Ghemon’s show, between real life, music and stand-up comedy

It started like “A Little Thing Like This” and has reached 74 performances around Italy, with the closing date at the Teatro degli Arcimboldi in Milan: last night, 8 November, Ghemon closed the tour of the show which debuted a year and a half ago. A beautiful ending for an unexpected chapter in his career, with an attentive, numerous and above all curious audience: because as is customary in the world of stand-up comedy, you get without knowing what will happen.

You don’t use phones, much less make videos: you can’t burn your jokes. It’s the opposite path to music, where records are made to be listened to, and then comes live: here every show is a first time, there is a new audience to deal with. As he told Rockol, “the pleasure of surprise should not be forgotten”.
And we can confirm. In an era in which we are inundated with content, previews, spoilers, going to an artist’s show without having any idea of ​​what will happen is an unusual and pleasant experience, which keeps the attention span high for its entire duration , a good hour and a half.

Opens Carmine Del Grossoa standup comedian who also co-wrote the show. He warms up the stage and prepares us with jokes about male fevers, about Nolo (aka “North of Loreto”, a trendy Milanese neighborhood) and its bizarre-creative-hipster inhabitants.
Then the show starts: Ghemon is accompanied by his band. Moments of pure stand-up alternate with unreleased songs that reflect the mood of the story. Ghemon talks about his family, his girlfriend, his life as a couple, rap, his career, Sanremo, his mental health, his passion for running. Stories that bring us closer to the person inside, not behind, the singer and that make us fond of the child who spends his entire days with headphones on his ears; to Giulia, the vegan girlfriend and to the parents who, with their heavy expectations, are a bit like the parents of all of us. We bond with him running in New York, London or the Sempione park with Ciro who sweats and doesn’t respond, we learn to love his humanized dog Tonino.

Ghemon tells about himself and about us: everyone can find themselves in at least one of his jokes. It makes you laugh, a lot, but it also makes you think and sometimes move. Because, as he says, when you manage to make fun of bad things, it’s because the wound has healed. And because talking about certain topics, such as depression, can make those who are going through it feel less alone.

There is a concept that struck me: rap is not just music, but a vision. Ghemon grew up in an era when rap almost didn’t exist in Italy, and above all it didn’t exist in Avellino. But no one has to teach you rap, no adult, no music school, rap is creativity, it is forbidden to copy, it is expressing only yourself.
All this returns in everything that Ghemon has done in his career, his desire to experiment, to express himself in different art forms, outside of fashion. Sometimes, he reminds us, even too much: making rap records before rap climbed the charts, producing a podcast before the boom, talking about depression before mental health filled the pages of newspapers.

Also in this case, with “Una Cosetta Cosi” he managed to build something tailored to his needs, which perhaps has influences and analogies (Gaber is not mentioned inappropriately), but certainly has no comparisons. It’s not a theater concert, it’s not song-theatre, it’s not American standup comedy. It’s Ghemon.

There was an embargo, a request to avoid spoilers on the contents, but it doesn’t apply to this final evening. But we decided to limit the quotes anyway, because this show could have other paths (one certainly, that of comedy albumGhemon told us).

The show ends with “POV”The new single by Ghemon released on Friday 25 October, a song that brings him back to rap and his need for truth, where what emerges is the need to reinvent himself that the artist experienced. Before returning to the stage for a sort of encore (“but in stand-up there are no encores!”). A last sketch in which he mixes his most famous songs (“Temporale”https://www.rockol.it/ “Rose viola”https://www.rockol.it/”Perfect moment”), taking up only one phrase at a time, then a last unreleased song. The audience applauds loudly, many stand up.

“Una Cosetta Cosi” has made its way: we don’t know if it’s just a parenthesis or the beginning of something new, but we’re ready to be amazed by whatever Ghemon invents in the future.