De Gregori and live gigantism: “Concerts that look like records”
The intolerance for the mechanisms of live performance, from gigantism to obligatory guests to concerts with too many pre-recorded parts; the inspiration for new songs that hasn’t arrived for 10 years, but it’s not a problem; the idiosyncrasy for biopics and sold out shows, but also the embarrassment for colleagues, like Springsteen, who use the stage for proclamations and politics. It is a pure De Gregori who presented himself at the Out Off in Milan to talk about the new projects linked to “Nevergreen”, concerts with “perfectly unknown” songs which from the Milanese theater have become a film, a live album and a new round of shows in autumn, also in Rome.
Lucid, serene and sharp, and in this very similar to Springsteen: he is at a stage of his career where he can put diplomacy aside and tell his vision. A press conference that deserves three or four different titles, there is so much food for thought. But let’s go in order.
The “Nevergreen” project
The occasion of the meeting is the revival of “Nevergreen”, a show made up of “perfectly unknown” songs that debuted in this theater in autumn 2024. The title, explains De Gregori, was born as a play on the opposite of “evergreen”: if those are the famous songs, destined to stay, these are the ones that have never become famous and perhaps will never become so. Although, he jokes, his audience often knows them better than expected. “Nevergreen” has become a film and will be a live album in the fall. A circle that closes and a return to minimalism, after the celebratory session dedicated to 50 years of “Rimmel”, which led it to fill arenas and clubs between the end of 2025 and the beginning of 2026. It begins with “Nevergreen”, the film by Stefano Pistolini presented last year in Venice, which arrives on Rai 3 on 4 June. But, specifically, it is the story of the Milanese concerts of 2024: “It is not a biopic,” he underlines. “I don’t like that format: there the tendency is to represent an artist’s music also through the artist’s account of himself and of those around him”. “It’s not a musical film, it’s a concert film,” echoes director Pistolini.
Enough with the guests
In the autumn there will be a live album, still in the mixing phase. In the lineup there will be only one duet among the many that took place in 2024 and immortalized in the film: Jovanotti, Elisa, Malika Ayane, Zucchero. “This guest ritual has tired me, I’ve already done it. I’d like to invite musicians,” he says of future concerts, where the guest star formula will not be replicated. Just as no other celebratory tours are foreseen, for example for “Buffalo Bill”, the next album to turn 50: “This too has become a routine. Let’s let them celebrate their birthdays, I don’t think I need to celebrate an album to bring people to concerts. I’m a singer and I go around”.
It’s just one of the many jabs at a system of which it is also part: “These concerts of mine would like to be a counterpoint to this pursuit of big numbers. I see that even in the newspapers, and therefore partly your fault, there is a tendency to always talk about those who fill the stadiums, those who fill the arenas”. The criticism is not only of the language of success, but of overshadowing the music that is born in small spaces. De Gregori also claims his freedom, built in a career that allows him to choose: “My golden rule has always been the author, the artist and that’s it”, taking into account the music industry but without ever riding it or submitting to it.
The live albums and concerts that sound like records
The speech continues by talking about live albums: “Nevergreen It will be a record with very little post-production. I hear many concerts that resemble records, with pre-recorded sequences, this is a record that resembles a concert”.
And then on the rebirth of the live album format, which seemed to be on the verge of extinction, but lately seems to have become almost obligatory for many Italian artists too: “I’ve always done them, in fact they tell me that I do too many of them. But it’s not compulsory to listen to them, they’re not something you necessarily have to buy like petrol: you can even give a damn about it. I find it normal that other artists also want to document what they do live, because live performance is completely different in terms of expressive and technical methods, so they are two things that don’t they overlap. If I love an artist I want to hear him both in the studio and live, because something else comes out anyway. If I hear a record live, I think of Dylan, I hear things that I don’t find in the equivalent record made in the studio, because live the style changes, the voice changes, especially if the bands change after years.
The inspiration that is no longer there
De Gregori lists some “perfectly unknown” song titles that will be in the setlist. Pressed on the fact that current events may have pushed him to write new songs, perhaps to be presented in concert, he says: “It’s been about ten years since I’ve felt inspiration boiling inside me anymore. I’m sorry about it, but I don’t make a drama out of it. To write a song you have to be inspired, technique isn’t enough. I’m technically capable of writing a song even in an afternoon, but if I don’t have the inspiration I won’t do it. Clearly I live with apprehension, with pain, everything that’s happening.”
The artist, politics and Springsteen
Current events provide another opportunity to press De Gregori, who does not shy away: artists like Springsteen are taking an increasingly clear political position. “He has always ridden politics… I always feel embarrassed when an entertainer wants to take sides so clearly on international war issues. The world around us must be analyzed with extreme care and the proclamation thrown off the stage, even written in an appeal, leaves me quite indifferent. Is it necessary for Springsteen to say that he is against a Trump administration? I don’t think so. It’s a role that I don’t feel like sharing. To quote Dylan, or rather Whitman, ‘I contain multitudes’: I don’t I want neither to give nor take lessons from anyone, much less from a showman. What qualifications does he have to do so?”.
The future
To quote Joe Strummer, the future is not written. There will be no new songs, “but I can continue to do concerts as long as I feel like doing concerts even if I don’t write songs, because I still sing the songs that I have written, which are many, and this allows me to continue. When will I stop? Because of course, sooner or later I will stop, as in every profession. Anyone who does a normal job retires at 67, now I’m almost ten older, eight in reality. If I were a hospital doctor I would already be retired. For us this idea never arises: you stop because you get tired or you it tires the public. When these two things happen you won’t see me anymore, but I won’t make a big announcement before either.”
The “Nevergreen” concerts will begin at the Teatro Sala Umberto in Rome on October 27th and continue until November 15th, while in Milan it will return to the Out Off Theater starting from Wednesday November 25th, until November 22nd (in both cases 5 new dates have been added, for a total of 35 concerts). The film “Francesco De Gregori. Nevergreen” by Stefano Pistolini will be broadcast on June 4th in prime time on Rai 3, while the live album “Nevergreen (Perfette sknowni)” will be released on October 16th, for Sony Music.
