Lucio Dalla - Francesco De Gregori

Lucio Dalla and Francesco De Gregori are finally back on the same stage for an official date, 30 years after the historic "Banana Republic" tour: 2010, barely underway, has delivered an event fans had been waiting for a very long time. True, there had been New Year's Eve 1997 in Assisi, an intense "Santa Lucia" sung together last June 24th during the re-enactment of the Battle of Solferino, and a brief appearance in Benevento a few days ago, but those had felt like one-off occasions rather than the revival of a real project. Instead, here's a "proper" show together, one that's tellingly titled "Work in progress", which really does suggest the idea of preparing a new tour, one that might once again be set against open-air backdrops. It was precisely the 1979 shows that had given music back to the great open spaces and audiences of the stadiums, a breath of fresh air after the grim 1970s, marked by protests against singer-songwriters, which had seen De Gregori himself at the centre of one of the most absurd episodes, at the Palalido in Milan in 1977. Last night, however, the chosen setting was the Vox in Nonantola, with its intimate atmosphere and its 1500 spectators, who had flocked in from all over Italy, packed together and also a bit (to put it mildly) overheated!

The atmosphere in the air a few minutes before the start, though, is that of a major event, with well-known journalists, politicians (Bobo Craxi and Franceschini) and other fellow artists dropping by to catch a glimpse of the masters (Ligabue, Antonacci, Carboni). At 9 sharp, De Gregori walks in, wearing a grey cap and blue hoodie, followed by Dalla, sporting a dark-striped brown pinstripe jacket over a polo shirt. The former on harmonica, the latter on clarinet, they launch into an instrumental "Over The Rainbow", and the anticipation dissolves into heartfelt, visibly moved applause. The near-obligatory opener is "Dove vanno i marinai", though "Cosa sarà" and many other songs from the 1979 tour are missing; in short, this was anything but a predictable, dreary revival, in case anyone had doubts on that front. If anything, the setlist is wildly unpredictable: the second song comes from Dalla's own repertoire, as he sits down at the keyboard (at one point even accompanying himself with an electric razor) while De Gregori sings the opening lines of "Tutta la vita" (one of the most joyous moments of that aforementioned New Year's Eve in Assisi). Next comes "I Matti", one of the most poignant songs in De Gregori's catalogue, though hardly among the best known to the general public.

As the minutes go by, it really does feel like you've stumbled by chance into a rehearsal room that, last night, opened its doors to the public to reveal a work in progress that fans of Italian singer-songwriter music had been longing to see reopened for a very long time. "Canzone" is met with a roar of applause, "Anna e Marco" is deeply moving with a truly superlative De Gregori, "L'agnello di Dio" is arranged as in recent tours, with the substantial addition of Dalla on sax, ready to slash masterfully through the song's accusatory lyrics and just as ready to soften the secular prayer of the refrain.

Then comes the one song everyone was certain would be played: "Santa Lucia", which the Bolognese singer introduces by once again confessing his envy at not having written it himself. "L'anno che verrà", a vibrant "I muscoli del capitano" built on the chords of the folk song "Il tragico naufragio della nave Sirio" as its musical "framework", which then veers into the chorus of "Que sera, sera", a sign of the rapport and rediscovered playfulness between the two.

"Come è profondo il mare" is perhaps the most intense moment of the entire set, with De Gregori, whenever he tackles other people's songs, proving himself more and more to be a great interpreter in his own right; "Buonanotte Fiorellino" is presented in its now-familiar rock guise, while "Viva l'Italy" and "Piazza Grande" close out the hour-long open rehearsal.

To great demand, the two stars of the evening are quickly back on stage with a brand-new song: "Non basta saper cantare" (there's also been persistent talk of a joint album), which on first listen really does seem to stand alongside each artist's finest work. Finally, the tete-a-tete mood pushes toward one last encore (even as Dalla improvises a little comic aside, struggling to explain to the audience that there really are no more songs ready to go): "4 marzo 1943", performed "Buskers"-style, with De Gregori on guitar in his hoodie and Dalla on keyboard. Perhaps two or three more songs along these lines wouldn't have hurt, even at the cost of less-than-perfect execution, since those are probably exactly the moments the crowd of aficionados packed into the venue most wanted to take home with them.

After an hour and twenty minutes in total, the door of that imaginary rehearsal room closes amid applause and the shared feeling of having witnessed a truly unique evening, with both artists looking genuinely inspired, eager to enrich each other's repertoire and happy to put themselves on the line again and travel a new stretch of road together; proof of this lies in the renewed rapport and the desire to share both the stage and the songs, all performed by both of them together. The band's contribution was excellent, and the chemistry already seemed strong between the musicians on De Gregori's side (Arianti, Valle and Guglielminetti) and on Dalla's side (Iscra Menarini, Coppini, Dei Lazzaretti, Mariani, Alemanno and Colaprisca).

From the impromptu press conference upstairs came word of a string of dates lined up at the Arcimboldi in Milan and the Gran Teatro in Rome in May. And then let's hope the great outdoor venues return, and that they come on summer nights; the two men from Banana Repubblic are in better form than ever (yes, better musicians, and above all more in sync in terms of their creative worlds than in their past experience together), and it would truly be a shame to stop here.

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