Best weekend of the year

"We are loaded and very happy": Carlo Pastore and Stefano Bottura, artistic director and director of 'MiAmi' respectively, thus address the eve of their festival, which will take place as per tradition at Milan's Magnolia circle May 26, 27 and 28. 'MiAmi' has now become one of the most important events of the Italian music season, in some ways equal to the Sanremo Festival and the Concertone del Primo Maggio in Rome, but, as the organizers are keen to specify, "Sanremo is a TV program that airs on public TV, for 'MiAmi' you have to pay the ticket and this determines the different nature of the event.

Plus it rests on our interesting but unprotected shoulders-and laughs-there is a different vibe." All true, 'MiAmi' has a totally different approach to music, whether a person organizes it or participates as an audience, despite the fact that it represents a great starting or ending point for an artist (thus celebration of achievements with one's music). The atmosphere is the authentic one of the festival, a festival that over the years has managed to build a community interested not only in what is happening in Italian music, without any antiquated distinction between 'indie' and mainstream, but especially in what is going to happen. In fact, the biggest difficulty today, for Pastore and Bottura, keeping aside the soaring costs of music (and more), "is explaining what we are to a generation that has not lived through the hottest moment, we realize that there are a lot of people who have not really understood what this festival is." Adds Bottura, "They asked me if all those artists were really playing live."

"There are six stages," Pastore says, "another thing that challenges us is to add a little piece every year, not out of megalomania, but to create the best weekend of the year," an effort that, according to Bottura, "is taken for granted, but it's not taken for granted, on the contrary, every year is an incredible effort. A tangible effort considering that 'MiAmi' 2023 will offer as many as 102 different performances covering every genre of music, from committed songwriting to rap, from garage rock to DJ sets. On Friday 26, among the most anticipated names will certainly include Lil Kvneki, L'Officina della Camomilla, Verdena, Lovegang126, Drast, Villabanks, Giuse The Lizia, Studio Murena and Bnkr44.

Saturday kicks off with, among many others, Dente, Fulminacci, Coma_Cose, Rondodasosa, Dargen D'Amico and Mecna. Sunday closes with Cosmo, Colombre, Federico Dragona, Ginevra, the Bud Spencer Blues Explosion, Levante and the special live performance by Vasco Brondi who takes on the role of Le Luci della Centrale Elettrica to celebrate the album "Canzoni da spiaggia deturpata."

'MiAmi,' first edition 2005, can be considered an excellent almanac for the history of Italian music, especially independent music

"To compose the lineup we listen to all the new music that comes out in Italy," Pastore explains, "we look for the sound that the 'MiAmi' community can like, we simply try to have the best artists possible to make the best festival possible, it is the records that come out that make us want to work on the next festival, when something comes out that has energy you get a good feeling and you want to put it on stage.

'MiAmi,' first held in 2005, can be considered an excellent almanac for the history of Italian music, especially independent: the raw material is not advertising revenue or share points, but the musical offer to those who pay a ticket to attend. "Those who seek find, those who do not seek are found," reads the claim of the 2023 edition, as if to say that nothing escapes the watchful eyes of 'MiAmi. "We're figuring out where music is going," Pastore says in fact, "that's what this festival is all about. "We're going together with those who make music," Bottura echoes him, "we've been doing it forever, 'MiAmi' is a place where those who play know that everyone is working in that direction there.

One sign," he explains, "are the guests who come by surprise, 'MiAmi' is beautiful because it amplifies little things that are in the air and stops them like a photograph. On this ideological solidity somehow rests the success of 'MiAmi', so it is and so it will be, even as far as the future is concerned. "In 2013 I thought it was my last 'MiAmi' and instead I'm still here," Pastore admits, "some ideas for next year we have, when you do a festival, despite the effort, you immediately think about the next one.