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Tutta L’Italia by Gabry Ponte
I called France’s Louane as arguably the biggest artist in this year’s Contest but there’s no doubting who has had the biggest hit. With his band Eiffel 65 Gabry Ponte’s sold over 8 million copies of Blue (Da Ba Dee) and topped the charts around the world, including the UK. It’s rare to see an artist with a UK number one in Eurovision but here we are.
Tutta L’Italia, whilst repping San Marino in this Contest, will have been heard by the whole of Italy many times over as the chorus featured in this year’s Sanremo festival as the interstitial music every time the show broke into and came back from a commercial break. Which given Italian TV was often. There was already a buzz about its use there, which plenty commenting it ought to have been a competing entry. Indeed some wags on the internet suggested how funny it would be were San Marino to snatch it up for Eurovision and clobber the Italians with the one they let get away.
Well, stranger things, and all that. Fast forward to March and there we were. Gabry had to win his place through the Sammarinese process, this was no coronation, or not officially at least. San Marino seems to have all manner of executable clauses to allow them to both run a ridiculously convoluted open casting process and still slot something hitherto unannounced that they fancy at the last minute. With so much exposure during Sanremo this was always going to have a competitive advantage.
The song is like a big football chant, with a big shout along chorus that will stir any voting Italian the continent over, and which has enough cross-appeal to pick up a handful of the drunk vote too. It’s never going to win any awards for originality or for its musical sophistication, but it’s a fun, ballsy entry that offers a very catchy singalong hook. Beyond that chorus though there’s barely anything else of real substance.
I feel it needs a big presentation, and with the only option to really present Gabry being behind the decks it only leaves a maximum 5 dancers to being it to life. It’ll be tempting to throw some huge visuals behind this on the screen, or try to pad it out with close and choppy camera shots, but they’re going to need to show the full impact in the arena too, and I fear this may lose some impact if the wide shots show a near-empty stage.
With Italy already a finalist I do hope this makes it through as it’s only by being in the final that we’ll get the chance to see it going up against the Italian entry itself. Many are predicting it will best the rather downbeat choice from Sanremo. It’ll be all eyes on Tuesdays semi-final – with Italy eligible to vote – to see if we’ll get a Saturday showdown.
My marks: 6 points
Photo: Pier Costantini/EBU