AGI – “I said I would stop next year but when I met you again this year, I felt a warmth and love that I had never felt and then I told myself that as long as you are with me, I will leave here I will not move”. And Ultimo’s “Fairytale” continues: as demonstrated by yesterday’s sold out at the Olympic Stadium in Rome complete with an encore for tonight and tomorrow. Tank top, jeans, dark glasses which he will then remove, hat. Niccolo Moriconi, aka Ultimo, thus introduced himself to the public at the Rome stadium who had already rewarded him in terms of attendance years ago. The stands were packed to capacity, with young and old who sang and danced the entire time.
Over two hours of concert, with the Roman singer-songwriter, alone, running up and down the catwalks, supported by a band featuring Joel Ainoo on keyboards, Manuel Boni on guitar, Jacopo Carlini on piano, Mylious Johnson on drums, Raffaele Littorio on guitar, Silvia Ottanà on bass, Andrea Innesto on sax, Pierluigi Potalivo on guitar, Chiara Di Benedetto on cello, Tommaso Belli and Alessia Giuliani on violin, Marco Venturi on viola, Davide Albrici on trombone, Alessandro Bottacchiari on trumpet, and Alice Tombola on backing vocals. Ultimo held the stage alone for the entire time, alternating a few chats with the audience, in truth few but incisive words.
“This is my home”, he declared, referring to the stage of the Olympic Stadium in Rome and then, towards the end, the announcement: “I wanted to stop, but then I saw you and I don’t move”, while the new dates appeared on a screen announcing the continuation of the “Last stadiums 2025, La Favola continua” tour.
Well six dates at different stages including the Olimpico on 10 July; first stop Lignano Sabbiadoro on 29 June, Ancona 2 July, Milan 5 July, Messina 18 July and Bari 23 July. Still stages therefore, for the young singer-songwriter from San Basilio, a suburban neighborhood of Rome, raised on bread and piano, studied at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory and tenaciously linked to his Roman origins. A quiet start, rejected by top-level talent, then second at the Sanremo festival and fourth at the latest edition. But the popularity he achieved over the years was such that he earned the record of being the youngest Italian singer-songwriter to sell out stadiums, alone. We would have to ask ourselves about “phenomenon” Last, except that his pop, sometimes even rapped, clearly suggests that talking about love, writing about love and emotions that arouse feelings, feeling a little melancholy, is always good in the end. In the world where he rages rap and trap, direct and sometimes irreverent languages, Ultimo manages to take the stage with a singer-songwriter pop that is booming. Evidently there is a need for this too.
Ultimo has repeatedly stated that he has references, in Venditti, De Gregori, Lucio Dalla, Renato Zero. His is a perfect repertoire for stadiums that are now guaranteed sold out: when the dates for June 2024 were announced at the end of 2023, they were sold out in less than six hours 100 thousand tickets.
The set list of the first of the concerts in Rome moved at a fast pace between songs from his previous successes and those from his new work entitled “Altrove”, already certified gold. In a projected video, Jaqueline Di Giacomo also appears, to whom the singer-songwriter dedicated the Altrove single. And there was no shortage of surprise for the Roman public, when to the tune of Alba, whose text received the Siae plaque, images of the ongoing war were projected on the screen, arousing great emotion. The grand finale, amidst fireworks, was to the tune of “22 September” and “Sogni hanging”. The sold out dates in Rome will be followed in 2024 by two more stadium concerts on June 28th in Messina and June 6th in Padua. Here too, tickets have already been pulverized for some time.
