On Tuesday this week, the residents of Genoa Italy were devastated with a bridge collapsed. At the time of one of the early articles, 37 people were presumed dead, and death toll was already rising:
Some articles I have seen have harsher, more definitive leanings about what they think is the cause and who is to blame, but for the purposes of this piece, that is not necessarily important. It’s more important that people’s lives have been changed, and the people of Geona are grieving. Our hearts go out to the Italian people at this time.
Some of us have known IL VOLO for a long time, but many others (like me) have started to follow them after Sanremo.
So, for many, Sanremo was a beginning, but those beautiful days of February 2015, how exactly did they take place?
Sanremo started on February 10th, but IL VOLO entered the scene from the second evening, on February 11th, Gianluca’s birthday.
Perhaps not everyone knows that in those days SORRISI E CANZONI, an Italian journal of music and gossip, entrusted to Piero, Ignazio and Gianluca, a video-diary, that is a daily appointment, where they had to make a video and tell their emotions.
I found on Vimeo, all the videos, with the translations, so you can read what our kids said in those days.
What about, again fantastic reaction of the public that call their name aloud. The guys are very excited with Carlo Conti (the presenter) who keeps reminding them that they are competing.
And here we are at the final moment, the ranking has been said, the first three positions are missing, Carlo Conti calls on the stage all three singers.
The guys, immediately after the victory, the kisses and hugs and the pose for the cover of SORRISI E CANZONI for the victory of Sanremo.
I do not know if all of you had seen all this, I myself was not looking at Sanremo, I turned channel only at the time of victory, I saw the delivery of the trophy but I had not yet heard the beautiful GRANDE AMORE, and when I heard it, it was immediately great love !!!
I hope this reconstruction has thrilled you, as it has excited me, and you find that the video diary made by Piero Ignazio and Gianluca has shown them to us as they are really . . . three simple and nice guys, our three boys of IL VOLO .
In this period there will be little new news, and so we often use the time to reviewold videos.
It’s just what I did, and I tried to find videos, which maybe, not everyone has seen, or at least I hope so.
The first video is from 2010. I had seen only small fragments here and there but never everything, and my research had led to nothing, but in these days, thanks to Connie Bruns who tracked and shared, here it is.
“O Sole Mio”, filmed in Taormina, when, going to play a concert there, it was still a dream for our guys. What are you saying? This video has brought good luck !!
But how small they were … and that final hug … very sweet !!
The second video is from 2011, is a medley made in Malaysia, in Kuala Lumpur, includes:
IL MONDO
THIS TIME
PAINFULLY BEAUTIFUL
IL MONDO and UN AMORE COSI’ GRANDE a cappella songs
SMILE
2012Spain, RELOJ
2013 concert in Panama.
Someone uninvited, a transvestite, enters the stage during the concert and walks, people laugh, thinking that is part of the show, the guys are amazed at the presence, but continue to sing, as real professionals, as long as someone sends out this person.
2014 During the concert in Mexico they perform with the Mariachi.
HISTORIA DE UN AMOR
2015 From the studios of Radio Rai, CANZONE PER TE.
2016 Washington BEAUTIFUL THAT WAY
2017 Germany LIBIAM DE LIETI CALICI
And after this feast of old videos, I hope to have found some that you had never seen, but anyway, even if already seen, I bet you have re-seen them willingly, is not it?
I suggest you read these wonderful considerations by Maura Pucci on the subject: Il Volo and their fans.
I can not explain the phenomenon “fan of Volo”. Instead, I have feelings certainly to be verified. And these feelings lead me to conclude that it is difficult (nothing is impossible!) to find something similar elsewhere.
There are singers, who fill arenas and stadiums, have a huge but less … cohesive fan, much more diverse. Same thing I have to say, thinking about my children, regarding the world-famous foreign bands, of which they are fans since they were young.
When these bands come to Italy, there is great enthusiasm, ticket hunting, they go to applaud them in other cities, sold out concerts, woe to those who touch them etc … Despite this, my children do not follow and have never followed these bands, in the same way that we follow IL VOLO.
From one concert to another they leave them, they do not think about them in the least.
The fandom de Il Volo is something different and it is also necessary to make distinctions.
In Latin America we find the younger fans who constantly follow their idols, especially on Instagram, which is daily fed by the guys themselves. Their appreciation is manifested above all with smiles and little hearts, also because young people do not like to write ….. In the US and in Italy their audience is different, more adult, musically more prepared and appreciates more the voices that the appearance physical. In the US they heard them sing professionally since they were kids. Effect “infant prodigy”……
But, unlike what they did with Shlrley Temple, they did not abandon them once they grew up, on the contrary … The numerous transatlantic flights on the occasion of the Italian concerts, in particular in Taormina and Verona, are showing that their love is “forever”.
In Italy some of us have known them almost like brats and then they found them already great, others have discovered them in their twenties or so. All of us were struck by sounds now obsolete, melodies and forgotten harmonies, finally true voices. And we all adopted them or we fell in love with them, depending on age ….
The pages dedicated to them have sprung up like mushrooms. I think, that in the world no singer has a number of fan pages superior to IL VOLO and not even in Italy as regards the “our own” singers …. Too bad there are no comparative studies in this sense!
So, it formed a hard hoof of Italian and American fans that follows them on Facebook in a manic and obsessive way and that follows them, if he can, in concerts from one end of the peninsula to the other, not sporadically …. but DAILY .
We always know where they are, with whom they are, where they sleep, what they eat (of this subject we are very well informed …) and if they go to a place without letting us know why, we get angry too …. We are even able to follow the route of their planes step by step when they travel. And we look forward to knowing when they land. We travel with them, we live with them. Let’s make a local mind: is this normal? Does it happen to fans of other singers ?. Personally I can not believe it.
To conclude …… Our attachment to Il Volo, which makes us a permanent fan “in service”, I would call it type,…. morbid / familiar, that is visceral: we feel them part of our affections. In fact, we can not bear to be left without news of them.
Through videos and photos, which fortunately the guys generously do not make us miss, we live in symbiosis with them … It is as if, every day, we put them under a microscope to learn everything about them: nothing escapes us, a look of understanding, a gesture, a grimace, even a sigh.
And all we try to interpret, each according to their sensitivity and their desires. That being the case, the deep feelings that our guys inspire us, it is inevitable that they translate into POETRY, on the part of those who are able to transform emotions into words. Very difficult, in my opinion, to find something similar in fans of other singers.
And you do not think that they, feel suffocated by this our great love for them?
No,they are instead gratified and consoled by all the negative things they undeservedly receive.
Personally, I like to imagine them wrapped in a giant bubble of love, a sort of protection, to proof of the bullets of those who do not love them.
If they did not know they are so loved, they would not be smiling and happy as they are actually our dear Gianluca, Piero and Ignazio !!!
Congratulations Maura, you made a beautiful analysis, in which I find myself, because I am a fan of IL VOLO and I confirm it with pride!
Daniela
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Credit to all owners of photos.
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