Two hours of irreverent comedy but also musical virtuosity in the show that brought Elio and the exciting stories back to the Ponchielli Theater last night, in a reunion that the audience had been waiting for a long time, entitled “I only have one.” “The tooth is left and I’m trying to screw it back in,” directed by Giorgio Gallione. The theater was sold out, many people came from outside the province for a concert in which the Elii show that they have not aged either as musicians or as cabaret artists and, without having to reinvent their songs, many arrangements in fact follow the original versions.
Nine of the songs in the set list come from the album that took them out of the niche of the nonsense scene in the early 1990s – a collection with the unpronounceable title “Italian rum casusu çikti” – from “Vitello dai fatti di balsa”. to “Urna” and is referred to as “serfs”. There are many funny inserts between the individual songs; The scenography is sober, the protagonists are them, in the quasi-original version, with the new addition of the maestro Vittorio Cosma, already in the scientific committee of the Corde dell’anima, in the part that could have been that of Rocco Tanica. And then Faso on bass, Cesareo on electric guitar, Christian Meyer, drums, Jantoman, keyboards, Paola Folli, voice and presence excellently integrated into the insane context. Honorable mention to Mangoni, irresistible in her disguises, imaginary animal from time to time, super young, sequined stroller for Pork and Cindy (the ending was censored).
Otherwise everyone is dressed in white, Elio wears no wigs or disguises, he appears in a 1920s suit, clearly visible with Bermuda shorts and men’s garter belts.
The audience goes into a frenzy singing “Supergiovane” and “Born to be Abramo”; and there is no lack of references to the land of persimmons, with remarks aimed more at Italian vices than virtues.
And in the finale, the first encore, “Out into the daylight,” a prog rock song by former Genesis Mike Rutherford, seems to want to remind everyone, before they leave the theater after a concert full of gags and laughter, what kind of musicians they are are the Elians. GB
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