Chronicle of an evening as magical as it is longed for: the first Italian live for three swedish man.

For those who love the Swedish House Mafia like us, illustrating how epic the Italian leg of the tour was is a pleasantly demanding undertaking that involves a lucid balance between the amount of well-deserved praise and the editorial need to contain them in what will be too few lines to stem a river full of emotions.

The adrenaline vortex takes on a logical sense when, climbing the stairs of the Mediolanum Forum in Milan, each of us has rewound the audio and video frames of the golden era written by the 3 top Swedish DJs: an engaging action movie with a stop image of five years, before the new “play” that we are all enjoying!

During their performances Sebastian Ingrosso Steve Angello and Axwell play “We Come We Rave We Love” with the name of Ravers identify their fans, revelers who sing happily waving their arms to the sky and hugging or jumping in a transport of emotions that projects them in a dimension of love and enthusiasm.

The Mediolanum Forum is the long-awaited meeting place for all Italian ravers. They are fans who, as already seen in other stages of the tour, cover a wide age gap that reflects the duration and intensity of the career of the three famous producers. They are boys and girls who for years have toured the best clubs in the boot to follow Steve di Seb’s or Axel’s live-solos (aficionados talk about it just like they talk about a best friend). A minority of them are among the lucky ones who have even crossed borders to attend international events from previous tours often at the best electronic music festivals.

Having admired the capacity and organizational efficiency of the building, I am already in the stands to please me first with the elegant and enveloping set by Andrea Oliva and then with the powerful one of the Brazilian Vintage Culture. I am amazed by the beautiful performances but also by the low turnout. Although it is a weekday, the crowd is still too small in relation to the time given the announced sold-out. Yet we are talking about two top dj-producers acclaimed across the border within the reach of the same ticket, something in the mentality of the Italian public still needs to be improved!

The fateful moment is approaching, a couple of guys ask for the place, she is pregnant and yet she does not want to miss this longed-for moment from the 2018 reunion because they met and then married dancing to the Swedish hits. Other crews of boys go down the steps, wearing t-shirts with the logo of the three black circles, some the sweatshirts of the Refune of the Size or of the Axtone (labels of the three producers). Meanwhile, the black tent closes around the stage and we all wonder what the LED bracelets delivered to us will be used for.

I have time to rethink for a moment the dance of the first five years of the new millennium enriched by the French Touch but boringly lacking in new “ear-shells” tracks. It is precisely in that period that consequently and fortunately I know the first remixes and the first productions of Angello Ingrosso and Axwell, through some downloads from E-mules or videos uploaded to MySpace.

The interest and fame of the three grows steadily until 2009. It is the year that marks the take-off of the “bomber” flying the Swedish flag that in the next three years would have released hits in all world rankings, becoming a brand from which to take inspiration and a production style from which other illustrious producers have pinched.

“Can You Feel It” echoes several times and finally the bracelets light up, synchronized with each other and with the stage; smartphones register and rise about 12000 “WOW”. The awning lowers while the speakers release the electronics that echo in our hearts and stomachs, while our eyes are enraptured by the hypnotic game of the powerful leds (to the point that Ingrosso no longer takes off his dark glasses). The wonderful Heavenly Hell of lights and sounds has begun for their 1st Italian live during Paradise Again World Tour!

 

While the first track mixes with the hits “It Gets Better” and “Greyhound” all the leds turn blue with “Miami 2 Ibiza”. The eyes are only shining with emotion but they can observe the scenography of the stage that rises as the smoke dissolves: a long futuristic console surmounted by a single huge circle that rides on the three by tilting and crossing with the concentric circles of light inside. Steve Seb and Axel alternate in the projections on mega ledwalls, but that circle now unique and with more marked outlines also symbolizes the unity of the group, with three personalities and three different styles inside but the Swedish House Mafia is back.

The set continues, “Sacrifice / Knas / Lifetime / Antidote” mixed with “Tell Me Why/Frankenstein / More Than You Know / Teasing Mr. Charlie “, the beams of light are penetrating alternating with pyrotechnic games and while I mirror myself in how the dream trio has changed their look and physical appearance, another 12000″ WOW “are taken even stronger : the set is a Inferno surrounded by games of fire. The flames are immortalized by everyone, including Andrea Oliva (in the meantime mixing like other vips in the crowd) the first to do it on his Instagram profile. It is the first time that he indoors virtuosity of such epicness are manifested in a sports hall!

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/7DaAyGBB49M

 

Suddenly the dark and a single red light beam syncs with our bracelets it’s time for Redlight, the voic of Sting echoes in the stands. Still a choir, it’s time to sing The WeekendMoth to a flame”.

The show goes on interspersed with the messages of the three, they play the cheerful “Dream Bigger / Don’t Go Mad / For Sale” and blend beautifully despite being different tracks. The musical production of the Swedish House Mafia has been varied over time; after all, the famous painter Francis Picabia said “To have clear ideas you have to change them like shirts”.

There is space for the mega hit One and for tearjerking and tear-free “ballads” such as “Calling / Reload / Sweet Disposition / In My Mind”, heavenly moments and minutes of the evening unanimously and absolutely elected.

And then there is “Leave the World Behind”, “AHHH” that first Swedish House Mafia “bomb” (with the collaboration of Laidback Luke): a hymn to lightheartedness enhanced by the piano riff and progressive rhythm, the mind flies to the background of a dream video of the Miami Music Conference week made up of parties full of cheerful and irrepressible boys and girls.

We are all ecstatic but we would like it to never end, those bracelets are more like a thread that binds us all ideally between us and with our idols on stage, they play “Turn On The Lights Again … / Heaven Takes You Home” and someone wonders if a guest star can get on the Italian stage as happened in the other stages of the tour while they clap their hands and look for the looks of the friend of the partner or of the brother next to them.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CkJSfnDjOAg/

 

And here we are, all dark even the smartphone screens, a shy club choir “if you don’t put the last one we won’t go away”, it doesn’t last long because Axwell’s voice rises from the bottom announcing Zlatan Ibrahimovic fourth member for a night , for one track; the leds and the last ride of the magic circle start again and “Don’t you worry Child” plays while the 3 take back their seats for the last track together with an awkward Zlatan enchanted by the singing crowd.

Now Heavenly Hell is over and everyone goes down the steps in an orderly fashion, but we are her for other, our hunger has been greedily fed. Someone buys something from Merchandising that in all honesty seems too expensive for the lack of aesthetics and quality. The residents walk towards the metro bridge which, like in few other national realities, falls at the entrance of the turnstiles.

The common feeling and the echo of the comments is unanimous towards the epic, we all rewind the tape of the Golden Age of the Swedish House Mafia with the satisfaction of having experienced on the skin, in the eyes and with the vital organs all that we had previously admired dreamily in the Take One and Leave The World Behind docufilms, tonight we took part in the story.

We were like children who go to the circus, we enjoyed surprise and happiness, we took our breath away with fire and we got excited admiring three magical jugglers.

THANK YOU SWEDISH HOUSE MAFIA!

About Emilio Rinaldi

"MUSIC IS THE ANSWER"

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