In Paris, where he performed a couple of weeks ago, stopping at the Olympia with his European tour, the critics of Le Monde called him “the little prodigy of Italo-pop”. In London, on the occasion of the British leg of the tour, the Financial Times dedicated an article to him, describing him as “the singular artist who has mixed together influences from the ’70s, sarcasm and sincere poetry”. The best definition of Calcutta, however, remains the one that the 35-year-old singer-songwriter from Latina gave himself a few years ago, introducing himself as “the Cassano of singer-songwriters”: “I’m standoffish. During the game I have a flash, then for the rest of the game I step aside”. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that he wanted to title his latest album Relax.
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THE NEW ALBUM
After the release of Evergreen, the album that consecrated Edoardo D’Erme in 2018, this is his real name (of his artistic name he says: «It was a name on the intercom of my grandparents’ building. I liked the sound»), fans had to wait as long as five years before being able to listen to new music from their idol. However, since he ended his recording silence last October with Relax, «Edo» has not stopped for a moment, taking his songs everywhere.
After the tour of Italian sports halls last winter (which had stopped in Rome for a double on December 7 and 8, gathering 15 thousand spectators at the Palazzo dello Sport in Eur) and the European concerts that kept him busy in the first two weeks of June, the voice of Cosa mi manchi a fare inaugurated the summer tour on June 22 from Lignano Sabbiadoro that tomorrow night will bring him back to the Capital with a show already sold out. Over 30 thousand kids are ready to sing at the top of their lungs under the stage of Rock in Roma, at the Ippodromo delle Capannelle, Oroscopo, Gaetano, Paracetamolo, Orgasmo, Pesto and the other hits that have made him one of the biggest phenomena of Italian pop in recent years. “Hit” in the literal meaning of the term, in the sense that Calcutta’s songs have hit the system.
THE SUCCESS
Before the advent of the (anti)hero of the indie, who studied languages at Sapienza University, lived in a student residence in Spinaceto and in the evenings frequented the clubs of Pigneto, Italian music was in the hands of multinational record companies and on the radio and in the same names had always been on TV for twenty years. His success, which started from the bottom and with very little means, when in September 2015 the video of Cosa mi mandi a fare went viral on social media, shuffled the cards. Kicking off that generational change in Italian pop which at a certain point even the artistic directors of the Sanremo Festival had to inevitably take note of, from Claudio Baglioni to Amadeus: it all started with Calcutta (which, however, went to the Ariston precisely he doesn’t want to know: «Too stressful and complicated»).
THE NUMBERS
Today Edoardo D’Erme does numbers that aren’t exactly like those of an indie singer-songwriter (last year’s tour of the sports halls recorded 90 thousand attendances). And even the ticket prices for his shows are more pop star-like than anything else (for tomorrow’s date on TicketOne the bracelets for the “gold” lawn a few meters from the stage were on sale for 63.25 euros, while the tickets for the standing room only cost 46 euros). But he always remains the singer of the generational discomfort of the times of Mainstream, the album Cosa mi manchi a fare: «We all seem failed, all exhausted», he sings in Tutti, one of the songs included in the album Relax, which will not be missing tomorrow in setlist together with Controtempo, Giro con te, Loneliness, Preoccuparmi, among echoes of the Battisti of the late 70s of Una donna per amici and Una giorno uggiosa (filtered through Audio2), a bit of funk and a bit of contemporary electronics .
THE EVENING
For the 30,000 people ready to gather at the Ippodromo delle Capannelle starting tomorrow afternoon (gates open at 5 p.m.), special trains have been arranged to Roma Termini to return to the city center (purchasable from the MooneyGo app) and also shuttle buses (first departure scheduled 30 minutes after the end of the concert, second departure scheduled for about 90 minutes after the end of the show – tickets can be purchased on eventibus.com). Indie karaoke is ready to ignite.
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