Franco Battiato in concert in Modena

Saturday, September 6 at 9:30 p.m. new musical project by Franco Battiato on tour with Joe Patti’s experimental group. Part of the proceeds from the concert will be donated to Emergency, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year.

Tonight Modena greets Franco Battiato in concert, organized as part of the “Festa Ponte Alto” billboard for the Modena Provincial Festival of Unity. I want to thank Ms. Roberta Vandini of PdMoMag – Press Office of the Modena Provincial PD who helped us obtain “press accreditation” for Battiato’s event.

Modena, September 6, 2014.

Buzz around, like any self-respecting concert start. The air is very convivial, and there is a classic whiff of summer coming to an end (and no, there is no righeira involved here). This summer, here in Modena, tonight brings greetings from Franco Battiato.
This is the first time for me at one of his concerts. And it is the right opportunity. His new single has just been unveiled, and here the lineup featured is the very one from the new record
Joe Patti’s Experimental Group
. It’s just too bad that the municipality of modena or the PD, thought it best to also overlap the memorial concert dedicated to the great maestro Pavarotti in Piazza Grande on the same evening. Too bad… I could not be in both places. Meanwhile, the buzz here increases, a sign that the atmosphere is ready.

The stage opens with a presentation of emergency to which the evening is dedicated. Too often our Western world makes us forget how outside of it there are millions of people living well below what we call the “poverty line,” and it is good to remember that. But this… It’s a whole other story.

It begins. The master takes the stage alone. His words are “it is only fair to tell you, the first part is terrible. We will catch up later” and you start with the plan. Too bad only for the background noises from the rides adjacent to the stage that do not fully appreciate the vibrations of the piano…
The beginning is feeble, slow, waiting. The two companions on this journey(Pino “Pinaxa” Pischetola and Carlo Guaitoli), enterone at a time and you can also feel it from the bases that slowly become more nuanced for those who know a little about music. As you anticipated, the beginning actually is awful but for me in a good way. It is a journey of sounds, experimentations. Almost spiritual. Music runs deep through us until it touches hidden chords of our unconscious.

Electronics take the lead in this beginning. The strangest thing is to hear in some stretches the sound merge with the sound of tree foliage being moved by the wind. The audience is immobilized. At the end of the first song almost no one had the courage to hint at applause, not because they didn’t like it, on the contrary, the audience is enchanted. And I must say that I am too. I literally entered another dimension. This dimension is made up of a few words, a few phrases here and there, but it is full of sounds so ethereal that if I had to imagine them I could enclose them in a woman’s body slowly moving inside a bathtub bathed in colors throwing kisses to all those who worship. (This music is seriously taking me to another dimension…)

I don’t know why but I think Battiato had an encounter in another dimension with Massive Attack.“Leave it all behind and follow” is a phrase that really struck me tonight. Perhaps a warning toward this attachment of ours to materiality?
The concert continues centered always on the sound, which this evening is the focus of this trio. “King of the World” sets the arena ablaze.
One of the most fascinating things, besides the sound treatment, are the lyrics. In many places an ode to the Italian language that has been all too much raped in the last two decades…

The plan hints at“the cure” . It is a perfect version. It is an ovation. A song that in a hundred years will be remembered as the best declaration of love in our time. Battiato leaves us. Are we expecting an encore? The audience is clamoring for it.

And the encore comes restarting great, interrupted only by a small technical problem with the maestro’s ear monitor, but he takes it for a laugh. The maestro stops everything and it’s off again for a grand finale with his big hits. “I want to see you dance” unleashes the crowd as they leave their seats, break down and dance under the stage in a big, liberating party. The audience calls for more sounds, more notes and submerged worlds. We all want to lose ourselves inside this parallel dimension where we can finally breathe air filled with sound; “And I’m coming for you” closes the concert. The master pleases everyone.

For the time being, we touched on the Battiato dimension for a few hours. With the hope that this will become more and more perceptible in our days.

Photo by Marcello Ganzerli of
MgPix

I’ve always dreamed of being able to write freely about music. The article you have just read is part of my project which I called maim (union of words thank goodness so be it); menomasia is not just a musical column, but it is at the same time the hope of being able to continue to pursue music, the real one, experienced in live shows. Outside the traditional commercial schemes.
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