SanRemo Night Five is where we get to see each act one last time, and then televoting opens and the top acts are revealed. After the reveal, they each perform again and then the winner is announced quickly.
SanRemo Night Five featured many guest performances, including Depeche Mode, Achille Lauro, Massimo Ranieri, and Ornella Vanoni. They were all enjoyable, but I do think this show is just way too long. I watched it mid-afternoon Eastern Time and I cannot imagine watching it at nighttime. I would have been deliriously tired. I believe it ran 30 minutes longer than it was intended. It was five hours. Less guest acts might not have been a bad thing, since we had 28 competitors’ performances to watch, and then 5 of them performed a second time.
The televotes from night five were added to the juries’ scores from the previous nights to give us the top acts which were eligible to win SanRemo and represent Italy in Eurovision Song Contest.
Usually, they select a top 3 at SanRemo. This year there was a top 5, which consisted of:
Marco Mengoni “Due Vite” – 1st
Ultimo “L’alba”– 2nd
Lazza “Cenere” - 3rd
MR. Rain “Superoi” - 4th
Tanainai “Tango” - 5th
I knew that Ultimo, Marco, and Lazza would be in the top, but I was extremely pleased to see Mr. Rain and Tanainai there. Tanainai finished in last place or close to it last year, if I recall, so I’m stoked that he had a redemption arc. “Tango” was a big step up from “Sesso Occasionale” which was laughably awful. Mr. Rain is my Eurovision season number one crush across all national finals, so I would not have minded at all if he had won, but I think we all knew it would come down to Marco Mengoni and Lazza as the top 2. No offense to anyone, but I was just thrilled it was not Ultimo who won because I think his song was really underwhelming compared to a strong selection at SanRemo overall. It was a shame to not see any women in the top 5. Madame was a crowd favourite, and when her overall score was revealed to be 6th and just outside the qualifiers, many of her fans in the audience loudly expressed their disappointment. Anna Oxa, Ariete, and Elodie are also phenomenal. I hope that they gained a lot more fans from SanRemo.
The scores are all set back to 0 before the top 5 performers take the stage. The final rankings were determined by equal parts press jury, demoscopic jury, and televoters. They were:
Marco Mengoni – 1st place
Lazza – 2nd place
Mr. Rain – 3rd place
Ultimo – 4th place
Tanainai – 5th place
I think Marco is a great candidate to represent Italy, I am glad that it’s him, but I would have been happy with Lazza as well. (Or, future husband, Mr. Rain. But I don’t know what he would have done with his entourage of kids who are not allowed to perform at ESC).
For me, the biggest winner of SanRemo ‘23 is GiANMARIA with “Mostro” because I cannot stop listening to that song. I hope he gets another shot next year!