by Andrew
Spinelli
A summer in Harry’s. What a night it was, last night for mr. Styles in the warm embrace of the RCF Arena, where he kicked off his massive Love On Tour in front of 103,000 raging souls – 169 concerts on four continents over 22 months – and produced the most crowded show of his 29-year career. “One Direction Era”. Even on the Italian live scene, 103 thousand makes Sundar Harry the man to beat in a single event. The weekend between the following Wednesday and Thursday draws 155,000 spectators to the Sneaky La Moura Racecourse in Milan, but over two nights. At the moment, in fact, in terms of capacity, there is no structure in Italy capable of competing with the RCF Arena (Campovolo for those who are indifferent) for its supremacy. Nor have paid shows held in adapted areas reached some peak of attendance this year, as happened in Trento last summer at Vasco, with 111,881 admissions. With the exception of Styles, the RCF does not even have an artist capable of reaching the 104,328 called for by Ligabu on the same stage in 2022 with the new structure’s inaugural show. That of his thirty year career.
In this race for the mega-festival, Modena Park remains the record holder Rossi with 225,000 in 2017, the European live show with the highest paying audience ever. behind all others, almost all in the Reggio Airport area where the Mega Arena stands today. Just think of Ligabue himself, who brought 165,264 fans under the stage (or in the four boxes of that set-up) at the 2005 debut of Campovolo. The company repeated in 2011 with 117,060 (albeit with a limited pool) and again in 2015 with 151,395. However, at that time, everything had to be specially built on site, while today there is a well-equipped structure of 200 thousand square meters built with an investment of about 12 million euros.
The Reggio airfield area was also a wasteland in 1997, when the Emilian stage of U2’s PopMart Tour attracted 146,000 spectators there. In Italy, live music had already taken on a colossal dimension in the 1980s with Bob Marley’s one million (real or estimated because the rules were certainly much less restrictive than today, but the third ring was still missing) at the San Siro: an event that remains a legend. Now the baton has passed from the hands of the 1980s king of reggae, who came from the Jamaican ghetto and used music and spirituality to defeat oppression and reclaim his rights, to the king of pop 2023, an Englishman from a well-to-do family, songwriter and actor who made it big by combining sequined suits and the strange fluidity of an ostrich boa with the heartwarming boyfriend (and ex-boyfriend) of many beauties from Taylor Swift. Used to mesmerize fans in numbers. From Kendall Jenner, director Olivia Wilde to current latest flame Guadagnino Bones and ol’ actress Taylor Russell. Bob and Harry have at least one thing in common: with them still on stage to triumph – after 40 years – that’s the inspiration: “peace and love”.