Why Lacuna Coil stood onstage in silence during a livestream concert this weekend

Milan metallers Lacuna Coil took part in an "Italian strike" over the weekend, standing onstage in silence during a livestream performance to raise awareness for the live music scene in their native country.

The band were set to perform a set for L’Ultimoe Concerto? (which translates to The Last Concert?) livestream at the Alcatraz, but instead they got dressed into their stage gear and simply stood in silence instead of playing anything.

"For those watching from all over the world, we’re sorry you guys didn’t get to see the show you were expecting," Lacuna Coil said in a statement afterwards. "We just stood in silence, showing our support to the live club scene. Unfortunately, live clubs in Italy and the rest of the world have been closed for a year now, and there’s no sign of re-opening anytime soon. We believe they should get the right attention and recognition, because that is what they deserve: to be considered as cultural spaces. Hopefully, this initiative will bring their uncertain situation to everybody’s attention."

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Cristina Scabbia also shared her own personal video statement regarding the move (transcribed via Blabbermouth), explaining that, "I know that a lot of you guys have been connecting to the web site ultimoconcerto.it expecting a live concert that never happened. What you saw was a video of us entering the venue Alcatraz in Milano and standing still on the stage, looking at an empty club. What we did was taking part in an Italian strike, and I'm here explaining it in English because a lot of you guys probably couldn't read what was written on the website and couldn't figure out that this event was already really strange from the beginning, because more than 120 Italian bands playing from different clubs at the same time was already something very unusual — let alone the fact that we never really promoted it, we never really talked about it, we never reposted some of your posts, and if you think about [2020 livestream] Live From The Apocalypse, we always did that.

"Of course, we couldn't say anything, because the purpose was to make noise. So I absolutely understand your frustration, I absolutely understand your anger, and believe me, all of us [in] Lacuna Coil wanted to be on that stage to play a real concert for you. What you have to understand, though, [is] it is not easy to organise a concert, and there are costs behind [it] that you cannot imagine. So the point of the Italian strike that happened yesterday was to bring attention to the fact that clubs have been closed for a year because of the pandemic, and we don't know when they are gonna be reopening again. So I want to thank you guys, because even with your angry messages, even with your disappointment, you helped us to scream even louder.

"Some of you guys wrote it is useless to 'attack' or 'use the fans', which is something that we never did intentionally. Well, think about the fact that the band is followed by a lot of journalists as well, so your angry comments are even more helping the music scene, because people will see this and will see that music without live clubs is missing a huge part.

"So I'm here to thank you guys and to tell you that we're really hurt by some of the comments, but we know that this will be worth it. So we want to thank you. [We'll] hopefully see you in a real club, in a real show very, very soon. And thank you for the understanding. Love you guys."

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