Ligabue, journey at the end of the night of certain nights

From the Mario to the strip there is just a few minutes by car. The time that the gigantic Cadillac used as an ambulating stage puts on which Ligabue, together with his band, runs from one side of the parterre of the RCF Arena in Reggio Emilia. Who has decided to Celebrate the thirty years of “Happy Birthday Elvis” with Ligabue – and 20 from the first Campovolo, as well as the thirty -five of the Emilian rocker careers – He found himself welcomed by the lights of Las Vegas, who – he says – “It’s all and the opposite of everything”. Spitting and desperate, fun and ruthless. With a landlord determined to give all of himself.

A torrential ladder – 28 songs in all, for over three hours of music – divided into four sections that resemble movements of a single suite. It begins – it goes without saying – with the karaoke of “certain nights” called by Little Tattle (the “RadioFreccia” Kingo), which anticipates Ligabue on stage, accompanied by Federico Poggipollini and Max Cottafavi on guitars, Luciano Luisi on keyboards, Davide Pezzin on bass and Lenny Ligabue (son of Luciano) on drums. It starts with “The boys are around”, followed by “This is my life” and “The hard have two hearts”- with a thank you to the historian (now ex) manager Claudio Maioli (present at the evening), but “without getting lost in chatter, because we have three hours in concert”: the atmosphere, produced by the visuals, is that of the Las Vegas from brochure, of the Wedding Chapel With the impersonals of Presley as officiaries that bounce on the megaSeches during “half of the apple”. In the background there is the Nevada that fades into the Po Valley – in the visuals projected during the super -classic “Lambrusco and Pop Corn” and the playful and carefree Mecca of the good times that were. At the opening of the second part of the show, the desire for celebration – during “The day of the days” is established an ideal contact, thanks to archival movies, with the first campovolo – leaves room for the first raid of reality, at the opening of “What do you want it to be”. The theme is climate change: “What do you want to be, only in Italy and only last year, 350 cases between flooding, flooding, storms, landslides. What do you want all those people who have lost everything and has been left alone”, says Ligabue: “The heads of the world will also have children and grandchildren. But what do you want it to be …”. The Las Vegas projected to Campovolo stops being an amusement park and becomes dark, dystopian. On the screens the figures of the tragedies produced by the environmental emergency – 7 million deaths per year caused by pollution, 15 thousand extreme atmospheric events recorded in the last twelve months, 1 million species at risk of extinction, flow.

The las vegas of continuous cycle entertainment is no longer. On “women know it” the screens project the graphic elaborations of the portraits of artists, scientists, intellectuals, activists, politicians, sports, writers and journalists – from Rita Levi Montalcini to Margherita Hack, passing through, among the many, Raffaella Carrà, Nilde Iotti, Franca Rame, Michela Murgia, Sandra Mondaini, Dacia Maraini, ENOGU, Cecilia Strada, Samantha Cristoforetti, Gessica Notaro and Anna Magnani. After the women – through whom, says Ligabue, “passing the hopes” of the planet we return to the “heads of the world”, which this time have faces, names and surnames. During “Happy Hour” – followed by “Letter to G.” – On the screens artificial intelligence dresses the powerful astronauts, and loads them on a spaceship to make them toast with planet earth, comfortably seated behind an porthole: to cross the glasses – among others – there are Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, Giorgia Meloni and Emmanuel Macron, Jeff Bezos and Sam and Sam Altman, Ursula von der Leyen and Mario Draghi, Volodymyr Zelenskyj and Joe Biden, Benjamin Netanyahu and Viktor Orban, and Xi Jinping and Recep Erdogan. The only one to toast alone, facing the public, is Sergio Mattarella, with an air unless they had fun.

We return to the origins for the third part of the evening, when on stage with Ligabue they climb the illegal immigrant: accompanied by Max Cottafavi and Mirko Consolini on guitars, Giovanni Marani and Gianfranco Fornaciari on keyboards, and Gigi Cavalli Cocchi on drums, we’ll stand up in the repertoire of the origins, with “Son of a dog”, “Bambolina and Barracuda”. Except for the performance of Paola Caruso – already presented live – on “Little Stella without Heaven”, the scenography becomes more essential: after “We dance on the world” there is right time for an en passant quote for “Marlon Brando is always him” before leaving the Via Emilia behind and returning to the strip.

Because the fourth and last part of the show is the one dedicated to the thirty years of “Happy Birthday Elvis”. Ligabue is presented in the spotlight with a suit in perfect Las Vegas style, accompanied by the band (Previte and Poggipollini on guitars, Luisi on the keyboards, Antonio Righetti on bass and Robby leathered on drums): it starts with the title track – which, always thanks to the AI, pays homage through the visuals the European tour that the king of rock has never managed to do (he wants to do (he wants to do the vulgar. Problems connected to the status of illegal immigrant of his manager, the ruthless colonel Tom Parker) – and then move on to “What you are not”, “sitting on the shore at the ditch”, “I live dead or X” and “Do you have a moment God?”, Before jumping on the Cadillac Oversize to scroll in the parterre for the performances of “you are and go” and “the best must still come”.

The journey ends on a platform that stands in the middle of the public, on which only Ligabue rises: the recording of a monologue by Roberto Benigni starts while the sentences of the massacres in Gaza, Ukraine and in other 56 conflicts in progress in the world flow on the screens. It is the topicality that returns to dirty pure entertainment, with “my name is never again”, the pacifist hit of 1999 written and performed with Jovanotti and Piero Pelù who at the time was disguised in the competition in the rankings.

With “Light” and “Long live!” We return to the party – with “What time is the end of the world?” (The Italianized cover of “It’s the end of the world as we know it (and I Fine Fine)” of the Rem), in particular, to that held on the Titanic shortly before the collision with the iceberg – and then move on to “between stage and reality”. It is the grand finale: Lambrusco is undermined and fireworks light up. The encore is all to “scream against the sky” and – of course – “certain nights”.

Sincere, proudly exaggerated and candidly Naif in sending messages, “The night of certain nights” is a show that must be read by the perspective of the public for which it was thought. A transgenerational audience, which in Ligabue has an important part of the soundtrack of one’s life: in this sense, the corollary set up around the RCF Arena is perfectly consistent with the spirit not so much of the party, as of the guests. The fifth Campovolo is the live equivalent of a deluxe box, where you are looking for the certainties, the good memories pulled in shiny in a sensationally sumptuous packaging and, yes, also a good dose of pats on the shoulders, above and under the stage. “I had a dream that seemed very close to a reality, and that was formed in my adolescence,” said Ligabue before climbing the stage meeting the press: “In the seventies I thought that the world could be changed, making it more practicable, right, fair, livable. At that time workers, students and intellectuals went in the same direction. Today what I see is the exact opposite of that dream. Everything, but certainly a singer cannot do it. ” And the figure of the current flash that during the evening intermitted the Las Vegas lights, probably, this is precisely this: Ligabue does not have the presumption of being able to educate those who listen to him, precisely because he manages to identify himself very well – and without any effort – in his audience. The audience that embraced him for the umpteenth time, with the desire to celebrate despite knowing how difficult it is to do it today, with everything that is happening out there. To everyday life we ​​will return, inexorably, tomorrow morning: at least for this night, as for other certain nights, it should also be good to be dazzled by the lights of Las Vegas.