73rd Sanremo festival will kick of tonight at Teatro Ariston in Saremo. The formula is pretty much the same as previous years when Amadeus has been in charge, his year number 4 out of 5 confirmed - just more young artists and more songs making the super final come Saturday night!
Tonight, the first night Amadeus will be hosting with Eurovision veteran Gianni Morandi and influencer Chiara Ferragni, Mahmood and Blanco will be on stage singing their winning entry and Euroviison 6th placed Brividi, and Blanco will present his new single L'isola delle rose as well. I Pooh will perform as well, including Eurovision veteran Riccardo Fogli who has in it from 1966 to 1974 when he went solo (and won Sanremo 1982 and did Eurovision 1983), Pooh won Sanremo in 1990 and continued until 2016, and on and off ever since. They have sold over 100 million records so they are Big.
Besides action in Teatro Ariston we will have Salmo performing from a cruise ship anchored outside the city, and Piero Pelú and Gemelli di Guidonia from a stage outside nearby the theater.
This is Rai production so Elena Sofia Ricci will be there promoting a new fiction, Fiori sopra l'inferno as well.
The first 14 entries will be presented and the voting is by media aka accredited journalists on spot in Sanremo: newspapers, web, radio. In the end of the night a ranking will be revealed.
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The night started with a moment of silence for the victims of Turkey earthquake, followed by the entrance of President Mattarella (a first for a president of the republic) followed by national anthem sung by Morandi and audience. Then enters Roberto Benigni to talk and talk and read the Italian constitution, as it is its 75th birthday. Expect some 15 minutes or so..... Then we should get right to the first song. Maybe,
Anna Oxa - Sali (Canto dell'anima) ***
AO returns and gives us a song that's better than I expected and gives us quite a vocal acrobatics, even if her voice isn't apparently anymore like it used to be. She's known for her looks and fashion statements but now she was in simple black dress and her blond hair quite wild.
gIANMARIA - Mostro **
He's about 2m, white open shirt and black pamts. The winner of Sanremo giovani, made famous in XFactor. I'm not fan of this kind of singing and shouting, nor I like this song a lot. Maybe I'm just old.
Chiara Ferragni makes her first appearance in black and white. So far everything has been black and white except Morandi in dark purple.
Mr.Rain - Supereroi ***
Another tall debutant. I have liked a few of his songs in the past, let's see how this one is.... He's in black, sparkly suit playing paino at first, the enter a child choir .Italy has the rule that kids can't do television after midnight so Mr Rain has secured an early spot every night. Should he make the Top-5 he can't perform... The performance is nervous and he seems a bit lost, but the song's quite nice. Quite sweet and likable.
Enters Mahmood and Blanco to perform Brividi, last year's winner, the most streamed song in Italy (6xplatinum) in 2022 and 6th placed at home soil in Turin 2022 Eurovision.
Black and silvery white for them as well. Where are all the colors?!Another excellent performance by them on this stage, better than Turin for sure.
Mengoni of 68 platinum discs since his win in 2013 he's back! In .... black leather! Golden chains. Full Village People somehow. Fantastic ballad in true Mengoni style, performed to perfection. Love it.
After a megastar another debutante. Black and white and RED jacket! Finally some color. She has lost also her trademark beanie for Sanremo. Quite nice song that could grow during these nights but for now remains somewhere in between, maybe thanks to her live performance that maybe isn't the strongest.
I wonder if Ultimo met Mahmood or did they just ignore each other the best they could? Anyways, with Mengoni and Giorgia he's on paper the biggest name this year. And yes, he's in black. The song is like all his songs but it's not a bad one. This will go far. Even if the song doesn't really go anywhere. Shouty.
After that we move outside to the outdoor stage where Piero Pelú belts out his Sanremo 2020 entry Gigante. Because why not? But all we remember him going off stage and stealing one lady's purse during his performance ....
Coma_Cose - L'Addio ****
Sparkly golden dress for her with yellow hair, black and green for him. Applause already for the outfits! They even have sort of choreography going on and on top of that a perfect low tempo pop song.
This is agood moment to say the stage looks great and it works, moves and does a lot of things. Shame the Turin 2022 experience wasn't working as planned, it's just not fair.
Elodie's third time, maybe it's the lucky time? And yes, she's in black, looking like an emu. With a surprise! A perfect pop song with echoes of her last entry but more r'n'b and pop. I suppose Euroboys will go wild for this and for a reason.
Blanco returns and due problems with in-ear loses his control and instead of rolling in roses as planned decides to destroy all set. Puritans didn't like it. Nor audience in the theater booing and whistling. His career has been fast fading, as fast his star started to shine. Too much too soon maybe? Audience didn't buy his excuses.
Sanremo Giovani winner of couple of years ago finally gets to compete among Big.Dressed in ...yes, black and white he sings straight to the camera his midtempo pop song that is quite nice actually. He seems to be enjoying himself on stage a lot and not nervous at all. That might just turn into votes later tonight.
All sparkly silver and high platform shoes. The song's at all what I think this band is, where's the falsetto and 70's sound? This is today's pop and if performed by someone else without this visual fireworks would certainly work better. Now one just can't quite take it seriously-
Again black with silvery sparkle in the jacket. He has become a bit meme of himself. Beautiful song, touching lyrics but maybe this works better in studio version? Then again it keeps growing and growing until the end. Old school Sanremo with almost 4,5 minutes while the youngester can't even fill up 2.45...
Finally color! Pink jacket over white and black. And yes, the autotune is an artistic choice, not because he can't sing. His words, not mine. A lot happens in the song, with beautiful strings. Uptempo pop.
Oh, more autotune and more color! All pastels, some rap, some pop. groovy funky arrangement. I didn't quite expect anything from them but this is actually very nice. Despite some bad vocals here and there. I need to listen the studio version asap!
Måneskin's Damiano is among the songwriters for this one. First hearing didn't give me much sadly. Not bad. Not good.
In the end the ranking for the first night - as it should be:
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