From the top step of the podium a fortnight ago upon release, the new album has just dropped to third. But Dedicated to us with its mega tour in the sports halls is already on the launch pad at the Verona Arena where from tomorrow it will fully fulfill its own title. After having made one hundred thousand fans “scream at the sky” in Milan and Rome who attended the two concerts at San Siro and the Olimpico in July, Ligabue returns to his beloved live scenes with the new tour which will see him in osmotic contact until 1 ° December (in Messina) with his audience, that “us” evoked by the new inspired album released last September 22nd. In addition to his thirty years of successes, he will play all the new eleven unreleased songs live accompanied by his faithful “Group” traveling the length and breadth of the country from the two dates in La Scala to the following ones in Turin and down from the centre-north up to ( after Rome on 18 and 19 November) Eboli, Bari, Reggio Calabria and the other end of the Strait. «The concert for me is a bit the center of everything – he explains -. There is nothing comparable to this experience because it’s not so much what I do, but it’s what I witness. And it is one of the things that over time have forced me, among other things, to use the teleprompter on stage because I concentrate on people’s faces and risk losing the thread of the lyrics. I am captivated by the type of emotion experienced by those in front of me, of participation and, sometimes, even of transfiguration. The way everyone interprets the songs in their own way is priceless. This is why since ’87, when I did my first concert, I have never managed to stay for long without going on tour.
What does the meeting with the public represent in depth?
For me, the concert is the ultimate exercise of privilege. For some time I have been able to count on excellent musicians, extraordinary technicians and, indeed, an audience that comes to celebrate me. I’m the guest of honor at a party where my only job is to give a good performance. But performance anxiety is a type of anxiety that doesn’t weigh on me too much, even if I think that everything is now immortalized moment by moment by cell phones and cameras. But all of this is truly a privilege that I increasingly enjoy to the fullest.
His son Lenny played on every song on the new album, but he won’t be on stage. Why?
He won’t play on tour because there is an already well-oiled musical machine, the one that has also just played at San Siro and the Olimpico. But I trust that the day will come when he will also be at my side on stage. He has a natural talent for rhythm, he already knows the dynamics of the drums very well which is a very difficult instrument. After all, Lenny was recruited by the notoriously fussy producer because he thought Lenny was the right drummer for this album.
How did it feel to work in the recording studio with your son?
On the one hand I lived this experience with my son professionally, finding an “other” type of communication because with music you communicate without words. On the other hand, having my own recording studio, we took all the time we needed discussing a lot with the collaborators about each song and I think Lenny has never had so much information about me as on this occasion. It was a great experience, a special dialogue. A surplus of belonging.
The underlying theme of the album, after all…
Yes, the need to belong is also recalled by the title of the album, Dedicato a noi. It’s not that I have a clear outline of this “us”, but I feel the need to call us to the rescue. Recognizing ourselves in a series of values and beliefs, but also doubts. Always keeping in mind that everyone is unique, it is important to get back together to put some priorities at the center in this phase of universal social and humanitarian emergency.
A dramatic snapshot of our times that led her to write the song Who knows if God feels alone?
The piece began as a list of fears. We are experiencing a terrible start to a decade between the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the disastrous effects of global warming, migration, ever-increasing social unrest, feminicides. All this produces an increase in fears, which are often the opposite of each other. That is, the fear of being like others but also of not being like others. The fear that God does not exist and the fear that there is.
And what does this cascade generate in your opinion?
The first result is that fear makes us even more alone. So, thinking about a humanization of God, the doubt suddenly arose in my mind: who knows if God feels alone? The focus of the song is that God feels a little abandoned by us. If I look at the iconography of a God who is watching us, he is certainly not witnessing a great show. In my life and also in songs I have often tried to humanize the figure of God, to try to get a little closer to him. It’s a spiritual need of mine.
As a believer?
I cannot help but feel like a believer and I have also been a practicing Catholic. I certainly carry with me a deep spiritual need and I have never thought that life is all just here. If anything, I have sometimes had a problem identifying with our religion which, in my opinion, puts pain too centrally in its depiction of itself. As a child I suffered greatly from these representations. Instead, I perceived the need for more emphasis on the joy of life. And it disturbed me that the symbol of Christianity is a crucified 33-year-old boy. But I remain Catholic and I rushed to the Pope’s invitation to the artists at the Sistine Chapel last June 23rd.
What experience was it?
Great emotion when I shook hands with the Pope, because I have the feeling that Francis also embodies in a particular way certain social values in which I recognize myself. But beyond this I have an intense memory of his beautiful speech, which I keep, and of the last image of Michela Murgia, who was very Catholic. After shaking hands with the Pope, crossing me before my turn came, she looked at me with eyes full of emotion, placing her hand on her heart as if to communicate to me the importance of that moment for her who knew that her life was ending ( she died last August 10th, ed.).
Where do certain values for Ligabue come from?
From my roots and from having learned to thank. I am grateful for many things in my life and also for having managed in recent years to tell and confess this good fortune of mine. Including, in fact, being born in the 60s and raised by parents who, even if they hadn’t finished primary school, had cultural and, in their own way, spiritual values to pass on. In my various spiritual controversies, which never end, there is also the fact that I portrayed my father, a convinced atheist, in the song You know the sky and even make him the bearer of my message upwards. Which also reveals the feeling I have towards my father.
And towards his artistic “father” like Elvis? Will you go to see Priscilla presented in Venice?
I’m going to see Sofia Coppola’s film because I’m interested in the female point of view of someone who lived in the shadow of one of the greatest icons of the twentieth century. But there is a lot to think about. Elvis Presley was the sad example of how too much pushed him into a condition of extreme loneliness. An immense void that we must continue to fill, until we die. A breakdown due to hypertrophy. His case must be a warning. Today, when success is also a social and media myth, we need to think about what its real meaning is. There are many who fall victim to it. It is therefore not at all true that happiness can lie in achieving success. That too in a common profession. At the expense of true values.
2023-10-07 19:08:27
#interview #Ligabue #God #feels
