Starfinancer

MILAN – Cesare Cremonini remember the dates and numbers of his “fantastic crescendo”: at 23, after the success with Lùnapop, free concerts in the squares; at 25 the theaters; 32 indoor sports halls; finally, 38 stadiums in 2018. This year, after the zero date in Lignano and that of June 13 at San Siro, there will be 7 stadiums and the first major event built all around him will close the tour, on July 2 at the Imola racetrack, when he will perform in front of about 70 thousand spectators. Nevertheless, Cremonini he would not want us to talk about numbers: “Because the competition we are doing on numbers is misleading. Every artist would always want to achieve the maximum but there is a risk of becoming bulimic. The most important thing remains the content. Only the artistic approach counts ”, she says on the eve of the Milanese concert.

IS on your second stadium tour, what emotions do you face it with?
“Since I started doing this job, getting to perform in the stadium has always been my goal. My artistic path was born looking at the stadium, and it won’t be by chance if I tattooed Freddie Mercury on my arm. The songwriting dimension, the theater one, has never been enough for me. Then, of course, it took time to realize the dream, but the time it takes to get there must always be accepted “.

With i Lùnapop you had reached the peak of success, then you split up and she started again with the free concerts in the square.
“I come from a time when it wasn’t the numbers that made you play stadiums, but your credibility. With Lùnapop I could have done them, and even alone with my first contract but we didn’t even dare to think about it, we could get there after 20 years. I’m not saying this is right or wrong, I’m just saying I’m from that tradition there. Maybe I could have gotten there sooner, I don’t know, but I’m glad I got there at 38. Now that I’m 42, I know that to be inside that huge thing, you have to feel the responsibility. The first time I entered San Siro, for the first half hour I didn’t understand anything. Today I can say we are making seven stadiums and closing with an event in Imola in front of 70 thousand spectators “.

How are the presales going?
“We will do all of them on this tour sold out, apart from Florence which proved to be slower than the rest. In Imola we are well over 60 thousand people and we will attract 70 thousand spectators, even if there it is not very clear where the sold out is located. In Rome it is already sold out with 51 thousand spectators, which for a project like mine is an enormous result. And these results can only be achieved with credibility “.

IS a summer of concerts in stadiums and big events, starting with Vasco’s.
“Vasco invented what in the music industry today we call it a musical event, it did it with the Imola concert in 1998: I was there, I was 18 and it marked my growth and my idea of ​​music. His is a career that still today is followed by hundreds of thousands of people and imitated by many artists who follow the desire to be able to realize his own musical path. I too will have my concert in Imola, my first big gathering, and for an artistic project like mine it makes an impression, also because I am not a product that goes to sell on TV, I ask a lot of trust from my audience to do these numbers”.

Sanremo 2022, Cesare Cremonini transforms the Ariston into the magic of the arcades of Bologna

Was ticket sales aided by the move to the Sanremo Festival?
“Sanremo has opened a beautiful page, they followed me 14 and a half million people, one in two TVs was on the festival, everyone saw and heard Poetic. I needed that refresh: in the next two months about 95,000 tickets for my show were sold, people figured out what could have expected from live: it was a watershed “.

Did you also get proposals for TV?
“A one man show was proposed to me by Rai, but we are only at the stage of reflection, nothing decided. And then this country now lacks live and me too, and so I concentrate on this. I would like to overturn the concept of a concert in a stadium: to bring everyone the idea that an artist is in symbiosis with the live he brings to the stage, this is a bit of a unique concept, that’s why I take care of the live in every detail, so that you represent me to the fullest. Attention like this is almost natural in the theater, but in stadiums it has never been seen before. Today the concert in the stadiums is based on the idea of ​​great karaoke, of the big hug with the public, of joy and sharing, but I want to raise the bar again, for a show that has not yet been seen in Italy. Of course karaoke can’t be missing, it’s where the plane lands, it happens even in a show like mine. After all, in the lineup there are 24 singles out of 26 songs, but the path of the lineup goes from hell to heaven, it is not just all to sing, it expresses the artist of that precise moment. My ambition is to create in the pop songwriter world a concept of performance that can be unique, an artistic and visionary gaze. Risk in records, I always push myself further, and I also do it in live shows, where the public gives me confidence and not by grace received, but because I have accumulated an enviable treasure of songs: I have 40 important singles, there is in practice another concert I’m not doing, songs like are left out They say about me, Fallow, I would like… “.

What do you want to tell with this concert?
“Growing up as an artist means growing as a person, it is therefore necessary to bring the winning and luxuriant moments but also the depths and hells we live: in this concert there are moments of explosion, of almost dark fire, on a song like Hello in which I tell a true story about myself, which represent an absolute novelty for my audience. A piano will catch fire. Then you will return to heaven with songs like 50 Special, Marmalade, Poetic. Then with Davide Rossi, with whom I share the love for the classical, we will offer an instrumental break but also with psychedelic tones, and another very beautiful piano and violin moment on Moon walk, the song I dedicated to my father. The stage is divided into 3 wings and with a front gate, a portal that links the whole show, so much so that we wanted to call the entire stage ‘the gate’. The public enters this path, so in symbiosis with me that I could not help but take care of it personally, a show that then represents my life “.

The new album is more reflective, perhaps because it is the son of the lockdown, and not very much in line with a stadium show. Do they arrive in the wrong time?
“I disagree that this is my album anymore thoughtful and, among mine, the least stadium-like: The girl of the future it’s a rhythmic and very singable atomic bomb, Chemistry it’s very energetic and funky but with a sensual and erotic soul that goes better with a stage than with the record itself. Today, however, the stadium is an artistic instrument, it does not have to respond to a stereotype, I bring us ten different musical genres, a concept of wide pop that knows how to entertain and amuse but also bring moments of culture “.

An example of a cultural moment on this show?
“There is the duet I built together with Lucio Dalla, a virtual duet, something that had never been done before. I want to say that it is not a tribute, it would be superficial to dismiss it as so many tributes that are made today. I asked the Dalla Foundation for permission to extract for the first time his original voice in the single from an original master Starfish and I was granted, the master was in a forest in Germany where they hold all the original masters. This treasure was brought to me in the rehearsal room where in a sacred atmosphere we listened to the solitary voice of Lucio, in that particular recording. Then through the Rai showcases we recovered the very few live performances with that song, a song in which he offers an incomparable vocal show. When his voice comes in it’s creepy, he breaks your heart. It’s a miracle. Seeing it from a distance has the effect of a duet and I consider it like this, just like McCartney’s duet during the last tour with John Lennon: that inspired me and I wanted to do it because I wanted to represent a piece of history of the music of Bologna and bring Lucio where he deserved and that is in a stadium, a miracle that can only happen if we do it with the technological means of today. Lucio alive in a stadium in 2022 ”.

In 1979 with the tour Banana Republic Dalla and De Gregori were the first to clear the music in football stadiums.
“There is the cultural and folkloric imagery of the stadium invented by Vasco and there is songwriting music in a stadium by Dalla and De Gregori in Banana Republic: they represent the two cornerstones from which we all come. Bringing Lucio to a stadium cannot help but remember what a stadium was in that period Lucio in stadiums, even if he later said that that experience was enough for him, because the dispersion of the stadium for an artist like him was even limiting “.