For goodness sake, someone may legitimately think that The guitar in the rock – concert film directed by the talented Tommaso Ottomano, which documents Lucio Corsi’s live performance last July 30th in the suggestive Abbey of San Galgano, in The Space Cinema from November 3rd to 5th – is yet another scratch, a way like any other to make money. After all, 2025 was the year of the Tuscan singer-songwriter, obviously, if not exactly by numbers (the real champion there is Ollyfor example) at least for the media and transversal reach of the phenomenon, as well as for the sense of disorientation and for all the debate aroused. It’s not a small thing and, in short, a film is a bit of a guaranteed catch.

Not a concert film like many others

Yet, these ninety minutes captured on 16mm film – and which from November 14th will become a live album – they still deserve to be seen, not only because in the background there is a beautiful church in a state of ruin, a few kilometers from the same Maremma where Corsi was born, with the sun gradually setting among the perfectly preserved ruins and, around, the legend of San Galgano, who seems to have stuck his sword in the ground there, as a sign of renouncing worldliness (hence, the sword in the stone). Of course, there is all this, just as there are beautiful shots from above, the many games of perspective, the more intimate atmosphere compared to the many crowds that the artist allowed himself during last summer, on the wings of enthusiasm, crowds that will also return to hang out in December 2026 with three dates in the sports halls (translated, there will probably be an album of unreleased songs in between). Well, if anything they deserve to be seen because something happens inside them: a concert, a concert True.

Let’s clarify, the truth is that most of the music documentaries shot in Italy today are nothing more than promotional products that tell the behind-the-scenes story of artist X, often in the absence of a strong story to retrace, right to make volume. Corsi, of course, doesn’t have much cinematic experience behind him, he doesn’t have any particular traumas, just a very long but still serene apprenticeship – it would be interesting, if anything, to understand how his life has changed from February to today, but for this, if he wants, there will be time. Its particularity dies and is reborn instead every evening, on a stage: so let’s capture it there. While the classic model of concerts – large or small, with an enormous imbalance towards the big ones – is becoming that of television shows that are all too rigid and programmed, where it is impossible even to improvise, The guitar in the rock he takes the route against traffic and brings a live True on the screen. And for live True we mean, in this case, one without frills that soon end up serving only as a screen for the essence, but rather one played live and in which there is room for error, precisely improvisation, spontaneity. One that, well, if you see it tonight it is made in one way, if you see it tomorrow it is different, and so on. Unrepeatable, not because it is wonderful, but because it is live.

The reasons for success

Here the occasion is special, of course, given the location, but the truly rare commodity is seeing Corsi writhe on stage, undressing and changing between one piece and another and seeing the make-up on his face dripping little by little, as if he himself were the first to be shocked by such a powerful experience. Naturalness. Long, generous concerts. It’s strange compared to standards, but sometimes the direction even seems “excessive”, almost like crashing a party that is instead taking place then and there, with a show that is anything but camera-friendly. You said nothing. The imagination goes to the great concerts of the seventies – above all, the film of BananaRepublic by Francesco De Gregori and Lucio Dalla – in which a performance was a way to feel free, on stage you could see smiles, winks, even cigarettes. People wearing only jeans and a bad t-shirt – in their case, but you could also see it very well in Pink Floyd’s live show in Pompeii – or in the case of Corsi, who is inspired by glam rock, in shabby costumes. And yet, he was playing crazy music, giving the impression of being there and only there. Is this a moment of nostalgia? Yes and no, and this is also the great paradox of Corsi’s success: his revolution draws from the past for aesthetics and style, for many it triggers a certain melancholy towards an era that perhaps they haven’t even lived through, but the challenge – for him, for us – is to continue with that wild approach in today’s music.

For now, we see, Corsi is not just retromania, the urge to take refuge in a distant world in rejection of our own. If anything – I wanted to be tough demonstrates this well – it is necessary to understand the present, aware, however, that today’s tools are no longer enough. And so yes, The guitar in the rock it reminds us that there is another way of being on stage and, therefore, of making music documentaries – and live records, we were saying, another of those customs that have fallen into disgrace, if only because there is nothing left to save, the concerts are all the same, all special and already designed for social media, so the fans’ Instagram stories can already be enough. It reminds us, above all, that Corsi is one of the few artists worth seeing in concert, because his is always an unrepeatable concert. Let’s try, here, not to make him the only one.