Aperyshow 2019: the charity music Festival that even the rain can’t stop!

Two Sundays ago, I was just finishing up a mini tour that, in the span of a few days, took me from Rome to Beirut in Lebanon and from Milan to Umag in Croatia, then back to Rome again, with an immediate next date ahead: destination Piazzola sul Brenta (Padua) for the Aperyshow 2019.

Just like many fans of dance music and nightlife, I followed the previous 4 days on social media: an audience of more than 20,000 people for DJ Antonie, DJS From Mars, Merk & Kremont, Cristian Marchi, Saturnino, Federico Scavo and most of the hottest names on the Italian dance music scene, and more.

I’m hitting it fully charged: last year’s event was wonderful (here’s the 2018 after movie https://youtu.be/yzy9vbD_ysw) and this year, for the first time, I will take the Space Violin Project on stage with an excerpt from the adventures of Commander AJ.

Train, car, arrival… it’s drizzling, the artists flow one after the other on the stage according to the line-up.

APERISHOW 2019

The square seems a bit dull, many take refuge under the wide porticos that surround this temple of music, but they’re not leaving (the square is splendid in Piazzola, and so many artists have performed here in recent years: Queen + Adam Lambert, Lionel Richie, Earth Wind & Fire, Mika, Elton John, Skunk Anansie, Simply Red, Kiss).

I reach the backstage tent where dozens of artists are all amassed together, cold and wet, yet happy, because the morale of the troops is high!

Around 7pm the rain intensifies but, incredibly, so does the crowd. People are gathered under the stage and, covered up in any way possible, they are dancing and having fun; a new trio formed by Scavo, Sartini and Provenzano performs, followed by Nicola Fasano and Miami Rockets, then it’s my turn and I start performing Born Again Babylonia with Nicola Fasano, one of his productions with Sunnery James and Ryan Marciano, for which I recorded the violin.

The time finally comes for me to become Commander AJ: I jump on stage with my blue suit and start playing (I’ll show you what happens shortly in a short after movie), though maximum energy is reached during the performance with Igor S and Lady Brian, good friends ever since they started inviting me to vibrate my strings in their “violin” night in various clubs. At 9.30pm the rain is coming down hard, it’s cold, but the crowd, under a sea of umbrellas, but doesn’t give up, and Brian’s shout out to “raise the umbrellas” creates such an epic response that, just like last year, and thanks to everyone involved, raised more than 100,000 euros for charity.

Heroic Aperyshow, it was an honor and a joy to be part of it!