Marco Mengoni came 7th in Malmö with his song L'Essenziale
EBU
Today, the singer entered the stage for his second rehearsal in the Malmö Arena and delivered, without any exaggerations, a vocally fantastic performance. Everything in Marco’s entry has been held modest: his clothes, his movements, the stage and colours. And against this simple background, Marco's powerful ballad L'Essenziale sounded perfect.
The stage was set in dark blue colours with some reddish-orange-blue shades on the projections. Marco wore blue jeans, a T-shirt and a blue jacket.
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In the first press conference of the Italian delegation, Marco Mengoni started by stating: "I’m good, just a bit sleepy." About the early start of his career, he explained: "I started my career almost eight years ago. Press conferences make me nervous and sweat, I prefer to be on stage."
Marco Mengoni was a sound engineer before. "I worked a dubbing studio when I was younger, and I also played piano, so I got in touch with music. I was also working as a bar man", he said.
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"I prefer the extended version of my song – it was born like this. But it was not a problem to sing a shorter version, we just cut off a short part", he explained the fact that his song had to be changed a bit for the Eurovision Song Contest.
On his musical background, the Italian singer told the press: "There are a lot of artists that influenced me, consciously and unconciously. The musicians that you listen to as a child, always influence in your later career. I thank my parents for letting me listen to great Italian artists like Zucchero and many others. I also listened to jazz, black music, soul, blues, rock’n’roll. I also listened to the Beatles, and in between all of these also Michael Jackson and David Bowie. There are too many really."
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"I hope I help my country to get to know this event – we missed it for 14 years, that’s why it’s not that popular in Italy. But it’s important that people know it, that people are not only united by coins but also by music", he explained the situation of Eurovision in Italy.
Does he think a simple peformance like his is enough to win the Eurovision Song Contest? – "As a person I am not as simple, I’m in fact very diverse. But for this song, which is called The Essential, me and my team decided to be just like that on stage. I think it also fits with the message of this Eurovision Song Contest, We Are One. Music doesn’t need the spending of a lot of money, you just need the air to hear it."
Italy was drawn to perform in the second half of the Grand Final.
