Max Pezzali is still the essence of pop music. Even from the stage

Certainly the phrase “this house is not a hotel” has resonated in the ears of several generations (perhaps less common today), a mantra that has marked the adolescence of many. Since Max Pezzali with them 883 has always talked about adolescence, in some cases even writing the soundtrack, for this new part of a now infinite tour, the singer-songwriter from Pavia takes inspiration from that phrase and so do the 11 concerts in Milan (including the end-of-year one) become “This Forum is not a hotel”. When everything then moves to Rome, from 24 to 29 October, arriving at the Palazzo dello Sport, it will become “This Pala is not a hotel”.

From his first (two dates) San Siro in 2022 to today Pezzali has never stopped, he is experiencing a second youth, performing in endless tours between arenas and stadiums and Circo Massimo, bringing his music to an audience that adores him, that sees him again in him the times of youth. Evaluating the audience by eye, we notice a fairly clear age distinction, which essentially spreads over two generations. There are the over 50s, who are the early audiences, the teenagers of the 90s who grew up “live” with the songs of 883. Then there is a subsequent range that goes from 40 to 30 (the latter are “the new generation”), made up of a second wave of fans, arrived in the “tow” and perhaps also intrigued by the recent TV series on the history of the duo.

We remember that the Max Pezzali Mauro Repetto duo made their recording debut in 1992 and that the latter left the group in 1994 after the success of “Nord, sud, Ovest, Est”.

Once again, Pezzali’s concert is confirmed for what it should be and what we already know: a party, a joyful and light moment, the opportunity to retrace songs that are more or less profoundly part of the youth of many of us.

Max Pezzali, first with 883 and then alone, is the essence of pop music. He has always been able to draw melodies that remain glued to him and from which it is difficult to break away, melodies that even today, decades later, are in the memory and in the minds of the public, making it almost impossible to miss the opportunity to participate in a festive Karaoke.

But karaoke also knows how to enter the dancefloor and transforms itself into an opportunity for dancing. But even the acoustic part, delicate, reflective, wants its moment and so, on a second stage in the middle of the parterre, Max rattles off a series of pieces for voice and two acoustic guitars to which he adds a harmonica.

The show is a journey through a series of hits, daughters of a repertoire made up of successes and youthful stories. With his words he drew the contours of the adolescent universe of the 90s well. What is striking is how those texts now seem distant in time, distant from the feelings and lives of generation Z.

It is a period in which the relationship between genders is the subject of discussion; so listening to “The Hard Law of a Friend” transports you into a world where the relationship between a couple in which the “2 of spades” was common practice is far away and different from what CERTAIN of Max’s modern colleagues sing. It is clear however that 883, like young singer-songwriters, always tend to represent their modernity, tell their story and tell the present, the everyday, inevitably with different ways and styles but always linked by this thread.

The over two hours of the concert pass quickly, with great rhythm and musically powerful moments in which the guitars push hard, bringing pop to the threshold of rock (at least in the sonic sense). Time the audience spends singing and dancing and all around you see nothing but good vibes and lots of happiness. Max is certainly not a stage animal, his is not a physical or muscular performance, but it doesn’t matter because the songs are at the center of everything, with the “stage” and the production acting as an elegant frame.

It lacks that sweet and slightly cloying flavor of nostalgia. The songs listened to again today over thirty years later have a different meaning, but the general polarization, the arrogance of “we were better” is missing. What Max stages is a photograph of an era that has been and which has led to the present. Max tells it (he always has), not gives judgments or sentences. And that’s what I like.

For over two years Pezzali has been showing off what he is, and above all what he was. Fun every time but in the end the songs are the same, the show changes little in substance, just as the atmosphere and spirit of the concert changes little. It is therefore surprising to see this constant rush to his shows, which will see him again this summer as the protagonist in a mega show at the Imola racetrack. Yet it happens. Evidently the audience is not tired or is very large.

Ladder

Get pissed off (This house is not a hotel)
Always us
Don’t beat me up / You’re pissing me off / 6/1/loser / Jolly Blue (Medley)
En route to the house of God
They killed Spider-Man
How it should go
The years
You are a legend
In the night Molella Remix
We Don’t Break (DF Remix)
The queen of celebrity
The friend rule
A love song
How come
No regrets
Here you are

Acoustics

What we commonly call love
I feel you live
I’m here too
Airplane
Nothing but us

Encore:
I’ll be there
The harsh law of goals
If you come back
North South West East
Really beautiful
Keep time
With a deca