Roman singer-songwriters cannot ignore Antonello Venditti

«It is a symbol of Rome. We all grew up with his songs, singing them at night in the car. Sometimes reality surpasses dreams”, said Achille Lauro last Wednesday, from the stage of his first concert at the Olympic Stadium in Romecalling Antonello Venditti next to him. Not really a surprise: it was Lauro himself, in recent months, as the anticipation for the show at the Olimpico was growing, who let it be understood that he had invited the senator of the Roman song to the evening, to listen for the first time to the two-voice version of Venditti’s “What a treasure you are” remained in a drawer for a long time. The duet is released today on streaming platforms, after the live preview last Wednesday. For Achille Lauro, the collaboration with Venditti represents a further step in his “normalisation”, of that repositioning on the scene which in recent months has passed precisely for the “melodic” Roman song, as well as for the iconography of the Eternal City itself (from that street Tina Pica mentioned in “Desperate Love” at the Villa Borghese of “Incoscienti Giovani”, passing through the surprise concerts at Piazza di Spagna and the Trevi Fountain with which she launched the album “Comuni mortili” and its reissue “Comuni immortali”).

The passage of Venditti – who then started the intergenerational karaoke by playing his “Night before exams” on the piano – was the highlight of Lauro’s night at the Olimpico, in front of 60 thousand adoring fans. It was immediately after the duet with the author of “Roma capoccia” that Achille Lauro surprisingly announced the doubling of the appointment at the Olimpico in 2027: to the date of 30 June, which sold out more than a year in advance, a second one was added, on 1 July. They will be the highlight evenings of first real stadium tour of the former X Factor judge, after Wednesday’s appointment at the Olimpico and the next June 15th date scheduled at the San Siro Stadium in Milan. It is no coincidence that the former Roman rapper, who has now become the most nationally popular of the new faces of pop, has chosen to share his debut at the Olimpico, his entry among the “greats”, together with Antonello Venditti. For the new generation Roman singer-songwriters, Venditti now represents an obligatory step. Something that cannot be ignored. Someone you have to ask, with your head down, for permission. “It would be nice to have the career he did,” added Lauro, speaking of Venditti.

In the beginning it was Last. It was 2019 and the singer-songwriter from San Basilio exorcised in a song all the anger accumulated in the aftermath of the final of the Sanremo Festival that year, the defeat against the “boy” Mahmood at the hands of “eight people who form an honorary jury and thirty journalists”. The song, in Roman dialect, was titled “Let me sing“: «Let me sing / that at these dinners with these people in a tie / I speak with gestures, I don’t know their language», sang, among other things, the voice of “I Tui Particulari”. Accompanying the song, a video clip set in an old Roman trattoria in which Ultimo, sitting at the piano, at a certain point received a pat on the shoulder that more than a consolation smacked of an investiture in all respects. It was given to him by Antonello Venditti. A few months later, a duet in front of the 63 thousand spectators of Ultimo’s first concert in his city’s stadium, the same one where Lauro performed last Wednesday, sealed the relationship between the two: «Without Antonello’s music, and the Roman singer-songwriters he represents, I wouldn’t be who I am today», she annihilated him, before singing with him the timeless “Roma capoccia” and “Night before the exams”. The scene repeated itself in 2023: in that case, Ultimo wanted to sing the classic “Sora pink“, a song in Roman dialect that the Roman singer-songwriter wrote as a teenager and which he included in 1972 in the iconic debut album “Theorius Campus”, recorded with Francesco De Gregori. «It is a song that speaks to the least. I listened to it when I was 15» Ultimo explained. According to what was “spoiled” by Venditti himself, the agreement between the two will also be repeated on July 4th, on the occasion of the record-breaking concert of the singer-songwriter from San Basilio in Tor Vergata, in front of 250 thousand spectators.

Returning to Lauro, the collaboration for the new version of “Che treasure che sei” – from Venditti’s 1999 album “Goodbye Novecento” – was announced by Venditti last year: «This boy has something inside him and I believe he is a living artistic installation because it is art, that is, he was not born to be a singer, he has always been one. Lauro is growing, he is evolving, we have an incredible artistic intimacy. We, perhaps, will surprise you because we are trying things together and we are very creative. He asked me to redo together a song of mine to which he is very attached, it is part of the soundtrack of his childhood”, he said, speaking of the voice of “Incoscienti Giovani”, committed to repositioning itself on the scene, abandoning the glitter and sequins of the past to rediscover itself as the son of the Roman melodic singer-songwriter, halfway between Claudio Baglioni and Venditti himself. They also appeared together in a video circulated on social media in which they sang “Night before exams” in two voices. «The collaboration with Antonello seals this important relationship with Rome. Our version of “What a treasure you are” concludes an important journey», Achille Lauro confirmed.

And so it was Venditti himself who crowned Lauro as the new prince of the stadiumsin front of 60 thousand fans at the concert which marked the debut of the voice of “Incoscienti Giovani” at the Olimpico. Just like he did in 2019 with Ultimo. Exam night passed, for the entry of “Incoscienti giovasni”. On purpose: Gazelles And Thunderboltsyoung men “from this beautiful Rome”, sang the classic together on the cover evening of the Sanremo Festival in 2023: «“Night before exams” by Antonello Venditti is a very important piece for a lot of generations, it is not a song about which you say: “But do you remember that song that was there when my parents were young?”. It’s always current, no one else has ever written a song on this theme. Antonello Venditti’s talent was also that of mastering a theme because, if today I wrote a song that talks about that, they would say to me: “But Venditti has already done it, what are you doing?”. In short, it is an eternal piece, I truly believe that it unites children to older people and I am very happy to be able to pay homage to this person and this song”, Fulminacci told Rockol.