The end of the CCCP: “A farewell ceremony, but from living”

Last call, last press conference, last tour: the adjective is repeated several times in defining the new pages of the CCCP history. A chapter that initially did not even have to reopen. Yet after “Felicizioni”, the 2023 celebratory exhibition in Reggio Emilia, the return to stage arrived: first with a theatrical event, then concerts in Berlin with a real tour last year. This summer is repeated, with seven dates, from the Massimo Circus to the Antico Theater of Taormina: the farewell ceremony. Last, in fact, will be preceded by the record publication and video of the first Reuniono concert, that of the “Gran Gala Punkettone” of October 2023 at the Valli Theater in Reggio Emilia. On March 21, there will be a preview projected precisely in the same place where everything happened – the Valli Theater – and where the band will be present and the first of the ceremonies will take place.
“The CCCPs are a dormant cell awakened to the present,” says Giovanni Lindo Ferretti. The four – on the stage of beauty, a historic Milanese Arci Circle – tell how the band was reconstructed as an event after event. “The CCCP are stage and we will die on stage: for us it is over, the problem is what you will last, explains Ferretti.” We are old, I also had a heart attack in this period. There is also a question of dignity for these four people on stage: things must end. The other time the CCCPs ended up for lack of air, this time we end up with a ceremony, because the ceremonies are fundamental and we are ancient.

The key word of this last tour of concerts is “ceremony”, then?
Ferretti: The ceremonies are essential for humanity. Even the animals suffer when one of the pack dies, but they never managed to build a ceremony. CCCP are a serious matter. And therefore, to finish, they have to stage the ceremony.

Which you did not do or have not been able to do when you melted in 1990.
Ferretti: A farewell, an elaboration, is not that easy. The other time we got away with it, but it was different: we were younger and we had life in front. Now we have to somehow plan it. Perhaps planning is a residue of philosovietism …

Who are the CCCP today and what has remained there from this new and a half year together?
Zamboni: If you are in a group, always try to amplify what you are. In the early years of the CCCP we fought. This time I don’t want to say that we decreased, but we thought about something else. There was no longer the problem of affirming an identity. Perhaps the surprise was this: seeing the roles beyond. When we were all the younger, we didn’t know each other, after all. Falling, violence, anger, love: they are all things that happen. But this time we looked at each other in a more direct way.

Maybe you have lived everything more lightly this time, with more awareness.
Zamboni: Lightness? Never. But there is a heaviness with which you learned to deal with. We didn’t have to conquer the world, we didn’t have to defend our life. What had to happen had already happened.
Ferretti: When we were born and while we consolidated, we needed many words.

It was a continuous debate, a continuous discussion. On this return, the words have decreased very much, smiles have increased, the good disposition. There is a ability to obey which, seen from the outside, may seem almost pathetic. If Annarella says something, I know it’s meditated, it’s deep. First, however, it took a lot of words. We have 40 years of life lived more.

You have been discovered by a young audience. Have you wondered how a completely different generation has come to your music?
Faur: Never leave the CCCP discs unattended. Maybe it happened that the son or nephew went to the famous wardrobe of one of our fans – the one where it was better not to go – and there they found our records. They are immortal songs.

Reunion are also a great business. You have told the “produce, consume, crack” and say that you don’t think about yours as a career. But how did you inevitably compare with the economic and industrial dimensions?
Zamboni: For the concerts we have not related to a large multinational, but to metropolitan music, an agency of two people to be exact, with which it was also easy to deal with.

The economy can suck you, but it seems to me that we have managed to hold it on and to hold it down. We thought of closing the liturgy with these seven concerts and that’s it. And this is contrary to all the rules of good daily life in this world where you don’t live well. It is a value to take this choice.
Ferretti: This was the simplest thing about everything. Zamboni had a manager, and he was the only one available for life events. He accompanied us to the first concert at the Valli Theater, perceiving a request that I had never thought about, and until I saw it anyway I would not have believed it.
But from this point of view we grew up well. I also know that the cachet increased to me, but it is not at all significant in our history, that then someone does not believe it …
But believe me, this is the only problem we have never asked ourselves. While I put myself a lot the problem of closing as a ceremony, I absolutely do not pose the problem of the economy of the seven dates and so on.

So is it really the word “fine” after these concerts?
Ferretti:Last year the idea of ​​starting to Bologna fascinated me, which was the most difficult square and the city where I grew up. This year, even for how the world went in this year, the idea is that the proposed dates began on the ruins of Rome and ended up on the ruins of Greece, in Taormina. The CCCPs were born well, they grew well and can only die well.

Have you already imagined what will happen when you get off the stage after the last date, in Taormina?
Zamboni: Now it is early to say it, who knows how we will be. In my opinion, the most difficult day will be the next day. Seeing the images of the concert we are about to publish, you understand the power and I know that I will no longer have that power …
Ferretti: But it is also easy, because our story is very close to our life.

I, with the CCCP, have reached a vitality that was brought to me by this story. When the CCCPs end after the last concert, however sooner or later Annarella will come to eat at my house, however I know where Zamboni lives, I know where Fatur lives.
I thank God of my life and the people I met. The rest is inevitable.