Source: Xinhua By Marzia De Giuli
TURIN, Italy, April 30 (Xinhua) — To most Italians, China was only a country of ancient traditions until they watched a stunning show of Chinese rock band “P.K. 14″ in Turin on Friday night.
The four musicians, one of the rock groups that have most influenced the young Beijing music scene with its seriousness and eclectic approach to music, is on tour in Italy. The first two concerts, held in Venice and Turin, in northern Italy, will be followed by a show in the country’s capital, Rome.
“In the ongoing Chinese Culture Year in Italy, we wanted to tell Italians that another modern and vivid China exists besides the millenary China of ancient traditions,” Stefania Staffutti, director of Turin Confucius Institute, which invited the rock band to Italy, told Xinhua.
In fact, the “other China” was greeted with great enthusiasm by hundreds of Italians who watched the show. The concert hall in Turin was packed with students, music lovers and curious people attracted by the unusual event.
“I had never heard of Chinese rock, but tonight I found out that it is exactly the same as in Western countries,” said a girl, Glenda Gamba, who watched the concert with some friends of her.
The event, she added, was an occasion to bring together many Italian and Chinese students. “Music is like a bridge between cultures, and contemporary music is a common language for young people of different countries,” she said.
“Poetic lyrics by P.K. 14 singer Yang Haisong directly speak to the heart of the entire world’s urban youth with an aesthetic approach to art and music,” said a student of Venice Confucius Institute, Umberto Brugni, an organizer of the Italian tour.
Brugni, who is a musician himself, had the rare experience to be part of a Chinese punk band, which brought him even closer to China.
“I was nervous about the idea of performing in front of a Chinese public, but my friends told me not to worry as music is a universal language,” he recalled.
Unlike other well-known Chinese bands, P.K. 14 sing only in Chinese Mandarin, a choice appreciated by international music lovers as it enhances the natural poetic spirit of the Chinese language.
The concert was also an opportunity for young Chinese living in Italy to know something more about their own country and its fast development.
“I did not know that China was so strong,” said a Chinese guy, Ying Jie, who watched the concert with two Italian friends.
P.K.14, founded in Nanjing in 1997, have performed extensively in China and abroad, both headlining and sharing the stage with many notable bands.
In 2006, the band was nominated for “Best Band” and “Best Rock Band” at the sixth annual Chinese Music Media Awards, the Chinese Grammy.
In 2008, Time magazine chose P.K.14 as one of Asia’s five best bands, defining the group “the sound of modern China.”
P.K.14 Live At The Hiroshima mon amour (Turin-Italy)
