For many years now “the” Sherwood (i.e. the festival) has become infinitely more popular than “the” Sherwood (in the sense of the radio that organizes it). It was certainly a consequence of the choice, at the time, to sell the frequencies to survive exclusively online (the writer remembers the disappointment with which a generic “jealous radio” suddenly took the place of the one he always listened to in the car and at home). The fact is that this year too, as in every summer for over twenty years now, the car park of the Euganeo stadium in Padua becomes one of the major summer attractions in the North-East for a month. Whether it's paid or free concerts, a full house is almost always guaranteed. Credit where credit is due, therefore, to an organization that has been able to improve itself year after year, without giving up the coherent political commitment of what was born as “the communist radio of Padua”.
And on Tuesday 16 June there were a lot of people under the stage already when Casadilego opened the evening. Elisa Coclite from Teramo, from a certain point of view, is a sum of elements that, normally, I would love to despise: indie singer-songwriter with pop ambitions (or the opposite – in the end it's the same thing), winner of X Factor and, consequently, healthy bearer of an all too “measured” concept of performance musical and, what's more, he took his stage name from an Ed Sheeran song. But since my cynicism is tempered by the pleasure I feel in being destabilized, I found the passion shown by the girl on stage truly adorable and the power of her lungs admirable – inversely proportional to her height. She is 23 years old and is, rightly, all love. His music is hormonal, in the most romantic sense of the term and without the slightest trace of malice. The short dress seems to be flirty, but then you see the Birkenstocks with the striped socks and you want to offer her a cracks Nutella and coconut. Its limit is that its music is so clean that you could eat on it: a little more incisiveness wouldn't hurt, but, in the end, if it managed to convince me with that type of proposal, it can only be passed with full marks.
The atmosphere changes suddenly, just before La Niña takes the stage: adolescent freshness gives way to an archaic awareness. Carola Moccia continues the path of a tradition, but does so in a direction that she chooses. Which starts, yes, from Naples, but embraces the entire Mediterranean, Spanish flamenco and Middle Eastern suggestions, with a unique ability to appear, when necessary, hieratic like a priestess and confidential like a friend.
If his latest album “Furèsta” (a masterpiece) already tips the balance more towards classically Neapolitan sounds, compared to the more “urban” pop of his debut “Vanitas” (still a great album), live the electronic element is further dried out. Minimalist arrangements prevail: percussion, castanets (“O Ballo d'e 'mpennate”) and, sometimes, just the voice is enough (“Mammamà”), with forays into baroque music (“Oinè”).
Paradoxically, the most “modern” thing about the concert was a version of the classic “Maruzzella” with voice and vocoder only. The best moments, however, are those in which the girl takes up the guitar and starts the most pressing songs, such as “Salomè”, “Guapparia” or “Figlia d'a Tempest”, in which pride and energy go hand in hand, driving the Sherwood audience crazy.
Guardian and innovator in equal measure, La Niña is yet more proof of the inextinguishable vitality of the Neapolitan music scene.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
