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2010-01-23
GR – Athens - Gagarin Club 205 |
| When
I first time saw the announcement for these Greek shows I couldn’t
believe it! WOAAAAAAHHHH!!! What a great line-up! Three of my
all-time faves, plus AGUA DE ANNIQUE with the lively Anneke
van Giersbergen I did not see playing live yet and all of them
on one stage! No question, I definitely have to be there! Too
bad, that PAIN OF SALVATION still had not confirmed the
shows yet, while DISILLUSION shocked me with the news that
longtime guitarist Rajk Barthel has quit the band *hmpf* :: pics :: Then, time has come: Friday, 22nd January :) The aircraft gets me to Athens, AGUA DE ANNIQUE sit in the row before me and the guys of DISILLUSION I meet on the sightseeing trip on top the Acropolis. Weather is perished with piercing winds on the rock, but I walk under a blue sky and sun. Down in the city it’s almost springlike warm with +8 °C ;) I only have time for the Acropolis and the area around. After a snack and a stop at the hotel I walk down the street towards Gagarin 205 Club.
Doors are
set for 6pm but it takes a half hour more till they finally get
opened. I have a look around and get my stuff into the photopit.
Short after Greek :: SCAR
OF THE SUN :: enter the stage and open the evening.
I have not heard of them before but checked their stuff on their
myspace site and liked what I was listening to. Songs of tonight’s
show came from the band’s to date unreleased debut CD A
Series Of Unfortunate Concurrencies, seeing the axe-man
Alexi taking over the part of guest singer Mikael Stanne in Ode
To A Failure. I have to admit, I didn’t like the show
that much. Sound was unbalanced, singing too much in the foreground
and the melodic parts (key samples) almost suppressed. It all
sounded a bit too… harsh and edgy. Pretty a difference to
the songs on the player.
Afterwards
it was up to :: DISILLUSION
:: who made a short line-check and then kicked off
with The Hole We Are In. Damn! I did not see them for ages
and their still current masterpiece Gloria already
dates back on 2006. Hmmm, well. The Gagarin Club is well-filled,
at the end approx. 1000 fans will attend this concert. There are
two new faces in DISILLUSION: first the one of new bass
player Matthias Becker, who plays his very first live show for
DISILLUSION tonight and Heiko Tippelt, who fills in for
Raijk Barthel, who traveled to Athens too ;) The show does not
run smoothly. At The Black Sea the equipment of singer
and guitarist Andy backs out of its service. Andy is joking and
requests if he can restart, which gets promptly allowed *lol*
Generally speaking I was surprised how many fans were here to
see DISILLUSION and seem to know and welcomed every song.
Good evening for the guys hailing from Leipzig, Germany ;) It
was just too bad that audience generally was quite lame and lacking
of some active movement.
During the next break I tried my first beer at the bar and got almost struck by lightning. 5 Euro ??? For a cup of Heineken? WTF? *ouch* When talking with Andreas of the stage-security he explains that beer is actually more expensive at other places and that it used to be more expensive in this club too. That's just great! Also Anneke
van Giersbergen cannot complain about a lacking fan base, no matter
in what band she is playing ;) :: AGUA
DE ANNIQUE :: get almost frenetically welcomed.
Musically they go through their two albums Air and
In Your Room, with additional cover songs by The
Editors (Papillon) and the Devin Townsend Project (Hyperactive)
and two old The Gathering songs. Also here some technical minor
problems, funnily suiting the situation, when Anneke asks: „Are
you ready to rock?“ and the bass string tears when starting
to rock at Hyperdrive ;) She also tells that her beloved
acoustic guitar broke on the flight to Athens and that it has
broken her heart. Luckily she could borrow another one play My
Electricity the way she wanted. Only the micro used to bitch
afterwards what she answered with: „this is a piece of shit“.
Every now and then fans screamed “I/we love you” she
promptly replied with “I love you too”. Beside the
regular AGUA DE ANNIQUE members (Joris Dirks - guitars/vocals;
Jacques de Haard - bass; Rob Snijders - drums) also Jasper Geluk
accompanied the band on Hammond and Moog synths. However, Anneke
and her boys rocked the house and heated up the audience. Still
not really enthusiastic reactions... and I thought Greek people
are hot-blooded…
Being a fan
for many years and somewhat of reconciled with the last record
Moons And Mushrooms after some strange stuff in
between I though got quite disappointed by ::
LAKE
OF TEARS :: They in fact played a nice best-of
set including all albums, even the 94 debut Greater Art,
but Mr. Brennare himself acted like a prole, spitting onto stage,
trying to be super cool and acted pretty static, while the rest
of the band played their asses off. In Cosmic Weed he totally
paddled. From the current record they played only one and a rather
unspectacular song and got stuck with the predecessor Black
Brick Road. On the other hand… it was really great
to hear old songs such as Raven Land, So Fell Autumn Rain
and Hold On Tight ;)
Ah…
time passes by and expectations rise. Crowd gets close to the
stage and mood finds its climax when ::
PAIN
OF SALVATION :: get on stage and start to kick
asses with Used. It follows and almost 2 hours lasting
show of extraordinaire with a set going thru all records and of
course some surprises ;) At song six Daniel Gildenlöw takes
a seat behind the drums and sends drummer Léo Margarit
to the micro, who suddenly starts singing Nights In White Satin!
You can imagine the faces of the fans? I bet you do ;) First they
were speechless, then started to smile and laugh and applauded
Léo for a great singing performance. Undertow again
was performed so touching and emotional that there were some tears
to spot. One of my PAIN OF SALVATION favorite songs! And
with Conditioned we got a first taste of the upcoming double
album Road Salt, set to released in spring 2010.
Léo played a wonderful drum solo, where Daniel snuck upstairs
onto a gallery with a bottle of water to wet drummer and drumkit
*laughs* Photogenic! Besides, Johan, Per (Schelander - bass) and
Daniel went wild as if there were no tomorrow, except for Fredrik,
the cool man behind the keys ;)
2 am and a
fantastic concert evening find its ultimate end. I meet ch Lee
Barrett (Candlelight, Elitist, Ascendance Records, Extreme Noise
Terror), who is a huge PAIN OF SALVATION fan and still
impressed by the show and Léo Margarit, who tells me that
the band decided like an hour prior the show that he has to sing
Nights In White Satin (as he did at earlier shows too).
|
| story & pics © Dajana |
