Medimex 2025

The fifteenth edition of Medimex, the International Festival & Music Conference promoted by Puglia Culture as part of the Puglia Sounds initiative, has wrapped up with over 70 hugely successful events on the bill. The city of Taranto, too often associated solely with the well-known Ilva (now ArcelorMittal) affair, returned to the spotlight of music, showing off its best face, backed by a history spanning more than 2,700 years. The beating heart of Medimex, beyond the industry panels and artist talks, is the live shows, staged in the striking setting of the Rotonda on Taranto's Lungomare Vittorio Emanuele III, with the sea to the left of the stage.

There was an almost messianic sense of anticipation in seeing, live, in the heart of Magna Grecia, an icon of alternative rock like St. Vincent, aka Annie Clark, winner of 6 Grammy Awards (3 of them in 2025 for her latest work "All Born Screaming"). That album, entirely self-produced, stands as one of the boldest and most visceral works of her twenty-year career, one in which the Tulsa-born singer-songwriter struck a perfect balance between spirituality, sonic power and introspective lyrics. St. Vincent's set was powerful and visionary, letting the 4,000 fans who flocked to Taranto (including plenty of foreign visitors) soak up the energy and talent of the multifaceted American artist, who first broke through worldwide in 2012 thanks to her joint album with David Byrne, the art-pop masterpiece "Love This Giant".

St. Vincent, who looks a good ten years younger than her 42, has a stage presence, a charisma and a sensuality that keep every eye locked on her - on her expressions, her knowing glances, her masterful shifts between grit and fragility. Her trusty guitar is wielded interchangeably as foil or saber, sometimes within the very same song, as in the irresistible "Broken Man", the lead single from the recent album "All Born Screaming", which opens as a dreamy ballad before gradually morphing into an adrenaline-fueled, distorted, hallucinatory noise-rock track, in which St. Vincent comes across like a Janis Joplin 4.0.

Another track with huge live impact is “Marrow,” a funk-rock number that's both tense and danceable, with a typically disco bassline that invites you to let your inhibitions go. The Oklahoma-born singer-songwriter clearly enjoys interacting with her excellent band, made up of bassist Charlotte Kemp Muhl, guitarist Jason Falkner, keyboardist Rachel Eckroth and the extraordinary drummer Mark Guiliana (handpicked by none other than David Bowie for his final masterpiece “Blackstar”), who offers a taste of his technical prowess in the long solo on “Cheerleader.” Also warmly received by the Medimex crowd are the melancholic “New York” and the electrifying “Sugarboy,” both pulled from 2017's “Masseduction,” one of her most inspired and personal records. “Twenty years ago I was right here in Taranto playing with a jazz group: on one side I could see the city, on the other the sea. I'm really happy to be back here with this incredible band, thank you so much for your warmth, I hope to come back to this beautiful city soon.” The finale is festive and thoroughly danceable, with the title track from her latest album “All Born Screaming,” driven by a compelling guitar riff and a rock-reggae rhythm straight out of the Police playbook.

After a brief stage changeover, it's time for Scotland's Primal Scream, led for over forty years by charismatic frontman Bobby Gillespie, who recently curated (together with Kate Moss) a capsule collection for one of the world's biggest fast-fashion brands. Fittingly enough, the same immaculate Tony Manero-style suit Gillespie wore on that warm Taranto evening was designed, for the well-known Spanish label, by his wife Katy England, a world-renowned stylist. One of the biggest challenges for an artist or band with decades of career behind them is refreshing their sound without alienating longtime fans won over by a particular musical style. It's a challenge Primal Scream met brilliantly on their latest album of new material, 2024's “Come Ahead,” a triumphant return after eight years without new music from a band that left a deep mark on the early '90s with a legendary album like “Screamadelica” (one of the most iconic covers of the late second millennium), which fused two seemingly opposite worlds, rock and electronic music.

From the opening track “Don't Fight” onward, with its soul-inflected choruses and typically funky wah wah guitars, it's clear that this Primal Scream show will be less a concert than a musical celebration, one where your legs move in step with your brain, given the Scottish band's strong political and social bent. A perfect example is the new track “Love Insurrection,” a song with disco echoes and shimmering horns that's made for dancing, yet carries a far-from-carefree message and closes with a political and social speech in Italian (also featured on the album “Come Ahead”) delivered by Taranto-born artist Anna Caragnano.

Two other standout tracks from the latest record are the adrenaline-fuelled “Ready To Go Home” and “Innocent Money,” songs that get you dancing and thinking at once, with a Gillespie who entertains and clearly enjoys himself like we've rarely seen. One of the most gripping moments of the show is undoubtedly “Come Together,” from “Screamadelica,” whose chorus “Come together as one” is chanted repeatedly by the crowd like a mantra of peace and unity, while just a few miles from us, in both Europe and the Middle East, the world is burning. It's no coincidence that Gillespie, after the song, sent out a message of support for Gaza with a “Viva Palestina!”, echoed repeatedly by the enthusiastic crowd.

A grand finale with the Scottish band's most beloved hits: a masterful one-two-three-four punch of “Loaded,” “Movin On Up,” “Country Girl” and the encore “Rocks,” turning Taranto's Rotonda into one giant open-air disco.

Although Primal Scream and Massive Attack share the same values, their shows could hardly be more different: as joyful and euphoric as the former was, the latter was just as dark and solemn, a kind of requiem for our turbo-capitalist, violent, hyper-connected society, sick with infodemic and indifference. Rarely have we witnessed a concert with such absolute coherence between visuals and songs, even though the English band's last studio album, led by Robert Del Naja and Daddy G, dates all the way back to 2010 (“Heligoland”) — a geological era ago, considering everything that's happened in the world over the past five years.

Great music doesn't age, it only gains value and meaning over time, as has happened with the songs of Massive Attack, the undisputed standard-bearers of trip-hop. Suspended, unsettling atmospheres, cavernous or angelic voices (like the still-glorious one of Elizabeth Fraser), sudden melodic openings, skilfully slowed-down hip-hop beats, echoes of jazz, dub and 1960s B-movie soundtracks: these are the sonic ingredients that enchanted, for an hour and a half, in a mix between nightmare and dream, the 8,000 spectators packed into Taranto's Rotonda. The undisputed centerpiece of the setlist, as it could hardly be otherwise, is the 1998 masterpiece “Mezzanine,” one of the most representative albums of the decade, emblematic of what Tricky (a former Massive member) would call “Pre-Millennium Tension.”

As all Massive Attack fans know, the Bristol band is an open collective with only two fixed members and various artists who have rotated through the ranks over the years. Last night, among the most welcome guests of the Taranto show, was the “wise old man” Horace Andy (74), who sang the gorgeous “Girl I Love You” and “Angel” in his deep, aching voice, but above all there was the angelic, dreamlike voice of Elizabeth Fraser, who gave magnificent renditions of “Black Milk,” “Teardrop” (one of Massive Attack's most beloved songs) and “Group Four,” earning thunderous applause from the Taranto crowd each time.

As binary code flashes across the big screen in Kraftwerk fashion, alongside cold statistics on bombs and deaths in Gaza and conspiracy theories, the era-defining hit “Unfinished Sympathy,” sung with Deborah Miller's soulful voice, brings a bit of joy and optimism. “We are all children of Palestine!” Robert Del Naja shouts at the top of his voice, drawing a roar from the Medimex crowd. This Massive Attack show wasn't an easy one, but it was a necessary one, leaving the 8,000 spectators with a feeling of disorientation, but also the joy of having seen live one of the most lucid and politically engaged acts on the electronic scene.

Besides the headliners' shows, great success also came with “Le Strade del Mediterraneo,” the special world-music project curated by Antonio Diodato, which brought La Niña, Bab L'Bluz and Magalí Datzira to the stage at Taranto's Castello Aragonese. Of great interest was the exhibition “Amy Winehouse before Frank by Charles Moriarty,” on display until July 6 at MArTA, Taranto's National Archaeological Museum, featuring around 50 previously unseen images telling the story of one of the most beloved artists of recent decades. The talks at Teatro Fusco featured two exceptional guests, Don Letts (Bob Marley, Clash) and Dave Rowntree (Blur), who also introduced their respective documentaries “Westway To The World” and “To The End.” Also visually striking was the original work by Roberto Santoro and Blending Pixels, “On the road compilation, Projection Mapping Show,” created for Medimex, which this year traced, on the facade of the Castello Aragonese, the history of the festival, featuring live performances by Iggy Pop, Liam Gallagher, Kraftwerk, Patti Smith, Pulp, Skunk Anansie and many others, while at the same time celebrating themes of peace and freedom.

Around 300 music industry professionals took part in this year's rich calendar of professional activities, including panels, workshops, themed roundtables and networking sessions. Medimex Book Stories, the section dedicated to music books, also drew a large crowd this year, hosting Ermal Meta, Cristiano Godano, Erica Mou and Ghemon. “Medimex will return to Taranto from June 16 to 20, 2026,” announced Paolo Ponzio, president of Puglia Culture. “This edition was a great success and had a major impact on the city and the region.” “Medimex closes with the Massive Attack concert, which for us marks an important and fitting conclusion to all the meaning we've tried to give, over the years, to this festival supported by the Puglia Region: peace, creativity, younger generations; the overturning of the rules to protect the environment and people's health, to prevent global warming, water shortages, or the exploitation of labour,” commented the President of the Puglia Region, Michele Emiliano. “We broke the record for season-ticket sales, had numerous sellouts, and the whole machine — a complex machine — ran perfectly. As I've said before, but feel the need to repeat, it's thanks to a great team of women and men, enriched this year by the presence of Diodato and Riondino, who have been working tirelessly for days to give everyone unforgettable moments. See you in Taranto in 2026,” said Cesare Veronico, artistic coordinator of Medimex/Puglia Sounds.

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