, you can clearly see the airplanes, like models landing towards Linate. On Saturday, September 20th, San Giuliano organized a festival, complete with a sleepless night, and set up a stage in the park next to the school, all at the administration's expense. Then they called De Gregori and said: "Excuse me, Prince, here in San Giuliano we have a nice stage in a park next to a school, and we're having a sleepless night: would you come and play for us, all at the administration's expense?" And the Prince came, played a couple of intense hours, and then left, all at the administration's expense. The evening is cool, and it's comfortable; there's not a huge crowd, and it's a bit disappointing considering that a giant of Italian music is about to perform, all at the administration's expense; however, it is true that the event was poorly advertised. Shortly after 9 pm, the stage comes to life, the artists come in, and the concert immediately begins.
De Gregori live is always a gamble, for better or worse; he's the artist I've seen the most in concert, and I've come to believe that his performances significantly depend on his mood at the moment, which can result in disappointing shows or, conversely, high-level ones. This particular concert was very, very good. Firstly, the choice of songs was excellent. With the recent release of the latest studio album, which I found rather modest compared to previous ones, I feared the concert would be filled with the new songs. In reality, there are only four tracks from the latest album (Finestre rotte, L'angelo di Lyon, Per brevità chiamato artista, and L'Infinito) and well distributed throughout the performance. Instead, the great classics prevail, often extensively reworked, to the point of being unrecognizable until the singing starts (and this, along with the fact that the Prince often anticipates or delays the start, makes it rather difficult for us to sing along). This is the case with Alice, Cercando un altro Egitto, Viva l'Italia , and Festival, the latter in a nice dark version. More faithful to the original are Rimmel, Buonanotte Fiorellino, Generale, Titanic, La leva calcistica della classe del '68, and La Donna Cannone, performed at the beginning of the encore. Alongside these showstoppers, minor songs like Capo d'Africa shine, with a surprising performance, L'Abbigliamento di un Fuochista, Battere e Levare, very country with the violin prominently featured, Deriva, Il Bandito e il Campione , and Vai in Africa, Celestino!. The concert closes, before the encore, with La Valigia dell'Attore, a song designed for live performance and shamelessly seeking applause, also thanks to De Gregori's theatricality.
The execution of the songs was also excellent, and much credit goes to the band that has been accompanying the Prince for a while, both in the studio and live. They are so good that they deserve a mention: Paolo Giovenchi on guitar, Alessandro Arianti on piano and accordion, Alessandro Valle on mandolin, dobro, and pedal steel guitar, Stefano Parenti on drums, Lucio Bardi on second guitar and violin, faithful Guido Guglielminetti on bass and double bass. But despite the group's talent, the most intense moment remains when De Gregori, halfway through the concert, fills the stage alone with a formidable trilogy: guitar arpeggio for Pezzi di Vetro, then he sits at the piano and offers a tender Santa Lucia and closes the "solo" segment with La Storia. It is truly a pleasure to listen to that warm voice, with a timbre that improves with age, flawlessly holding throughout the evening.
In short, as Pizzul would say, everything was beautiful. Even more so, if I think regretfully that I had to miss Tom Waits, and will miss Leonard Cohen due to the exorbitant prices of their tickets, while this small great local artist plays for over two hours for free (well, at the administration's expense; the fact remains that I didn't spend a euro) and gives a handful of stars amidst the airplane trails.
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