Are we going to see the concert tonight at the Olimpico?».
“Where, at the Teatro Olimpico?”
«But no, at the stadium…».
The imaginary dialogue could have taken place in Rome, thanks to a rapid and overwhelming mutation that has led stadiums to be a habitual location for concerts. Only in the past few days there has been Last for three dates (and two of them at San Siro), and then i Depeche Mode, Mengoni, Ligabue, the Poohspractically every other day. Even at San Siro there are more concerts than matches, also because if the matches are not repeated, the concerts do and the Nuclear Tactical Penguins filled the San Siro for two dates, then Blanco will arrive (who has already tamed the Roman stadium) and again the Muse, the Maneskin, also for two dates, not before having already warmed up the Olimpico.
In short, you go to the stadium as you once went to theaters and sports halls. But how did this umpteenth musical madness of our times begin? The first concert organized in a stadium is that of the Beatles at Shea Stadium on August 15, 1965, a historic date due to the enormous pressure that had built up around the group in America: 55,000 tickets were sold, but it was the first time and the technical situation was totally inadequate. As amplification there were only three 100 watt Vox built for the occasion but insufficient and for the voices the system used by the commentators of baseball games was used. A ridiculous situation, and in fact the four came out of this otherwise electrifying experience with a deep bitterness: the screams of the fans had completely covered the music, and in fact within a few months they would have stopped playing concerts altogether.
But the step was taken. Gradually the sound systems adapted and the stadiums began to be able to be a concert venue, crude certainly, perhaps even uncomfortable, but possible. At the end of 1979 the Italians also began to use the stadiums, on special occasions. The first were Dalla and De Gregori with the “Banana Republic” tour, then Edoardo Bennato, and within a few years the cyclone Vasco arrived, the greatest stadium occupier in history. For a long time the sports field imagery was linked to rock, it almost seemed like a profanation when Madonna and Michael Jackson arrived. Now thinking about stylistic associations makes you smile. A stadium is no longer denied to anyone, and it’s not a bad thing in itself, if nothing else it’s the sign of a huge desire for participation on the part of the music audience. After all, we are in an age of fictions and artifices. The only thing that seems to have remained the same, authentic and non-makeupable, is the size of the concert.
UP
In the new Sanremo regulation, instead of the notorious and evanescent opinion poll juries, a jury made up of those who work in the radios will vote. And so these jurors will have a face, and above all they will remind the public that the radio is and remains by far the most important vehicle for transmitting songs.
& DOWN
Guccini is amazed that many include “L’avvelenata” among his best songs. “I’ve written ten hundred times more beautiful,” he says. But that’s not true, dear Francesco. “L’avvelenata” is a masterpiece, one of a kind, witty and funny. The invective elevated to art. You have to give yourself a reason.
2023-07-19 09:49:19
#stadium #concerts #start
