Well...  it all began when I'd shut myself
 in my room, from '76 to '78
me, my guitar and his albums.
My mother used to say
 to me all the time
Better on a street than on a stage.
That's what she said.
My dad did a great thing when he left.
Better this way, less scars.
I had a Revox, 
an analog multitrack recorder.
It was my first teacher 
and also my first audience.
I went to movies to see 
The man who fell on earth.
I knew every word of the book, 
and I didn't like the movie at all.
But there was something 
that struck my attention...
the look of Mr. Newton.
Then a friend of mine bought 
me the Life on Mars vinyl
and I broke down before even
 listening the album because...
I'd never seen such a beautiful 
 cover in the history of rock music.
And so I met Mr. Bowie.
By chance, like all the great things happen.
In 1976 there was nothing, no youtube, 
no internet, there was nothing.
The news about him were
old and censured
and in fact I didn't even know 
how to pronounce his name
I said "Bawie", bo, be, ba...
 "Bawie".
Yes. By the way, 
the right pronunciation is David Bowie.
His androgyny was really attractive for me,
I thought I was a lesbian.
My physique was not helping, 
I was so skinny and masculine
and my mind also was kind of weird...
actually I didn't knew who I was.
I saw him doing all this wonderful 
things so I thought: Why not me?
Meanwhile my mother 
kept on repeating
Better on a street that on 
the stage playing music.
But I was also young and accommodating
and I thought about this words for a very long time.
I hung up in my bedroom a 
banner written in large types
that said: Soldier pay with your money 
and then make your choice.
Well, I think that my mother never 
understood those words.
But for me was a push, it helped me to 
not give up, to keep up with... what then?
But I didn't really knew why I was playing, 
why I began to play the guitar
I didn't knew anything, in that time there was no
 such thing as a Tribute band
I didn't expect that it 
would become my work...
it was just my idea of escape.
It was my ticket to the land of dreams.
My winning card in the game of life.
I've had a dream recently.
On that armchair there was David
surrounded by his friends that 
who saying goodbye to him.
He asked somebody for a cigarette.
That is weird, I thought, because he 
quitted smoking years ago.
He took the cigarette 
and smoked, motionless.
Then he waved at the doctor.
He said just one thing: Ok, let's go.
Ok, let's go.
Well, I think that there is a sort of 
interconnection between me and him.
Because I had this dream the night of 
January 10, the night he died.
His experimentation was complete the 
moment he realized that he was going to die
and he was going to die fast.
So I think he optimized his qualities
he had to compress the time and
 hurry up to finish his final work
in which there was the Bowie Mask 
and the Man Robert Jones.
And probably he did the best he could, 
because once he dropped the mask
we saw his fragility...
everyone saw it.
We saw it in Lazarus, 
with his almost imploring attitude
but we also saw it in his fear, 
his forced smile
in his desire to appear wonderful 
once again when he wasn't anymore.
so, the Man, in Blackstar
 we can see the Man.
You may not like it, you may not see the hero that 
you expected to find in the great Bowie
but I saw a man, a huge man,
 in that moment
and it will be enough 
for the years to come.
Bowie for me was 
the master of change
to one who helped me to overtake
 the rubber wall, and overtake myself.
And when you overtake yourself you have
 the infinite, right? You can do whatever you want.
And so... 
thank you David, always.
