Fact #176228
When:
Short story:
The first Sonoria Festival has its last of three days in Parco Aquatica, Milan, Italy, Europe. Artists appearing on this day are Peter Gabriel, Chris Rea, Dwight Yoakam, Remmy Ongala And Orchestre Super Matimila, Ara Ketu, The Archie Shepp Quartet, Juan Formell y Los Van Van, Keziah Jones, Khaled, and Pitura Freska.
Full article:
Claudio Trotta (promoter) : Basically, my dream was to have an Anglo-Saxon type of festival in Italy, with lots of different types of music, and different events - fire-eaters, trampolines, tattooists, fortune tellers and so on. I called the first day The Big Wave and it was mostly rock, with bands like Aerosmith, Whitesnake and Huey Lewis. I called the second day, Reality Is legend, headlined by Bob Dylan with Jeff Healey, Jimmy Cliff and more. The third day was Freedom Of Music which featured Peter Gabriel, Chris Rea, Dwight Yoakam, Remmy Ongala …
This was the first time a festival of this sort had happened in Italy, but it was a disaster. It only attracted 6000 people over the three days, even though the ticket was only the equivalent of £50 for all three days.
Why was it a disaster? First of all, at that time in Italy the word 'festival' was connected to things like the Festival San Remo, which was actually a song contest. It was not connected with the idea of a huge event with a variety of different live acts. People just didn’t believe it. They thought the artists might be lip-syncing, or they just wouldn’t come. Also I launched it in a beautiful field in Milan near to a water park, and all the newspapers were calling me a genius and saying I was going to create a Woodstock for Italy. Another factor was that the weather that summer was far too hot. And the festival clashed with a big football match. So after the event, the newspapers started calling me an idiot, that I’d done it in a place that was over-run by mosquitos, it was too hot. So it was a flop, but I swore I would do it again, because I believed completely in the idea.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black for Audience magazine, February 2019)
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This was the first time a festival of this sort had happened in Italy, but it was a disaster. It only attracted 6000 people over the three days, even though the ticket was only the equivalent of £50 for all three days.
Why was it a disaster? First of all, at that time in Italy the word 'festival' was connected to things like the Festival San Remo, which was actually a song contest. It was not connected with the idea of a huge event with a variety of different live acts. People just didn’t believe it. They thought the artists might be lip-syncing, or they just wouldn’t come. Also I launched it in a beautiful field in Milan near to a water park, and all the newspapers were calling me a genius and saying I was going to create a Woodstock for Italy. Another factor was that the weather that summer was far too hot. And the festival clashed with a big football match. So after the event, the newspapers started calling me an idiot, that I’d done it in a place that was over-run by mosquitos, it was too hot. So it was a flop, but I swore I would do it again, because I believed completely in the idea.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black for Audience magazine, February 2019)