Alpha: from shyness at school to singing in a sold out forum

“I didn’t speak at school. I didn’t talk about school. Now I’m here singing in a full forum”, Alfa shouts through clenched teeth and with shining eyes. Then she starts singing “5 minutes” whose words perfectly capture her state of mind: “Let me dream in peace. Five more minutes.” The sold out Milan Forum of the Genoese singer is the revenge of talents on “characters”. Alfa’s is a folk-pop that arrived and grew with him, after commitment, dedication and effort: a path of self-discovery that also led him to the Sanremo Festival with “Go!”where he placed tenth and did a profound and moving cover of “Dream boy, dream” with Roberto Vecchioni.

It all started with his bedroom in Genoa, reproduced on stage: he gets out of bed, comes out from under the covers, and starts singing somewhere between dreaminess and reality. Also Blancoin his 2022 tour, started his live show from a bedroom, which then at a certain point during the show devastated. Alfa, on the other hand, reconnects with that story in a resolved way and does so to trace and remember its trajectory as if it were that of a firework. He is accompanied by a well-established band, all the musicians are dressed in dungarees, in full folk style, with a LED wall behind them in which a landscape of wild and romantic nature appears. There is an also a terrace above the group, you can get there thanks to a lineup, from which, during the live performance, under a starry sky, Alfa sings “San Lorenzo”. Look for fan involvement, warmth, strength, generate entertainment with music, not with “spectacularization”. His audience, just as he says Francesco Gabbani, one of the guests of the evening, an artist who believed in Alfa by having it open its buildings in 2022, “is beautiful and sincere”. Inside the setlist there is the whole world of Andrea De Filippi, this is his real name, obviously composed of songs by him, but also of tributes to those who made him grow artistically and influenced him: from “Ho hey” by The Lumineers to “Sincero” by Mr. Rain and “To forget” by Absolute zeroother guests, up to “Le cose in comune” by Daniel Silvestri“Gianna” by Rino Gaetano and to the chorus of “Hey Jude” by Beatles.

His being without filters also leads him, guitar and voice, to one of the most intense moments of the live: sings “Head in the clouds”, dedicating it to his grandfather, first fan, who is no longer here. Without the wall of sound of the band, but only with a sound and a voice, Alfa proves, once again, to deserve that roar and that stage. “Bellissimissima” now has its ritual: a girl from the audience is brought onto the stage and sits on a yellow bench and Alfa dedicates the song to her. There is not only the apology of “good feelings” in her evening: in “Frida”, a song taken from her new album, sung a cappella and almost rapped, there is also a rigorous and dutiful message: “For me love is the key, it will never be a lock, there is no barbed wire that can keep the windthat if a person wants you to lock yourself in, it’s manipulation, it’s not a sense of respect.”

The finale is a karaoke of over 10 thousand voices and hearts on “Cheers”the song that made him take the shuttle from his bedroom 2019. A success that was not easy to manage, which began at a very young age, but which, thanks to great teamwork, was transformed into a proactive force and not into an obsession to have more. That “How are you…” is enough to drive the audience crazy. In a music market where many have to invent something “unique” to be relevant, Alfa puts its music first, told with sincerity, goodness and the desire to dream. He is an independent artist, a detail that is anything but trivial, which he has chosen to convey “a special normality” who speaks to people in a crystal clear way and which allowed him to gain those wings that led him, without shortcuts, up to here.