Meaningless prologue: Jeff Waters has wronged himself and his band. 15 studio albums in 26 years are a lot, with some of them being at least average. Also, all the line-up changes never gave a stability to this band. If he had dealt differently with stuff like that, Annihilator would probably have a larger status. But their live shows are something different, so we had to be in Piraeus 117 Academy on this cold autumn night.
Our night begun with Foray Between Ocean from Athens, a new band in their 3rd live appearance. Unfortunately, they had to deal with a bad sound and the static audience. They played very well, but once more their songs gave me mixed feelings as in their debut album “Depression Neverending”. An interesting combination of progressive metalcore and death metal, but still it seems to me that something’s missing. They are very good musicians and I’m sure that in the future we will listen to great stuff from them. Nevertheless, “My Orient” and “Smiling Faces Of Vanity” were pretty good live.
After 30 minutes of waiting, Jeff and his company started their set. First of all was of course “Suicide Society”, the title track from their latest album, before “King Of The Kill” set the fans on fire. Jeff, despite his 50 years, was amazing. The vibe that he had on stage can’t be described. He was in tremendous mood and couldn’t stop doing whatever he felt natural while playing iconic riffs and singing with absolute precision. Seeing this man, you could only think that he was born to perform on stage. His young bandmates were also great and did they best to prove themselves that they deserved to be with him. In guitars was his fellow Canadian Aaron Homma, in bass Rich Hinks from the UK and in drums Fabio Alessandrini from Italy. Fun fact, no one of them was born when Annihilator started their journey! But Jeff was the man of the hour as he was a delight and couldn’t stop telling jokes all the time, especially about his home country. The highlight of this was the goofy monster masks that the band put on during “Phantasmagoria” and the poor roadie had to hold still the microphone stand because the teeth of Jeff’s mask were pushing it back. After the song, he said that he wanted to see how it is to be Slipknot but in his opinion it was really stupid. A great performance that left us asking for more when the end of their show came.
Terrific sound, stand-up comedy and thrash metal, classic songs that will never fade. What more could you ask for? Maybe 4-5 tracks more, because their show was limited to only 90 minutes. Maybe the quality of their studio albums keeps on dropping but as long as they perform like that, Annihilator live is an experience that you have to witness.
George Terzakis
Photos: Afroditi Zagana
Setlist: Suicide Society, King Of The Kill, Creepin’ Again, Annihilator, No Way Out, Set The World On Fire, Stonewall, Syn. Kill 1, No Zone, Brain Dance/Chicken & Corn, Crystal Ann/Alison Hell, Second To None, Phantasmagoria, W.T.Y.D., Human Insecticide
