Festival di Sanremo 2024: day one
You think you know, but you have NO IDEA.
8:39 PM CET: Ladies and gentlemen and others, welcome to my Festival di Sanremo live commentary. I'm currently in Eboli, eating mozzarella di bufala and waiting for the opening credits to appear on screen.
8:44 PM: here we go! First the Carabinieri playing a fanfare, then Marco Mengoni breathing in and breathing out onstage — he's nervous. Amadeus then also arrives onstage (the camera catches him doing the sign of the Cross)… they know the evening will only end at 2:00 AM.
8:52 PM – Clara sings Diamanti grezzi: she’s also an actress from a successful Italian TV series, Mare fuori. The Song is a nice bop, although not my cup of tea. It’s catchy and it’ll get a lot of airplay. My niece (who is 14) surely will become a fan.
8:59 PM – Sangiovanni sings Finiscimi. All dressed in white, I don’t understand most of the words he speaks/sings… According to “The Bible” (aka TV Sorrisi e Canzoni), the song is about asking for forgiveness, the kid must’ve done something wrong to a girl or something…
9:04 PM – Fiorella Mannoia sings Mariposa. She’s one of the veterans… hey, the song is kind of a tropipop, she's ready for Primo Maggio!
9:09 PM – a surprise guest: Whatshisname Ibrahimovic (footie player), doing a comedy gag with Amadeus…
9:15 PM – La Sad, singing Autodistruttivo. They’re a emo-punk-whatever collective… E VOMITO ANCHE L’AAAAAANIIIIIMAAAAAAA!!!1 My nephew (17 in a month) will surely like them. Anyway, La Sad support TELEFONO AMICO, the suicide-prevention hotline (02 23272327), and at the end of their exhibition scream “Music saved us!”… aww… 🥹
9:26 PM — Marco Mengoni sings the song that made him win last year's Sanremo, Due vite. The audience in the theatre sings along, I do too from the sofa… SE QUESTA È L’ULTIMAAAAAAH CANZONE…
9:32 PM – useless gag with one of the sponsors: the sofa makers of Poltrone & Sofà…
9:35 PM – Irama sings Tu no. The intro is very epic/orchestral, but the song itself is sung using a vocoder or something, and I can’t stand the way he covers all the vowels1 while singing — that means most of the A’s and E’s sound like O’s… aaargh.
9:40 PM – Ghali sings Casa mia. Boppity bop tune, quite catchy, very radio friendly, and I love the meaningful lyrics (in short: it’s nonsense to believe we don't belong to a place because we're not born there — home should be anywhere one chooses to live, and hating each other for this us stupid, even aliens don't get that). Still… can’t we just ban the effin’ vocoder/autotune? Please?
9:52 PM – Negramaro sing Ricominciamo tutto. My sister was a fan of Giuliano Sangiorgi & co… It’s a typical Negramaro song, a musical and rhythmic crescendo.
9:58 PM – IT’S FIORELLO TIME!
10:03 PM – Annalisa sings Sinceramente. She has a degree in physics, and one of her songs was all over the place last year – she was also parodied by Brenda Lodigiani for the Gialappa Show. Sinceramente, I could sing Mon amour, her hit from last year, over this one and nobody would notice the difference.
10:08 PM – Amadeus remembers Giovanbattista Cutolo, a 24 y.o. music student who was killed a few months ago in Naples. On stage, his mother reads a letter to his son, who dreamed of becoming a maestro of the Sanremo orchestra.
10:23 PM – Amadeus and Marco Mengoni get comedic, again…
10:33 PM – Mahmood sings Tuta gold. Typical Mahmood tune. It will be super-successful, but I’m a bit disappointed, to be honest.
10:43 PM – Diodato sings Ti muovi… So far, the most beautiful voice. He has dancers onstage, he’s ready for Eurovision.
10:49 PM – Lazza (guest) sings Cenere. Fun fact: a friend’s little daughter sings this as “aiutami a sparire come CEEESARE!” (in lieu of “cenere”)…
10:57 PM – remembering Toto Cutugno.
11:02 PM – another guest that has nothing to do with music: Federica Brignone, alpine ski racer. I'll be forever grateful to Jannik Sinner for declining the invite to be a guest at Sanremo…
11:05 PM – Loredana Bertè sings Pazza. 🤘Love her! This song means A LOT, for her, and for myself too — I so hope she wins. 🩵
11:11 PM – Geolier sings I p’ me, tu p’ te. He sings in Neapolitan. Not my cuppa, but very radio-friendly.
11:15 PM – more gags by Amadeus and Fiorello…
11:23 PM – Alessandra Amoroso sings Fino a qui… Typical Sanremo-style tune. Was expecting nothing less, nothing more. She has a kazillion fans, I’m just not one of them.
11:31 PM – there’s another commercial break, then a guest rapper is going to sing a song everybody knows but me, so I’m off to wash my teeth and put my pjs on, brb.
11:39 PM - The Kolors sing Un ragazzo una ragazza. They have a choreography, the song is catchy (though it reminds me of Daniele Silvestri’s Salirò2…), they’re ready for Eurovision too.
11:45 PM – WE’RE HALFWAY INTO IT (maybe…).
Angelina Mango sings La noia: she has a beautiful voice, just like her mum and her late dad. And yes, it's a cumbia.
11:55 PM – Marco Mengoni sings a medley of his songs… he too was one of my sister’s favourite singers, so I get quite emotional whenever I hear him singing, because he reminds me of her. 🥹
00:10 AM – Il Volo sing Capolavoro… Very sanremese tune, they might even win.
00:15 AM – BigMama sings La rabbia non ti basta. Her avellinese inflection slips out every now and then, but I quite like her song.
00:25 PM – Marco Mengoni goes onstage wearing a skirt, a longuette. Can’t wait for certain people’s comments…
00:27 – I Ricchi e Poveri sing Ma non tutta la vita. And, kids, they still gliel’ammollano. And they have a choreography as well, so THEY’RE EUROVISION-READY TOO!
00:33 AM — Emma Marrone sings Apnea. Meh.
00:37 AM – Renga & Nek sing Pazzo di te… Could’ve easily done without them, thank you very much.
00:43 AM – Marco Mengoni ILY 😂😂😂
00:48 AM – Mr.Rain sings Due altalene. I’m SOOOOOOOO tired of autotune and other voice effects, can’t these people sing without them?!? They have ONE JOB…
00:55 AM – Bnkr44 sing Governo punk. They jump left right and center, but something’s off… can’t pinpoint what exactly, though.
01:00 AM — Gazzelle sings Tutto qui, and it’s clear he probably wanted to be Noel Gallagher… nevertheless he gets the “My Living Room Awardz” from
:01:07 AM — Dargen D’Amico sings Onda alta. and he’s dressed in plush bears for no reason whatsoever. But he calls for CEASEFIRE NOW at the end, so everything is forgiven. 💕
sometime between 01:10 and 01:42 AM — (whoops, I fell asleep on the sofa… have I missed anything relevant? According to the official schedule I've missed Rose Villain, a mock monologue by Marco Mengoni, Santi Francesi, Fred de Palma, and Maninni… ehm… Sorry!)
01:43 AM – Alfa sings Vai! A feel-good song that gives me anxiety…
01:45 AM – 29 contestants gone, ONE to go (but he's called il Tre, i.e. Three, which is a bit confusing…)!
01:47 AM – Il Tre sings Fragili. I’m so tired, I don’t know if this is sustainable for five days in a row, perhaps I must rethink my plans for this week…
01:57 AM – The press room’s five favourite songs:
02:00 AM – Omg, we’re finishing 18 minutes early according to the official schedule… nighty night!
Below, the Sanremo 2024 playlist on Spotify:
One day perhaps I'll tell you about the time, very early 2000s, when I was studying classical singing, and also had a blog about opera, with a section called “classical singing for dummies” where I tried to explain classical singing technique…
In an interview, Daniele Silvestri said he wrote Salirò to fight against his own depression after his father's passing… 💕
Applausi, per la tenacia nel seguire tutta la trasmissione, io alle 22:40 ero già nel mondo dei sogni. Constato con piacere che non sono il solo a non capire una parola di molti di questi giovani cantanti.
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