De Gregori’s party for “Rimmel”: “It’s not a celebration”

“We are celebrating that album that you may have seen on the posters,” says Francesco De Gregori. The concert at the Forum began with a few songs, and the Roman singer-songwriter wants to explain – with a good dose of irony – what is happening. “We’re celebrating. Not celebrating, because celebrating brings bad luck. This record is 50 years old but it doesn’t taste like cork.”
The album is obviously “Rimmel” and De Gregori, in addition to irony, is also making use of a good dose of understatement – it is one of the undisputed masterpieces of Italian music. The concert at the Forum is one of the central events of the tour, which after starting from the theaters arrives at the arenas, in Milan and obviously in Rome, before arriving in the clubs.

“Rimmel” is the narrative center of the concert, constructed as a sort of biography in music: it opens with “Desolation row”, preceded by a story by De Gregori about his love and debt for Dylan, or rather love and theft, as he titled his cover album. He then goes on to tell his story through the stories of his songs: the album is not performed “front to back”, as is often done in celebrations. But the songs are the cornerstone of the setlist, especially the one-two punch of “Pablo” and “Rimmel”, with Andrea Bianchi on sax who joins the wonderful rock band led as always by Guido Guglielminetti (bass) and Primiano Di Biase (keyboards and accordion), with Carlo Gaudiello (piano), Paolo Giovenchi (guitars), Cristina Greco and Francesca La Colla (backing vocals), Simone Talone (drums). and Alessandro Valle (guitar).

Thus, among the songs of “Rimmel”, there are other classics (“La leva footballistica”) and lesser-known pieces. “You don’t know this one” he says of “I matti”, “For some time now I’ve had the urge to make songs that people don’t know because they only applaud what they know”, he says – and his mind goes to the wonderful Roman and Milanese “residencies” in small theaters with ever-changing setlists. “You know this one even less” he says before launching into a wonderful “The panorama of Bethlehem” for accordion and cajon.
Then comes the party within the party, with “Alice” and “Generale” sung in chorus. In the encores “Sempre e per semper” and “La donna cannone” before the now usual invitation to the collective dance on “Buona notte fiorellino”, with the audience (also seated in the stalls) getting up, filling the corridors and starting to form couples and dance the waltz.

Like the incipit, the ending is also Dylanesque, with the quotation of the theme of “The last waltz” by the Band in “Fiorellino”, which is then performed a second time in the “12&35” version which openly quotes the Nobel Prize winner’s “Rainy day woman”.
It is a De Gregori in a state of grace, whether in a small theater or in a sports hall: he sings a piece of Italy’s recent history, he does it with his own pleasure and for the pleasure of the audience, but without being self-celebratory, as is the risk of these tours. A great concert, to be seen and revisited when it returns to the clubs in January.

Ladder

Egypt
Desolation Row
Atlantis
Travel Companions
Drift
The football draft
Piano bar
four dogs
Pieces of glass
Mr. Hood
little apple
Yesterday’s stories
Pablo
Rimmel
The actor’s suitcase
The crazy ones
The panorama of Bethlehem
Alice
General
Buffalo Bill

encore

Always forever
The cannon woman
Good night little flower
Good night little flower #2