In the 80’s the biggest international artists started to bring on tour the first big productions and concerts started to become huge shows, even if back in those years was not easy at all doing concerts in Italy and many times they ended up in riots between the demonstrators and the police.
In 1980 Francesco Sanavio did the Italian dates of the amazing KISS “Unmasked World Tour”. The same year he did Ella Fitzgerald and the vanguard band DEVO who came back in Italy also the next year. In 1981 Sanavio organized the Italian concerts of Status Quo and with his friend promoter Franco Mamone the Italian dates of Dire Straits “On Location Tour”.
1982 is a year hard to forget for Mr. Sanavio! He did the italian dates of Frank Zappa World Tour in July, Roxy Music “Avalon World Tour” in August and in September Neil Young “Crazy Horse World Tour” with the concert at the Ippodromo Le Capanelle in Rome. That concert went down in the history of rock both for Neil Young performance and for the record of sales, something like 106.000 tickets sold plus all the people attending the show for free for a total estimated audience of 120.000 people.
Between 1983 and 1985 he organized concerts with Rod Stewart, Stevie Wonder, Joan Baez, Mike Oldfield after the release of the hit featuring Maggie Reilly “Moonlight Shadow”, David Crosby and Peter Frampton. In 1984 he did also two Italian acts Vasco Rossi and Claudio Baglioni both at the Arena in Verona.
In 1986 Joe Cocker explodes after the single “Leave Your Hat On” featured in the “9 ½ weeks” movie soundtrack. Francesco Sanavio did almost 30 dates with him that year, 20 in the summer and other 10 in the fall That same year he also managed the whole European tour with James Brown, doing famous venues like Berci in Paris, Wembley in London and many others cities like Barcelona, Rotterdam, Bruxelles. 54 concerts sold out in Europe with the big hit “Living In America” featured in the soundtrack of the movie “Rocky IV”.
1987 was another great year, with the sold out Italian tour of the most famous Swedish rock band, Europe. That year he did also some dates with Jerry Lewis, Ray Charles and James Brown.
In 1988 and in 1989 he did BB. King, Lisa Stansfield and again Ray Charles who performed also in Venice at the Fenice Theatre and in Sardinia at the famous gala hosted by the Hotel Cala di Volpe.
In 1989 Francesco Sanavio provided three artists for the great concert “Legends of Rock ‘n Roll” produced by his friend promoter David Zard: Ray Charles, B.B. King and James Brown.
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