Laura Pausini: A Journey from San Remo Victory to International Stardom

2024-03-08 06:16:06

Laura Pausini’s victory at the San Remo Festival in 1993 is the point that the Italian considers as the departure of her career, a career that began to develop much earlier when she was singing in piano bars with her father, but that took on unimaginable dimensions when “La solitude” achieved first place in the famous song competition. Although for a year she toured Europe singing in Italian, in 1994 she began to adapt her songs to Spanish and became known in Latin America, a continent that today adores her, as might be seen on Wednesday night when the Italian returned to Peru following six years of absence as part of the tour that celebrates 30 years of that international debut.

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As in those early years, ‘La Pausini’ quickly won over the audience with two of her greatest virtues: a powerful voice (she is one of those few artists who sounds the same and even better than in the studio) and a charisma and naturalness that made her They make people who have come to see them close. And thousands of people arrived at Arena 1. The place looked crowded and the heavy traffic in the surrounding area made the development of a massive event felt from the early hours. Laura went on stage at 9 pm. She was punctual because she knew that the evening would be marathon and that it would end very close to dawn the next day. There were two and a half hours of show in which the artist reviewed important topics for her career, she presented songs from her new album “Almas paralleles” and shared with her fans the behind-the-scenes of all of this.

Relying on archive videos and many pauses – or ‘pausinis’ as the artist calls them in a joke that has already become recurrent on this tour – the Italian told the story behind several of her songs. “So Celeste”, a song she composed with her partner, Paolo Carta, who is also her musical director, served as a personal reflection on how much it cost her to be a mother and that is why she dedicated the moment to the people in her audience who are trying, in different ways, to start a family.

This was Laura Pausini’s concert in Lima. (Source: Kandavu/ Production Laura Pausini)

He also showed unpublished images of the day he asked Paolo Carta for her hand to satisfy a request from his daughter, who wanted to attend her parents’ wedding. But there were moments in which she chose to take a personal story, as in the case of “En Cambio No” (which, as she has said on several occasions, is a song dedicated to his deceased grandmother) to generate a bond with the assistants.

Laura Pausini dedicated the concert to the memory of a national fan who accompanied her throughout her 30-year career: René Bañares, who was president of her fan club in Peru and died in 2023. “Tonight many people are here, sitting and standing, but there are also souls here, our angels who are in this concert with us. (…) I want to dedicate this concert to René. Bye, René, my love, bye dear,” she said holding a T-shirt that the young fan used to wear at the Italian’s shows.

Unlike other artists who have interactions that they repeat over and over once more on each tour, Pausini opted for spontaneity at all times. She was very connected with the attendees and that allowed her to react quickly and offer those ‘viral’ moments that she usually stars in each stop of her tour. When the show started she said she was “the most Peruvian Italian of all”, she changed the lyrics of “The Things You Live” to give it more localism (“On the same street, under the same sky… in the Miraflores neighborhood”), He invited everyone to make lives and video calls in “Inolvidable” and even imitated Juan Gabriel saying “Hold me very tight” when a fan (who turned out to be Fiorella Caballero, one of his young “Yo soy” imitators) went on stage with a poster: “I would like to sing with you.”

The concert was very well structured so that the almost three hours and more than 30 songs on the setlist were neither boring nor obvious. What’s more, among the several hits that made up the repertoire, ‘La Pausini’ included 9 songs from the album that she released at the end of 2023, something quite unusual in today’s shows in which artists make the most of the songs they already know. your audience. In addition, the Italian took the opportunity to present, through the chosen songs, some topics that are important to her: the preservation of the planet, the fight for the rights of LGBTIQ+ people, prevention once morest gender violence, among others.

At the outset, Laura declared that for her an artist without honesty is not an artist and that in her career she has always been transparent with her audience. “I am what I am on stage, without posturing, without believing myself to be a diva because I am not. I have always been honest with you, without hiding anything regarding myself from you,” she said and then announced precisely that her show would have many social issues involved and that in some the public might think like her but in others not. “Maybe we don’t agree on everything, but that’s the beautiful thing, respecting differences,” said Laura, who added that this was the spirit of her most recent album, the 14th of her career but the first made in conceptual format. because each song is an independent story.

On stage, the various elements available were also used to tell stories. There were many video projections on screen with Laura in different aesthetics. Her wardrobe proposal was also a highlight. ‘La Pausini’ changed her outfit 5 times, each one more impressive than the other. She came out on stage in a black Alessandro Vigilante tailoring, then transitioned to an elegant red Valentino dress and also had a colorful Emilio Pucci design. No detail was left adrift.

Laura used a pink microphone and the members of the band led by her husband matched her with pink instruments. At the beginning, there were 6 people on stage: Laura and 5 musicians, but little by little the space was filling up: choristers, dancers, performers and fans, whom the artist was letting up at times. She also moved around the stage indifferently: she started singing on a platform, then she moved to a catwalk, then she sat at the piano, at another time she played the electric guitar. At various times, she sang a cappella, although the audience who knew her songs always gave her a loud chorus.

A moment of intimacy was when the artist performed “Yo si”, the song for which she won a Golden Globe in 2021 and was in the Oscar race. The audience fell into a respectful silence for Laura’s performance, which was on par with the one she gave at the Academy Awards alongside Diane Warren. And, unlike other artists who take care of their voices on certain stops on their tours and opt for ‘playback’, the Italian always offers 100% of her talent in Lima.

At the end of the evening, the Italian explained why. “My name is Laura and my wish for the next 30 years is to continue singing for you.” Without a doubt, a celebration of true vocation and passion for what is done.

This was the setlist of the Lima show on March 6, 2024:

1. The first step on the moon

2. Last

3. A good start

4. Every time

5. Average truths

6. I sing

7. Love emergency

8. So celestial

9. Our daily love

10. In front of us

11. Listen attentively

12. Parallel souls

13. Between you and a thousand seas

14. As if we had not loved each other

15. Primavera anticipada/ It Is My Song

16. Box

17. I will return to you

18. Clean

19. Surrender

20. With music on the radio

21. I want to tell you that I love you (surprise theme for Peru)

22. Nobody has said

23. Right side of the heart

24. I never abandoned

25. In the absence of you/ It’s Not Goodbye

26. Welcome

27. Similar

28. The things you live

29. I do

30. Live me

31. Sister Earth

32. Zero

33. On the other hand, no

34. Unforgettable

35. Strange loves

36. Loneliness

37. He left

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