|
 Live
concerts in Greece is a long, long story and believe
me, very few things have changed through the last
17 years I'm watching local heavy metal bands.
To tell you the truth, the main problem of my
homeland is without a doubt the bad sound that
most of the clubs have. And what do I mean with
this? Just keep read on…
The first act that hit the stage
was Valkija from Italy that recently has released
through Sonic Age Records their debut album. With
a sound similar to the early days of Warlock and
mainly Zed Yago, led by a quite impressive female
singer Zoraija, they offered to the audience a
good dose of 80's heavy metal, with powerful rhythms
and memorable choruses that gained its' interest.
They played most of the songs from "Avengers
Of Steel" and they prove that they deserve
our support, even their style isn't the most commercial
or less attractive for the majority of the metal
community. A good performance in general, Valkija
gained the applause of the gathering crowd and
let's see what they're going to do in the near
future. Keep an eye on them…
Local epic metal heroes, Battleroar,
had to face the unexpected illness of their Italian
vocalist Marco Concoreggi who didn't manage to
flew in Athens for the particular event. The band
find the replacement in the face of Nick Varsamis,
singer of doom metal merchants Litany (check out
the 7'' single that came out from Eat Metal Records
a couple of months ago) and despite the fact that
his intepretentation is quite different comparing
to Marco's, he actually did it well! The die hard
fan base helped the band a lot to regain its confidence
and the final result (even if they've played only
5-6 songs, including a version of the classic
Manilla Road anthem "The Ram") was encouraging.
I've seen Battleroar many times
and my opinion is still the same: without being
the most virtuoso players of the scene, they do
have identity and professional behavior which
gives them the opportunity to build a well respected
name in the European Underground heavy/epic metal
scene with many fans following them in every single
performance. We're anxiously waiting their second
album and let's hope that Marco will recover soon…
Our anticipation for InnerWish's
performance was bigger than we initially expected
and this was due to the fact that I didn't manage
to see them in the last year's concerts supporting
Helloween and U.d.o. It was more than obvious
(judging from the T-shirts of the fans) that the
quintet had a respectful amount of people that
we're waiting to see once again their potentiality
and uniqueness. Despite the awful sound (especially
Babis' vocals were merely heard, in many cases
Mazarakis' bass was buried into a deep black hole),
the five musicians overcome the difficulties and
left speechless with the perfectly balanced set
that lasted more than 80 minutes!
They paid respect to the first
monumental record "Wait For The Dawn",
causing frenzy to the audience which was singing
each song with unbelievable devotion ("Carry
Your Cross", "Waves Of Destiny",
"Spacerunner", "Ready For Attack"
were the absolute highlights), without leaving
any complaints to the current fan base that learned
about them after the release of the magnificent
second album "Silent Faces". "Dancer
Of The Storm" (which was the opening track
of the show), "Hold On" (one of my favorites),
"If I Could Turn Back Time", "Midnight
Call" and the incredible "Silent Faces"
(played twice due to public's demand as the last
song of the show!) pushed the front line to endless
headbanging and if you add the fantastic cover
versions of "Lonely Lady (Q5 – 80's
hymn from this superb U.S. band)" & Heaven
And Hell (Black Sabbath – no comments!),
then you have the entire picture of the show!!!
The overall performance of each
member was outstanding and the same goes to the
whole band although they didn't have the appropriate
help by the sound. Neverthless to say about the
feedback from the audience, this was probably
one of the nights where a band becomes one with
its' fan base… I wish them from heart to
continue with such a high level to offer us shivers
in the back and we're waiting breathless their
next full-length album!!! Thank God for InnerWish!!! |
