“We will play your song” – Corriere.it

from Rinaldo Frignani
In Testaccio the embrace of the 18 year old invested in the Colombo and his family. The surviving friend Nicco: «That car arrived behind us, impossible to move in time. Francesco didn’t want to get his driving license, he preferred to travel by bus “
“For the last farewell to Francesco in church we will sing ‘Next morning’, the first piece he wrote for the band when it became our voice”. Niccolò Amodeo, Nicco for friends, appears serene. The pain is inconsolable, but the memories are clear. Present. This summer on vacation, the start of university. And Wednesday night on the Cristoforo Colombo. Because Nicco was there, next to Francesco Valdiserri, and saw him die after being run over by the car driven by Chiara Silvestri.
“We didn’t notice anything until the last moment – says the 18-year-old -. She arrived behind us, impossible to move. After the crash she got out of the car screaming, and also the other boy who was with her. That street, right next to my house, has always scared me. Especially at night. Francesco, on the other hand, felt calm around Rome, but he did not want to get his driver’s license, perhaps he did not feel ready: he preferred to walk aroundby bus or by tram ».
Francesco and Nicco had gone out to dinner and then to the cinema to see Niccolò Falsetti’s “Margini”. «It was Giulio’s birthday, our bassist, with us there was also Claudia, a friend of the Socrates high school and drummer in another band. We were curious because we had met one of the actors, Matteo Creatini, who was also a musician ”, explains Nicco.
Today at noon in the church of Santa Maria Liberatrice, in Testaccio, the neighborhood where Francesco lived with his parents Paola Di Caro and Luca Valdiserri, our colleagues from the Corriere della Sera
and with his sister Daria, the funeral will be celebrated. “We will play for him”, says Nicco, guitarist of Origami Smiles, a band founded last April which also includes Daniel Bevilacqua (drums) and Giulio Di Veroli (bass), but already a point of reference on platforms such as Spotify. «Francesco – he recalls – had made us change gear. Before the frontman it was me, we didn’t think he was that good. He surprised everyone with his deep voice. He had never had a band before. He wrote songs in English, he had started to think of some in Italian. The images were his source of inspiration, but not attributable to anything concrete. He was very good at this. And “Next morning” was born like this ».
Recently Origami Smiles took to the stage of the La Strada social center, for a project with Socrates, where Francesco graduated, and at the Ciampino Beer Station. “He was happy, a good time. He had integrated into the band but he had also enrolled at the Sapienza University, in Literature with a cinematographic address and musical. His dream was to become a critic », reveals Nicco, who instead attends Physics. “His model was David Bowie, his tone of voice remembered him. But he liked them i Depeche Modewhich we should have gone to see in concert in Rome, and i Cure: we had thought of following them to Florence. At school Francesco had approached rap, then rock in third high school. With us he was indie rock, but he was open to all influences – says his friend -. In June we went to Firenze Rocks, and then he was in London for a course of song writing
: he came back very satisfied, he met guys from all over the world ».
In the months when Italy was suffocating from the heat, Francesco and Nicco had decided to leave again. “For Bulgaria. A little bit as a matter of budget, really a surprise. He loved it, and it was his first solo trip. When we returned – the friend still remembers – we went to Santa Marinella, his holiday resort. There too he was surrounded by his world of him, who loved him ». The same one who today will cling to Francesco and his family in a single, huge embrace.
If you want to stay updated on the news of Rome, subscribe for free to the newsletter “The seven hills of Rome” by Giuseppe Di Piazza. It arrives every Saturday in your mailbox at 7am. Just click here.