In the end it happens that mega six-figure live gatherings are always the prerogative of the sacred monsters of rock, who do not want to surrender to the dictatorship of music made of streaming, sampling and autotune. Let there be rock, then, as long as there is someone to carry forward this flag, and yesterday in Reggio Emilia one hundred thousand resistant souls wanted to pay their homage to one of those bands that rock – heavy, hard, well everyone gives their own definition , which this self-jealous generation will always have to contest in terms of details – they have objectively written history. Yesterday AC/DC brought their only Italian concert of the fiftieth anniversary tour to Reggio Emilia, in what was once Campovolo, which for the live world from being almost synonymous with Ligabue has now become the Rcf Arena, the space for largest open-air concerts in Europe.
The band takes the stage with the hits “If you want blood” then “Back in black”, in a show that is practically made up of hits only; easy for those who in the name of hard rock – ok, we’ve come up with a definition – have built one of the most successful careers in history. It’s not a night for b-sides and rarities, we go straight to immortal songs carved into history.
Fire at such a fast pace that you don’t keep up with the times: the set list is the same, with some reversals of order compared to the first two European dates, but little changes, but everything seems to flow by faster, as if in an accelerated time, precisely what the band on stage and its hundred thousand fans below seem to have stopped.
Acting as an interlude and taking the show beyond two hours is a long one-man show by Angus Young who takes the stage for about twenty minutes of guitar lessons. Pause at the end of a barrage of decibels fired into the ears of the bystanders, even if the mosh pit concerts, the hard one, are perhaps an aspect of the past, replaced by a sea of cell phones and red horns from intermittent little devils that adorn the hair of the elderly and little ones.
Hard rock, yes, but the shoulder-bashing of the onlookers no longer finds too much space, it’s better to enjoy the concert listening to a band with a granitic sound that hasn’t actually been affected by the past years and in impeccable form on stage.
The arena is adequately equipped to welcome everyone, the promises of free water and no obligation of minimum purchases at the bars are maintained and so it is right to enjoy them, even if a little more static and fascinated by the giant screens compared to fifty years ago . That’s right, the average age of the audience is adults, even if this in itself doesn’t mean who knows what, given that what was once called a mosh pit isn’t particularly successful even among Gen Z.
Statistical data: one hundred thousand spectators, 6500 tickets sold abroad, 8000 in Reggio. A procession towards the Rcf Arena which began on Friday, with the first ones stationed hours before the gates opened to get a place in the front row which, however, was objectively reachable even for those who simply had a ticket for the Red Zone. Don’t call it a pit, given the semantic controversies that arose on the web months ago, but in fact anyone who paid a little more for those tickets, even arriving yesterday afternoon, would have been able to get closer to the understage. For those who retreat to the rear of the red zone or who have purchased tickets for the others, binoculars are better.
This was inside the Rcf Arena, while Reggio Emilia was a calm, orderly and friendly sea of black t-shirts converging towards the concert. The influx is monochrome or almost black, with an overwhelming percentage of AC/DC designer t-shirts, in defiance of the precept that you don’t go to concerts wearing the t-shirts of the bands they play. Better to bring it from home, in fact, given that at merchandising stands the official ones are sold for 40 euros at the reception village at the station and around 50 at the entrances to the arena. Money talks, we know it by now. But no one, after all, forces you to buy them. There are also those who arrive at the concert gates by bike with a Graziella fueled by wine in a tank as a tank, and swear that they have cycled on it since Bologna, and then confess that they have only parked the car a few kilometers further down and covered pedal the remaining distance. In the name of rock, but up to a certain point, of course.
Reggio is a polite city, not Sin City, which brings together generations like the 39 year difference between Piero Pelù and Thomas Raggi, the Maneskin guitarist, guests backstage. Two and a half hours later, “We salute you”, then off along the “Highway to Hell” into which the Via Emilia turns on the way back.
