Måneskin - Gig Review 23rd November @ MC Arena, Melbourne VIC

Måneskin
MC Arena, Melbourne, Vic
November 23rd, 2023

It’s a warm, sunny day in Melbourne, and the one and only Måneskin have finally made their way here, as part of their Rush! World Tour. The four piece from Italy brought rock back to the Eurovision Song Contest in 2021, and won with their track ‘Zitte E Buoni‘ (roughly translated as Shut Up And Be Quiet), and have been teasing a world tour since late 2022. It was a glorious day in March when singer Damiano David, guitarist Thomas Raggi, bassist Victoria De Angelis and drummer, Ethan Torchio, announced that they’d be visiting Australian shores for the first time. It was no surprise that tickets to all four shows, Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide, sold out, as we’d been eagerly awaiting the quartet’s arrival.

Personally, I was quite surprised that MC Arena was the chosen venue for the Melbourne show, as I wasn’t sure that Måneskin would attract enough of a crowd to fill the venue, especially with it being their first Australian tour. Happily, and very excitedly, I was proven wrong, as soon as the doors opened and the crowd got settled into position, the atmosphere inside the 7,500 cap venue was awe-inspiring. Unusually for a live show, especially for a band visiting a country for the first time, Måneskin chose not to have an opening act, so it meant that once everyone was settled into their seats, or their occupied space on the floor, it was a bit of a long wait before finally, finally, the drums began, followed by the bass, and the guitar, and then the vocals and it was time to watch the Italian four piece light up the stage for just under 2 hours.

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The night started with ‘Don’t Wanna Sleep‘, which seemed like an appropriate track to begin the night on and to set the tone, followed by ‘Gossip‘, the band’s single from earlier this year featuring Tom Morello on guitar, and then ‘Zitte e Buoni‘, which I was personally so stoked to hear, and even more excited to hear an Australian audience singing along in Italian. I was really happy to see that Måneskin didn’t take the song off the setlist because it was an English-speaking audience, and even more excited to hear people singing along. You know that people are fans of a band when they learn the lyrics to a song that’s not in their native language, so they can sing it along live with the band when they perform in a country that isn’t their own. It wasn’t the only song with Italian lyrics on the setlist. with ‘Coraline‘, ‘In Nome Del Padre‘, and ‘Trastevere‘ all making appearances throughout the evening.

If you didn’t find Måneskin through EuroVision, it’s entirely possible you discovered them through their cover of the iconic The Four Seasons track ‘Beggin’‘, which I would almost say was one of the songs in the setlist that everyone in the audience knew the words to, and that everyone sang along with. Before they played it, Damiano informed the audience that we’d be playing a game, and trying to guess what song they were going to perform next. It wasn’t really a hard game when the track kicks off with the vocals and the lyrics are ‘Put your lovin’ hand out baby, coz I’m beggin’‘. The other cool thing about the evening was that the band had a B Stage towards the back of the floor where they performed an acoustic version of ‘Trastevere‘, where Ethan played the guitar, and then a cover of ‘Are You Gonna Be My Girl?’ by Melbourne rockers Jet, and apparently the band where present at the gig to hear the cover live.

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We travelled back to the main stage for the next part of the set, where Victoria and Ethan did some awesome drum and bass work while they waited for Thomas and Damiano to rejoin them which acted as an extended intro for ‘I Wanna Be Your Slave‘, which is also a track that people probably discovered Måneskin through and has a particularly raunchy music video. After the conclusion of ‘In Nome Del Padre‘ some lucky audience members who were pre-chosen were pulled from the crowd to join the band on stage for ‘Kool Kids‘, which has been done for the majority of the tour. The track was one of the highlights of the evening for me because Damiano got distracted by something happening in the crowd and forgot the words to the 3rd verse of the song, which the crowd filled the gaps in for, until he decided that he’d just sing the verse again, much to the amusement of his bandmates.

‘Kool Kids‘ marked the end of the set, but after the lucky members of the crowd had been cleared from the stage, Ethan, Victoria, Thomas and Damiano returned to finish the night off with two more songs. The first being ‘The Loneliest‘, and there was definitely a few eyes around me that were filled with tears, and I was very close to crying, as it’s a beautiful ballad and Damiano’s vocals are always so raw throughout the song. Thomas also got his moment to shine with an epic guitar solo taking place just before the final chorus of the song. Another weird thing happened to end the set, with Måneskin playing ‘I Wanna Be Your Slave‘ again, but there didn’t seem to be anyone in the audience complaining that they’d already played it, which I think its something that’s a little bit exclusive to the Italian 4 piece, as I can’t really think of any other bands that could get away with playing the same song twice during their set, even if there were several songs in between.

Victoria, Ethan, Thomas and Damiano were high energy and excitable during the entire 2 hours of the set, bouncing around the stage and interacting with each other and with the crowd, feeding as much energy to their audience as their audience was throwing them. The show also proves that there is a demand for the band here, and hopefully it’s not long before Måneskin comes back to perform for their loving Australian fans again!

Måneskin finish up their tour of Australia in Adelaide on Saturday night, and there are limited tickets available that can be purchased here.

Setlist:

1. Don’t Wanna Sleep
2. Gossip
3. Zitte E Buoni
4. Honey (Are U Coming?)
5. Supermodel
6. Coraline
7. Beggin’
8. The Driver
9. For Your Love
10. Valentine
11. Gasoline
Acoustic at B Stage
12. Trastevere
13. Are You Gonna Be My Girl
Main Stage
14. I Wanna Be Your Slave
15. Mammamia
16. Off My Face
17. In Nome Del Padre
18. Bla Bla Bla
19. Kool Kids
Encore
20. The Loneliest
21. I Wanna Be Your Slave

Review by Kelsey Trevan