When Jovanotti became master of ceremonies
November 14, 2000 Jovanotti released his first live album, “Lorenzo Live – Autobiography of a party”. Almost a quarter of a century later, we offer you the review of the album he wrote for us at that time Laura Centomeres.
By his own admission, live performances have never convinced Jovanotti too much. Yet, after the “Capo Horn” tour, Lorenzo also felt the need to capture in a record that dynamic moment par excellence which is the concert. This is how this double live album was born, a faithful recording of an entire concert, to which is added as a closing track an unreleased “File not found”, played with Ace from Skunk Anansie.
It’s inevitable to ask ourselves the reason for this live show.
On the one hand it is undoubtedly a tribute that Jovanotti pays to his audience, because this is a live album in which people can really hear themselves, even as lead vocals in many of the songs in the set list, such as “Un ray of sun”, ” This is my home”, “I think positive”, “Rap serenade”, “Lucky boy”. It is a live show that is an autobiography, as the title also reminds us, but it is a live show that makes us understand how these songs, which are pieces of Lorenzo’s life, are at the same time pieces of the life of many, many others. It is an audience, that of Lorenzo, who has found his own emotions and thoughts in the simple and direct verses of his songs: it is an audience who is in great harmony with him, who shares his side which looks at the poetry of small things and together that side that knows how to look further, beyond the wall of its own small vegetable garden.
And in retracing his story, Lorenzo doesn’t censor anything, giving a captivating version of “La mia moto” or “Ciao mamma” alongside the two-voice revisitation of “Il mio nome è mai +”. Because what we like about Lorenzo is precisely his honesty, his being “committed” but never by force, always out of passion, with music that manages to be in tune with what happens inside him, whether it’s the emotion of becoming father or indignation at the horror of war, whether it be the carefree desire to have fun or on the contrary the desire to stop and reflect, to question oneself.
Musically, this live performance then captures on record the energy of Lorenzo as master of ceremonies, who drags us into the party by inciting and inviting us to think about small, big truths, without ever losing the rhythm.
Because musically these live recordings bring to light the essentiality of Jovanotti’s music, which is a pulsation, a beat, a wave of rhythm that Lorenzo has the extraordinary ability to ride with mastery, with a voice that is certainly not beautiful and yet has magnetism, he knows how to convince, he knows how to move and entertain. Live, his music is enriched with improvisations and variations, highlighting the proven understanding between Jovanotti and the musicians who also followed him in this adventure: Saturnino, Pier Foschi, Marco Tamburini, Pape Gurioli, Ernesttico Rodriguez, Michele Centonze , DJ Aladdin.
However, “Autobiography of a party” is also an opportunity for Lorenzo to present himself as a versatile artist, capable of relating to his audience in a multimedia way.
The double live show is in fact accompanied by a booklet that tells Lorenzo’s thoughts through a selection of images and through the words of a beautiful introduction in which Jovanotti becomes a writer and talks about his emotions, the thoughts that cross his head before, after and during a concert. And if the tour was perfumed, so are these CDs, which smell of orange or talcum powder, with a moving cover, with cards and codes inside to enter the world of the Soleluna website, where you can find other music, new music , other words, meeting opportunities. And the unreleased “File not found” is dedicated to the world of the Internet, a tight and rocking piece – perhaps a little too much – interesting and intelligent but not very engaging. An experiment, a piece born as usual because it couldn’t be otherwise. But Lorenzo, for sure, is already elsewhere.
