Five years. For David Bowie they were enough and left over to the end of the world, for the Nuclear Tactical Penguins they were actually the end of the world: between the release of Out of the hype (April 2019), their first album for Sony Music, and today they took third place at Sanremo 2020, a record and a half, two books and two tours that transformed them from an autarchic indie project from Val Seriana, producing the first three at home album to the only Italian band to have sold a million tickets in a year, a phenomenon with 58 platinum records Fimi GfK and 3.3 million monthly listeners on Spotify. After the experience in the stadiums in the summer of 2023, they return to tour in the arenas with 33 dates all sold out and it is logical that the new live act tries to tell the story of these five years in music, while waiting for the project Hello World which, in 2025, will bring them back to the stadiums.
Let’s talk regarding numbers, but not too much
On the occasion of the first of the six Milanese dates we discuss a bit of all this in the dressing rooms of the Assago Forum. Talking regarding numbers, but “without the obsession with numbers”. It is impossible, for example, not to start from the million tickets sold «but it’s not like we live with this million on our heads», frontman Riccardo Zanotti is keen to underline with a not too veiled reference to the cases of stress-related forfeits of various colleagues like Sangiovanni and Mr. Rain. «Certain things can happen when we talk too much regarding numbers. I’m rather of the opinion that those who make music must concentrate on the music, must work to have the pieces. All other discussions become secondary.” Elio Biffi echoes him: «Perhaps our being from Bergamo protects us from these discussions», he says, and then talks regarding concreteness, «solid realities» like those of their old Castagne Genge.
Better sevenths for life
To those who remind them of their constant presence in the rankings from 2020 onwards, culminating last year in fourth place Fake news in the chart of the most listened to albums, Zanotti responds with «an old saying in the record industry: it’s better to be seventh all your life than first only once». It is also inevitable to talk regarding these 33 two-hour dates which are concentrated in just 57 days, a demanding schedule «but we were born as a live band, we abandon ourselves to the apotropaic ritual of the concert», comments Riccardo, «we like to leave and don’t see anyone. Of course, a family can also break up at these rates… but there is great energy here, there are a hundred people working around our project. One hundred people who in turn become part of our family.”
A live show from 2019 onwards
And we come to the show, which reworks in an arena style what was already seen in the summer tour, almost as if it represents a logical continuation. The setlist offers 23 songs, all produced from 2019 onwards. In short, the songs of The king is naked, Let’s kick the followinglife e Youth wasted but Elio immediately specifies: «They will return during the tour, the set list changes every evening, it is full of surprises». Rik adds: «They are certainly pieces that represent us less than what we are now. In the third album, for example, there were songs that attempted directions that we actually didn’t take. More generally, we are talking regarding indie pieces recorded almost in the bedroom. Who knows… it might be interesting to re-arrange and re-record them today.”
The homage to the Palestinian people and the return to political song
The setlist starts in the pop latitudes of Trade! con Write to her stupid e Scooby Doowhere a notable pitched solo by Paso stands out (“I’ve always loved playing the guitar”, Zanotti will say following the show, “and it was lucky for me to meet him”), then Vegetablesthe first explicitly pop song by Pinguini Tattici Nucleari, once once more becomes reggae. Hold on, as already happened in stadiums, lends itself to the ritual of tattooing on stage. Soon she will be laughed at and cried with The Neverending Story e Bergamo. In particular, before the latter, Elio asks each spectator to make the keys that he has in his pocket ring while he reads the poem Think regarding others by Mahmoud Darwish, as a tribute to those in Palestine who have lost their homes and live under the bombs.
Is the time ripe for a return to explicitly political song by Nuclear Tactical Penguins? Maybe on the major themes of this particular historical moment? «We’re thinking regarding it», replies Zanotti, «but the issue is finding the right cut. When you write a serious song, there are two dangers you have to stay away from: banality and propaganda.”
The emotional wave of the show leads to Hikikomori e Out of the hypeso it’s time to Lake Washington Boulevard, the folk song regarding the last days of Kurt Cobain that Sony Music didn’t want single but the public, for a thousand reasons, instantly loved. And now he sings from memory: «Do you see it, Andrea?», Rik jokes from the stage, addressing the CEO Andrea Rosi.
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2024-04-10 19:17:34
