TRENTO. Vasco Rossi’s first appearance in Trentino? In 1975. Not as a rocker, though. As an aerialist for Radio Dolomiti. And maybe even from illegal.
It was Angelo de Tisi, creator and patron of Radio Dolomiti, who made him come in the autumn of 1975. They were introduced by a teacher from Cavedine. Vasco Rossi in Zocca had set up a pirate radio. He was a factotum at Radio Punto and with his technique he was able to transform a military transmitter and bring it to the FM range.
De Tisi asked him for help – paying – and Vasco Rossi agreed. Those were the times when the Constitutional Court still had to give the green light to the famous “free radios”. Rossi also had to build the antenna, because obviously they could not be found for sale. So he thought of it, also thanks to the support of radio amateurs from Trentino. Vasco Rossi, with ingenuity, one day mounted an antenna on the roof of de Tisi’s house in Margone. And so on a cold Christmas Eve in 1975, at 6 pm, on frequency 101.5, de Tisi said: «This is Radio Dolomiti and it broadcasts from Margone di Vezzano».
Then, the one who will become Blasco, decides that free radios, or pirate, are no longer for him, he wants to play and sing. In 1977, at the age of 25, he began to perform concerts and record. He will return to Trentino a few years later, in 1981, in an unforgettable concert. These are years in which he begins to make himself known, but they are years of “live” in unlikely places such as San Martino Spino, Formigine, Concordia sulla Secchia, Sanguinaro … with musicians who are not found and in discos that look more like saunas for sweaty young people looking for adventures on Saturday night, or the classic Festa dell’Unità, where, however, the majority of the public claims a nice smooth.
But in 1980 he released his third album, Alfredo’s fault, and hit the mark. He is 28 years old, his fame grows, hits, begins to have a following. However, whether the purists like it or not, it is the appearance at the Sanremo Festival in 1982 that gives fuel to Blasco, to Vasco Rossi. He scandalized, he liked it. He insulted Nantas Salvalaggio who had accused him of being a junkie and he in «Vado al massimo», the song presented replies to the journalist: «Like that guy, that guy who writes in the newspaper».
It causes scandal, ultimately making what it was and what it is. And so in 1982 a new tour begins, the «Vado al Massimo tour» and on 10 June 1982, on a warm evening, he also arrives in Rovereto at the Festival dell’Unità for a concert at the Giardini Milano, those in front of the Mart. Not exactly the arenas and stadiums he will attend in a few years.
Vasco, jeans and black t-shirt will present some of his historical songs. But the three hundred paying people want to hear the Sanremo song. They paid 5,000 lire, just over two and a half euros, but these are other times. Italy still had to win its third World Cup and the DC was running its governments and not even two years earlier there had been the bomb at the Bologna station. He will close his concert with Albachiara, a song that not many knew, then, there, among the street lamps of the Corso Bettini Gardens: “Breathe slowly so as not to make noise, you fall asleep in the evening and wake up with the sun … Never put anything that could attract attention .. . and sometimes you have strange thoughts. With one hand, one hand touches you … “
A rock masterpiece. Someone mentions a few steps. The following year, on 23 April 1983, he will return to Trentino, at the Teatro Tenda in piazzale Sanseverino, but the prices have already risen, he is safer, less cursed poet, at least in clothing and posture. They will ask him for autographs. But he will make very few. Legend has it that someone asked him on the night of Rovereto. Some pious soul, more out of compassion than out of conviction. Now that someone has an heirloom in his hand.
And Vasco remembers it anyway: in announcing the 2022 event, he published the beautiful black and white photos taken by Dino Panato. “My concert in Trento in 1983”, writes the most famous rocker in Italy on Instagram, then continuing with the words and photos of Panato on the “4000 of Trento”.
Here they are: “On 23 April 1983 a large tent was erected in piazzale Sanseverino. At that time in the city we did not have palaces or structures suitable for hosting concerts, the tent had a capacity of three thousand people and it was thought that it was sufficient to contain Vasco Rossi’s fans. . A highly anticipated concert, and soon the organizers realized that the space would not be enough. Many people managed to enter without a ticket by crawling under the sheets. Soon, despite it being April, the air inside was almost unbreathable. so to open the entrances to avoid problems “.
And again: “Vasco went up on stage and it was a bedlam. Beautiful concert “.
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