Sonisphere 2013
Live @ Fiera Milano, Rho 08.06.13

One ordinary afternoon on an unspecified day in April 2013, I don't remember what I was doing, I don't remember what was going through my mind at that moment, probably nothing particularly noteworthy, and like a bolt from the blue, an unexpected event shakes my placid and sleepy daily routine: a call from my brother, who, out of the blue, proposes a festival at the Rho fairground, with the Iron Maiden as headliners. I barely have time to process the surprise, and I say yes, almost as a conditioned response. When would an opportunity like this ever come again? Sure, doubts and questions quickly arise within me: three or four years earlier, I would have enjoyed it much, much more, I think, and okay for the Irons, but what about everything else? Megadeth I’ve never covered, Mastodon same here, Ghost good just for a laugh, and I haven't even heard of the others. But after all, it could be a nice opportunity to rediscover a part of myself I haven't yet reconciled with, and after all, if in these years of indiscriminate musical omnivorism, I've tried listening to stuff like KT Tunstall or Cousteau, a nice full metal immersion can only do me good and refresh my ideas a bit, so forward to the adventure with no reservations and a lot of impatience and curiosity.

So we arrive at the fateful June 8th: t-shirt of my favorites with a daisy, cross necklace matching with the R+ and the usual camo shorts, a nice look a bit in my own way, with a touch of healthy overstatement, so I put in the backpack a couple of cans of tonic water, pizzas, focaccias, chocolate bomboloni, chips, and some other assorted unhealthy snacks, and finally, we set off, accompanied by the older brother (for whom this concert is an unmissable opportunity to relive his golden years) and nephew, who is learning to play the guitar and promises a future as at least an amateur musician. A little over fifteen minutes by car and we are already at the destination, the terrible summer heat of the Po valley is felt but not too much, the atmosphere is altogether calm and relaxed, enlivened by the indispensable scalpers and "acquebbirra" vendors with their picturesque tubs topped by umbrellas. As I pass, I hear someone humming "du riechst so guuut...", unfortunately, I can't trace the subject, but I take it as a good omen. To pass the time, we find a nice shady spot and start talking about this and that: I recommend Rammstein to my nephew, "They are a great band, where you find everything you want to find, the power, the elegance, the irony, the theatricality, you have to understand them a bit to fully appreciate them, but if you get passionate about them, you won't let them go, and if you look up some translations, they even write fantastic lyrics..." And he looks at me a bit puzzled, with the air of someone who understood about half of the speech and says to me "Oh, well, the best lyrics I’ve read are definitely those of ''Comfortably Numb'', you know, the Pink Floyd song that talks about madness..." Suppressing the strong urge to respond with something like "Oh yeah, ''Comfortably Numb'', have you heard the Scissor Sisters' cover, nice, right?" I let the conversation drop; me and that guy have never really gotten along, oh well, I'm doing much better with the little nine-year-old niece, who would have liked to be there.

After the traditional procession towards the huge parking lot where the event will take place, we finally get to the point, and the first concert, that of the death metallers Amphitrium, is already well over, with very few regrets for my dear big brother, who doesn't appreciate the genre. Meanwhile, we settle in a nice comfortable spot near the stage and wait for the next performance, that of the Zico Chain. Quite flashy in appearance, the aforementioned band diligently fills their half-hour on stage with alternative hard rock/post-grunge that is anything but exciting, received tepidly by the audience present; not much as a start but altogether passable. The baton then goes to the Voodoo Six: classic metallers that couldn't be more classic, spartan and without frills, they definitely know their stuff, brother and nephew appreciate them a lot, and I start to fully get into the atmosphere of the event, enjoying the nice riffs of the English band with a big mug of dark beer, and at the end, there's even an applause with a nice "bravo!" concluding it. As in a Rossinian crescendo, here come the Ghost: the aforementioned beer starts taking effect, and I feel particularly cheerful and well-disposed. Terribly tacky on disc, the "mysterious" Swedish combo holds the stage excellently live, all those gothic choruses and "antichristus satanas" galore make me smile and remind me of good old times. I get close to the stage and take some photos; in the end, I enjoy their entire performance standing, applauding at the end of every song. The singer, known as Papa Emeritus, moves excellently on stage, solemn, measured in gestures, and hieratic, perfectly immersed in his role, and manages to create a nice connection with the audience, who respond positively. Praise is also well-deserved for the five instrumentalists, in that heat, playing with those robes and those black masks must not have been a walk in the park. Even my brother, a purist and traditionalist, initially very prejudiced and finicky, acknowledges without hesitation the quality of the performance.

Here come the big shots, the parterre begins to fill up visibly; the massive hype surrounding the Mastodon arouses at least moderate curiosity in me, but the performance of the American group turns out to be as heavy as a boiling soup to be consumed on a mid-August day at the equator: an hour of monolithic and amelodic riffs without interruption and a truly mediocre singer, a concentration of heaviness without soul, without any noteworthy spark. Once I get the hang of it, I sit back in my corner, have a nice dinner of focaccia and bomboloni, then use my now-empty backpack as a pillow and take a nice nap, as do many others around me, by the way, the vibrations from the speakers provide a pleasant vibration/massage effect. Finished with the show, I wake up and ask my brother "so those Mastodons, what did you think?" "They sucked, I didn't even get what they were playing" is his terse response, at which I chuckle and retort with a "And to think that for many they are the future of metal!" "Oh yeah? Holy crap!" and we have a good laugh, waiting for the Megadeth.

So we position ourselves in the thick crowd, now ready for the main event. Never listened to Dave Mustaine & Co. except in passing. He presents himself elegantly, in jeans and an immaculate white shirt that goes well with his flowing red locks, with great images projected on the stage screens, a nice unassuming but very effective and fitting scenography. I fear it may be too late for me to get passionate about the ‘deth, but my utmost esteem and appreciation go to these now-grown guys for an intense and energetic concert. Songs like "Hangar 18", "Symphony Of Destruction" and "Prince Of Darkness" scratch delightfully, overall a great concert, the only off-note being a really ugly and cheesy "A Tout Le Monde," with an unnecessary cameo by Cristina Scabbia, introduced by good old Dave as "one of the brightest pearls of Italy" or something like that. My brother is visibly excited; in the end, he declares himself partially dissatisfied with a couple of new pieces, trying to nitpick a bit.

And here we are finally at the catharTIC moment, after a good amount of preparation and anxious anticipation here the Iron Maiden materialize in all their splendor. It almost seems like time has stopped for them, Bruce Dickinson runs and jumps with the energy of a twenty-year-old, the voice is practically unchanged from the glory days, the fun and camaraderie between these six "brontosauri" are so evident they can be touched. A perfect machine, grandiose scenographies, fire, lights, sparks, Eddie presented in all forms, countless costume and hairstyle changes for the little big Bruce, who even improvises a climb on one of the stage pillars. The proposed repertoire is as classic as can be: from "The Number Of The Beast" to "Aces High" passing through "Phantom Of The Opera", "The Trooper" and "Afraid To Shoot Strangers" and the album "Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son" almost entirely performed. "2 Minutes To Midnight" the top moment of the show, with unlimited impact and class, "Fear Of The Dark" in my opinion slightly overrated. Personally, I would not have disdained at all the inclusion in the setlist of some more recent pieces, a "Dance Of Death" or, why not, a "Brighter Than A Thousand Suns," they wouldn't have been out of place at all, indeed, but the band chose differently and faced with such quality of proposal there really is nothing to complain about, seventy euros well spent for a beautiful day.