Jovanotti, return to the stage: “I’m writing incredible things”

Lorenzo returned on Friday 21 June with the summer solstice. And there was also the coincidence of the full moon, not just any one: «The strawberry moon is huge and pink. Sun and moon: I dedicated my life to these two. For me it’s an auspicious celebration » he said as he got back on stage, with his own legs, after many months of stopping (after falling on his bike he underwent two serious operations, femur and clavicle)on the occasion of the Festival Of The Sun, the secret festival created by his friend and producer Rick Rubin in Casole d’Elsa, in the Sienese countryside.

After last year’s bike accident, Jova still walks with a cane, but has finally managed to separate himself from it: “And for a few days I’ve been walking around without crutches.” He sways, he dances while standing still: «Until three weeks ago, I couldn’t do this. I’m better, and it will get even better.” He doesn’t just think positively, he’s really working hard: «I do four hours of physiotherapy a day» he explained behind the scenes «I’m working hard. The doctor says I’m three months ahead of what he expected. Meanwhile, in recent months, I have written and am writing incredible things.” We will hear them, we imagine, live in March 2025, on the occasion of the Cinque Palasport. “Don’t worry,” he assured, “I won’t make a record about meditation, even if it helped me a lot during rehabilitation.”

Considering how much and how he usually moved on stage, he will still have to pedal (metaphorically) a lot, but he has a new face, Lorenzo. Determined, mangy, hungry. «I had to set myself a goal, specific dates». This is how he motivated what seems like a feat, but is first and foremost a great challenge with himself. Already at the Tuscan festival he gave a glimpse of his desire to take back his favorite space. He only had to perform two songs in the small square, but instead he didn’t want to go down anymore: «The stage is the place where I feel best. After the third step, I’m home »he confessed to us.

Dressed in white, happy, accompanied by Adriano Viterbini’s guitar, he sat down (very strange to see him still for so long) and left: «I brought the lyrics with me like in a piano bar. This is the first song I played to Rick, the first recorded in California, which then gave the album its title.” He adapted the lyrics to “Oh, life!” to the situation, rewriting it, between Sangiovese, ribollita, panzanella and “a mixed salad of very nice people, like us who are half broken but improving”. Followed by “Summer on”, “Altissima luce” (a lauda from the convent of Cortona), “I Love You Baby”, “Sensitive to summer”, “Moonlight”.

A performance for a few, in a space-time bubble, for which he is partly responsible. On the sidelines of the live show, he told us about the genesis of the festival: «Some time ago we were in Florence making my album, in Ferragamo’s house. I wanted to make a good impression with Rubin, I spent almost all the money from the album to rent it and hire a crazy chef. I didn’t know his tastes and I went for luxury. Then I discovered that he liked completely different, cruder stuff. Apart from Florence, Rick had only seen Capri and, since we had to listen to my songs in the car, we drove around these areas of Siena. He fell madly in love with her. I took him to a farm that had been abandoned for fifty years and was in really bad shape. I told him, “Rick, you’re a producer, and this is an audition, it’s the demo, imagine how it would turn out.” He took it after a year of negotiations and made it into a marvel. I sent him my plumber, my electrician, my painter. It doesn’t even look restored, it’s very authentic. Where there was the farm, there was also the school, like in Bertolucci’s “Novecento”. Rick has now built the studio in there, and has put a piano in the connected church. Just like his music, it is a timeless place.”

Then, they went together to that crazy man Terry Gilliam, one of the regents who governs the impossible. «A genius» Lorenzo defines him «I wanted to introduce him to Rubin, I took him to the Umbrian village of Montone, where Gilliam is president of the film festival and there Rick realized that we could try to organize something similar for music» . Not in his personal village, but in the small village next door, for which he forged this truly extraordinary first edition of the Festival Of The Sun. Which Lorenzo greeted like this: «I’m going to God, in fact let’s hope not. I was going there, then I heard a voice telling me not to follow the tunnel. I went the other way. Always facing the sun. I recommend you: enjoy everything, even the crumbs.” He’s doing it.