{:en}PRESS RELEASE (5/08/2017)
Sunday, August 6, a Loano, on the stage of the’Prince's Garden summer arena The curtain will be raised on the queen of cartoon theme songs. CRISTINA D'OENA And the band that loves to desecrate everything and character THE GEM BOYS.
The fun-filled evening is part of the review “Dreams Festival”, promoted by the’Department of Tourism, Culture and Sports of the City of Loano and edited by Event Size, under the artistic direction of Ivan Fabio Perna.
After a long, highly successful season, filled with sold-out shows and many dates throughout Italy, with thousands of kids and adults going wild singing the most famous cartoon theme songs of yesterday and today, CRISTINA D'AVENA & THE GEM BOYS have started again with the new summer tour that will also touch Loano.
The concert scheduled at 21.30, will be preceded in the afternoon by the “Meet and Greet” with THE GEM BOYS, an hour face-to-face with their fans at the’Ocean Bay Club in Marina of Loano. At 5 p.m. members of the irreverent band will be available for autographs and photographs.
The musical evening promises to be an explosive one, with the artists' goal being to rock the Lovran audience with a new show: new look, new lineup, new gags.
The singer most beloved by generations of children and the punchy band from Bologna will not disappoint the audience by giving a two-hour performance of historic cartoon theme songs: from «The Smurfs Song» to «The Gnat Waltz,» from «Kiss me Licia» to «Cat's Eyes.».
Gem Boy are. Charles Sagradini (voice), the gentle giant Max Vicinelli (keyboards), the free-range J.J. Muscle (guitar), the eclectic Andrea Taravelli (bass), the beautiful Matteo Monti (drums) and the ever-present factotum Sdrushi (sound engineer).
Tickets on sale:
- the circuit Ticket One (online at ticketone.co.uk and in all affiliated outlets)
- the circuit viva ticket (online at vivaticket,it and in all affiliated outlets)
- Lollipop at 64 Via Garibaldi (open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and 4 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.; also 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. in summer); tel. 019/675488 or 339/3265115
- Lollipop Disks, 64 Garibaldi Street Loano Tel. 019675488 - Cell. 3393265115
- Sea Corner Newsstand,70/71 Rome Street Alassio Tel. 0182/641303
- Resale 19 by Vignola Paolo Tabaccheria, Via Alcide de Gasperi, 1 Albenga Tel. 0182/020030
- Prattours Travel Agency, Via S. Pietro, 13, 17011, Albisola Superiore Tel. 019/482399
- Nesti Tobacconist Shop, Via Camillo Benso Cavour, 25/R Savona Tel. 019/802714
- Prattours Travel Agency, Via Fratelli Cairoli, 38Varazze Tel. 019/934848
For more information about the show, you can contact the organizer of the “Dreams Festival” at the Prince's Garden DIMENSIONE EVENTI at 011/2632323 (Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.).
Short biography
In 1981 Cristina, still a minor, signed an exclusive contract with Channel 5's record label, the Five Records becoming the interpreter of the song “Bambino Pinocchio.” The commercial success of the related 45 started Cristina's career: since then she has never stopped recording and, thanks to the amount of theme songs she has recorded, she is the only entertainment personality whose voice has been on Italian TV continuously since the early 1980s at least once a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
Also from this period, he began releasing numerous singles and albums, which together would sell a total of more than 7 million copies: in 1983, in fact, Five Record gave birth to “Fivelandia“, the first volume of what would become a long-running series designed to contain the theme songs of cartoons aired on the biscione networks.
Among the most successful songs of the early years, special mention for 1982“s ”Smurfs Song“ (thanks to which it will be awarded its first Gold Record for over 500,000 copies sold) and "Kiss me Licia” of 1985 (Platinum Record for the more than 100,000 copies sold of the related album): the latter is the theme song to which the singer will repeatedly declare that she is most attached.
Beginning in September 1986, however, she achieved further popularity than she had already gained in 5 years by performing theme songs alone, as well as considerable visibility, when she played the role of Licia in the first of 4 series of children's TV shows entitled “Love me Licia.” “Love me Licia” will be followed by “Sweet Licia” in spring 1987, “Tenderly Licia” in fall 1987, and “Let's Dance and Sing with Licia” in spring 1988. The series achieve unhoped-for record ratings.
Having concluded the Licia saga in the spring of 1988, from the fall Italia Uno decided to stage Cristina herself and her daily reality, constantly busy between her university studies at the Faculty of Medicine and her job as a singer. Not surprisingly, during the last episode of the Licia TV shows, Cristina D'Avena appears in the role of herself announcing her intention to start a music band.
With the same songwriter-producer behind her as in her early days and a record company that, thanks to her songs alone, in 1991 achieved a turnover of more than 9 billion liras, in the 1990s the singer continued, regularly and without interruption, to record new theme songs and release CDs; numbers, hers, that many emblazoned artists, even today, envy her.
In addition to her musical and recording activities, she also became a television (as well as radio) host and co-host, which began as early as 1989 with the Channel 5 Saturday night variety show “Saturday at the Circus,” an experience thanks to which Cristina, along with the entire cast of the program, would win the Telegatto in the category “Children's programs.“.
In 1998 he also made his film debut, albeit with a cameo: in fact, she plays herself in a scene in Neri Parenti's film “Cucciolo” alongside Massimo Boldi, with whom she had already worked at the time of “Sabato al circo.”.
In December 2002, Cristina officially celebrated 20 years of her career. with the release of a double CD entitled “Cristina D'Avena: Greatest Hits,” which collects the singer's greatest hits (CD 1 covers the years 1981-1990, CD 2 the years 1991-2002) and includes a new version, rearranged and reinterpreted for the occasion, of her first theme song.
Her name for more than 20 years has been professionally inextricably associated with that of Alessandra Valeri Manera: head of children's programs on the biscione TV from 1980 to 2001 and on balance talent scout and creator of the character “Cristina D'Avena.” Paired with Valeri Manera, in 2002 Cristina signs for the first time as an author her own song entitled “The Colors of the Heart.” In 2007, she single-handedly signed the lyrics of one of her theme songs for a cartoon (the title of the song, and of the series, is “Sweet Little Remì”) and since then, from time to time, some of the theme songs she has performed bear her name as the sole author of the words.
On April 14, 2007, at the Roxy Bar in Bologna, Cristina celebrates 25 years of success with a great concert, accompanied by the irreverent group of Gem Boy with whom he inaugurated a collaboration that lasts to this day.{:}
