And good thing it is called the Festival of Beauty. For the audience that last night attended the “lecture-concert” of Marco Castoldi, aka Morgan, at the Selinunte Archaeological Park, it cannot be said that the experience was exactly among the most beautiful. The volcanic singer-songwriter held his show in the ruins of the Selinunte temples: it was supposed to be an evening dedicated to Franco Battiato as part of the festival that has several dates throughout Italy. Battiato, signals of life and art, that was the title of the evening, promised to bring the audience “the cosmic gaze of the eclectic poet,” “detached sarcasm, imaginative exoticism,” and so on, but ended up bringing Morgan’s insults.
It was a performance of about five minutes in which Castoldi poured out a vast sampler of expletives against the audience: “assholes,” “rednecks,” “stupid,” “uncivilized,” and at one point even a “faggot shit” aimed at one of the onlookers. The reason for the Milanese singer’s wrath? A request from the audience to perform songs by Battiato, deemed disrespectful by the Lombard singer. And that’s when Morgan’s outburst started, annoyed because the spectators improvised themselves as artistic directors, and this did not go down well with him.
“You’re funny, you’re really stupid, society is shit made by people like you, shut up, stop it, you broke my dick, I have feelings, you assholes! I’m not a character, go see Marracash, go see Fedez, go fuck yourself, you fucking faggot!” And then, “indignation I have because there are you in the world.” “You who tell me stop it? But are you artistic directors? You are the audience, what do you want?” “You are rubes! You paid but you don’t know who I am, go to your homes! Shut up, go away, respect what you are seeing, because it is art! You won’t see it anywhere else, stop it!” “But what do you want from me? Are you the artistic director? That’s just not it! Humanly you suck! Why do I have to take a dump? Why didn’t I sing Battiato’s songs and do other masterpieces?” “People without dignity! But how bad that such people exist! That’s what makes this fucking country shit! You are uncivilized, you are rednecks!” “Battiato would have told you to fuck off but much worse than me! You don’t even know who Battiato was! How do you think I dare to be kind now? Because music is kindness! How can I now bring up kindness after I have seen this vulgarity?”
Then, today, through a story on Instagram, came an apology from the artist, who contextually also wanted to explain his reasons: “We can all make mistakes and I was wrong to use an unfortunate expression that I for one do not like, I am not proud to have used it and, if you can, accept my apology. I am not homophobic and I condemn those who have no respect for others, beyond the categories to which we feel we belong, it is to the human being that one owes respect, and so my reaction last night was inexcusable, a very bad fall for which I sincerely apologize and, though in the wrong way, was was provoked by feeling wounded in my soul because I had just given my all in an improvised song in that wonderful and moving place, and being asked to perform a cover of Battiato as if I were a jukebox, after one of the most inspired performances of my life, literally killed me. The fact remains that nothing justifies the things I said.”
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Selinunte, Morgan lashes out at the audience: Douchebags, rubes! Then an apology |
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