Live Review: Måneskin @ Margaret Court Arena, Melbourne

Italian four-piece Måneskin don’t need any flashy visuals or even a support act to warm up tonight’s crowd. They hit the stage with DON’T WANNA SLEEP and explode with their adrenaline-boosting rock ‘n’ roll to raise the roof and make their audience go ballistic, igniting the arena with screams of excitement. Måneskin’s electrifying performance is a sexy rock spectacle that thrills from beginning to end.

“How’s it goin’ mate?” asks lead singer Damiano David, addressing the audience imitating an Australian accent. It’s their first time in Australia and in Melbourne. They tell us their welcoming has been very sweet, like honey. Fittingly, they launch into HONEY (ARE U COMING?). 

The mosh pit is packed to the brim with fans who push their way to the front to get as close as possible to all the action. They serve up their winning Eurovision song, ZITTI E BUONI, oozing confidence with every move. They’ve got an undeniable chemistry and showcase their multi-instrumental talent and incredible vocals with an electrifying energy and volume. They crowd around each other, getting close for intimate guitar jams, and each band member works every angle of the stage like true rock stars.

“I know you’re very horny, but for the next six minutes, we need to get serious, and then we can go back to being whores,” David jokes. They change the mood with a slower, heartfelt song called CORALINE, sung in Italian.

“Now we’re gonna play a little game called Guess the Song,” David says. They give us a little hint, and the crowd immediately goes wild from the very first note of Beggin’ (The Four Seasons cover) and starts singing back to them. Bassist Victoria De Angelis dives into the mosh pit with her bass guitar and boldly moves through the crowd in the general admission area while continuing to play.

“Our new album just came out called RUSH! (ARE U COMING?). We are very proud of this project, and it’s the ending of a project that lasted almost two years for us with an endless tour that is inevitably coming to an end. We are very sad but happy to have the chance to play these new songs live for you,” David says before they play a new one called THE DRIVER.

David removes his shirt to bare his tattooed body, and the audience screams with uncontrollable excitement. FOR YOUR LOVE ends with a huge instrumental solo between bassist De Angelis and guitarist Thomas Raggi. David grabs a spotlight from the back of the stage and shines it across the arena before aiming it with a thrusting motion towards his bandmates as they shred their guitars to their heart’s desire. 

They move to the back of the floor area, where a small stage has been set up for them to perform a couple of acoustic songs not in their usual formation. De Angelis is absent for this part, whilst Drummer Ethan Torchio changes things up and plays guitar on TRASTEVERE. Next, they decided to do a cover of an Australian band (Are You Gonna Be My Girl by Jet). David reveals that the original owner of the song is in the room tonight, so there’s a lot of pressure to get it right. David and Raggi perform the Jet hit as a duo and do them proud.

De Angelis and Torchio divert our attention back to the main stage as they perform an explosive drumming and bass guitar instrumental to lead into I WANNA BE YOUR SLAVE as David and Raggi rejoin them. David reaches out to a fan who passes him an Italian flag to wrap around his body, whilst De Angelis can be seen crowd-surfing the mosh pit on her back with guitar in hand. They command the audience to get down to the floor and count us down for everybody to jump up and dance around.

“It’s great to see so many Italians here; that’s why we are so loud tonight,” says David. “The next song is not an Italian song, but it’s based on a very famous Italian word that I’m pretty sure everyone knows this word, MAMMAMIA,” He exclaims. The crowd jumps and gets crazy as they let loose and celebrate their Italian rock idols. David jumps down into the crowd and gets up close and personal with sweaty fans in the front row of the mosh pit, and the crowd erupts with excitement.

Their last song before the encore is KOOL KIDS, which celebrates the band and their fans. They make their connection even stronger by welcoming a lucky group of fans to the stage to dance with them on the track. The group crowds around Torchio as he finishes with a huge drumming solo.

Raggi returns for an incredible electric guitar solo that leads into THE LONELIEST as the rest of the band joins for the emotional down-tempo track, and David casually smokes a cigarette in one hand and microphone in the other. For a big finale they go in for one more round of their biggest hit I WANNA BE YOUR SLAVE with every last bit of energy they have left.