Do you remember the Italian rock band formed in Rome in 2016? They rose to notoriety after coming second in the eleventh season of the Italian talent competition X Factor in 2017. They began their career performing in the streets. Yes, you are guessing right!, Måneskin.
The Italian band Måneskin made its name in the U.S. with a crafty cover, of the Four Seasons’ “Beggin”. There were more where that came from during the band’s set Sunday night at Coachella.
Maneskin’s Saturday Night At Coachella
The band’s set Sunday night at Coachella and the group went to both ends of the pop/punk scale and memorably covered Britney Spears’ “Womanizer,” followed by Iggy Pop and the Stooges’ “I Wanna Be Your Dog.”
Although it isn’t technically a copy. Singer Damiano David used a portion of one of the greatest movie monologues of all time. The climactic monologue from Charlie Chaplin’s famous anti-fascist film “The Great Dictator” — To introduce a new, original song devoted to Ukraine.
The 1940 Chaplin monologue was followed by David shouting “Fuck Putin!” in the middle of their new song, “We’re Gonna Dance on Gasoline.”
???? | Måneskin performing "Womanizer" by Britney Spears at Coachella. ✨
2/2 pic.twitter.com/hyvEIGdX6e
— MÅNESKIN OFFICIAL FANCLUB (@ManeskinFanClub) April 18, 2022
The “Eurovision” victors tore into Spears’ modern pop classic in a ferocious way suiting the rest of their hard-rocking set, yet there was widespread recognition and excitement.
David Selected A Song With A Strong Feminine Viewpoint
David took a song with a strong female point of view and did not bother with any gender-switching in the lyrics. He did with another already iconic cover from earlier in the weekend Harry Styles doing “Man! I Feel Like a Woman” with an assist from its originator, Shania Twain. “As you know, we love singing covers,” the singer said to the audience. “We adore Britney Spears more than we enjoy doing covers,” he said.
David had made the closest thing to a costume change earlier in the set by removing a sheer nightgown he was wearing to reveal a revealing outfit that resembled bondage gear, claiming that this stripping down was supposed to happen later in the set, but the lack of promised cool temperatures on stage prompted him to do it sooner.
italians do it better #Maneskin #Coachella pic.twitter.com/6oNHD2uzEu
— amor eno (@AanaMoren0) April 18, 2022
“Britney Spears makes us hot,” he added when the Spears song came up in the repertoire.
The Stooges’ “I Wanna Be Your Dog” was dedicated to Iggy Pop, the band’s leader, who was recently a featured guest on an original Mneskin track, “I Wanna Be Your Slave.” That song, of course, came before the Stooges’ song in the set.
The 10 Song Set Took On A More Solemn Tone
From “ZItti E Buoni” onward, the 10-song performance took on a more serious, albeit not less rollicking, tone as David put his outer layer back on. The new “Gasoline” song was preceded by a melancholic meditation on the situation in Ukraine, written by David and Chaplin.
The singer asked, “Are you having fun?”
“I’m happy to hear it. But sometimes we’ve gotta understand how big our privilege is, to have the chance to just attend a gig and have fun and be careless and have nothing to think about. And none of us have to think of, (when) you wake up, how many bombs have been launched on the city. So before we start playing our last song, I just want to give you a pitch that Charlie Chaplin gave.”
The renowned movie actor gave in character at the end of the satire “The Great Dictator,” published in the early part of World War II. David performed an abbreviated and shortened version of the final speech.
“Do not despair,” says part of the classic recitation that David has reprised. The current state of unhappiness is only the result of avarice – men’s hatred of the prospect of human development. Men’s hatred will fade, tyrants will die, and the authority that they snatched from the people will be returned to them.
“Ukraine Must Be Free!” “Fu*k Putin!” Says The Author
He further added, “And so long as men die, liberty will never perish… Don’t give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you, enslave you, who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel! Who … treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines, You are not cattle! You are men!”
The new song’s lyrics include, “How are you sleeping at night? How do you close both your eyes, living with all of those lives on your hands? / Standing alone on that hill, using your fuel to kill / We won’t take it standing still / Watch us dancе… We’re gonna dance on gasoline.”
The screen showed images from the fighting as well as a portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Ukraine must be free!” “Fu*k Putin!” David shouted between the verses.
