So here it was, the big night and European Final of the EMERGENZA ACOUSTIC Festival.

The Winners of the acoustic nights in England, Sweden, France, Germany, Hungary and Holland joined the local guitar heroes for an evening of musical beauty and virtuosity in Rome.

Other then expected by the northern finalists, the Italian capital came up with a freezing cold, which made at least the hours after dark hard to spend outside. Anyway, the interesting things where going on inside, at the well-established club JAILBREAK, where also the Roman eliminatory rounds had taken place.

At 20:30 the doors opened and the room filled quickly, and soon after the first italian artist was to enter the stage:

Adriano Viterbini, playing a pretty wild stile of acoustic blues and rhythm guitar, without breaks. you where taken by the groove and wouldn´t notice that 10 minutes had already passed.
After that came The Parrot, that had won in Holland, even though they live in Belgium and have Italian origin. Quiet songs, dedicated to the singer´s brother who had just passed away.
Michele Spreghini followed and played poppy / jazzy acoustic guitar patterns, again no singing here.
Then it was time for the Hungarian Winner Urban Matyas, who tunes his guitar like an traditional Hungarian instrument, and therefore played harmonies pretty different to the rest of the musicians, rhythmical and with an east european touch.
Migaso from Paris in contrast didn´t use any typical french traditions, but sang in Italian, the language of his ancestors.
The next was one of the Roman Winners again: Yuki Rufo, very good technically like all the Italian finalists, and with outstanding harmonies and vibes. For the last song, his father joined him on guitar on stage.
The German Winner Evil Mr Sod, resident in Berlin but actually Spanish, put one more facette to the multi-cultural mixture of the festival. With his deep voice and outlaw appearance he reminded of the great old characters in country music.
Simone Agostini followed right after and astonished the crowd with great techniques, interesting ideas and a good taste in how to use his own playing as backround track with a long delay.
Sweet Mary, having won in Malmö, were the only ones to hold up the flag of female guitar playing this night, and coped it with beautiful vocal harmonies, an additonal violin and good songs and lyrics.
Probably the best stiles and harmonies were then shown by Davide Pannozzo from Rome, with some nice bluesy singing as well, which made the whole package one of the most convincing of the night.
The final act of the evening was the singer/songwriter and British winner Alexander Wolfe. He played very quiet and atmospherical songs with strong lyrics and a beatiful voice, and set a fine last point to this eclectic line-up.

When this marathon was over, the jury, consisting of journalists, promoters and the international emergenza directors, had to find a decision. Difficult enough, regarding the very high musical standart of the performances. Finally they came to the conclusion, that the compositions and the guitar playing of Davide Pannozzo deserved best to be awarded, so he became the winner of this years´Emergenza Acoustic Festival. Rewarded with a slot on the ever sold out Taubertal Open Air Festival in Germany in August.

The Big Prize of the audience, a brand new and custom made Ovation LX guitar in silver flame finish, was given to Simone Agostini. He had convinced the biggest part of the visitors with his elaborated finger picking.

And since the jury was really taken by the intensity of the songs of Alexander Wolfe from London, he won as Special Prize of the jury a showcase to be held in Berlin.

After four hours of great music the audience and artists surged out into the cold and dark Roman night. To hopefully meet again, when the next edition of the Acoustic Festival will be held.

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