The warm Saturday night might not seem suitable to watch a live show at Gagarin, but a lot of people showed up pretty early to catch the Greeks Night Knight that were chosen as the support act.
This is a top notch indie band that begun as a one-man project from Serafeim Giannakopoulos of the mighty Planet Of Zeus. Aided by a loud and clear sound the four piece came up with a set that pleased the crowd. Their rhythm section had a great stage presence, while the guitars came second. Their songs surely sound richer live than in their studio recordings. That was a fitting warm up for the audience that was pouring in.
Graveyard have become one of Greeks favourite bands and that was obvious from the turn out, as well as the enthusiasm of the crowd, despite the fact that at the moment Patti Smith was playing another venue at the same time. The Gothenburg four is still on tour off their latest fourth studio album “Innocence & Decadence” having played all the major festivals in Europe with Athens being their first headline show for quite a while. From the first seconds even you could listen to their amazing sound letting all the instruments shine and brought the catch phrase “they sound like their CD” in mind. With no exaggeration in their stage performance the band transcended some tension to the audience, especially the female part of it that actually held the majority in the front rows, something rather unusual for a rock concert frankly. Joakim Nilsson put his soul in every song with his way of singing and playing guitar. The same goes for drummer Axel Sjoberg who must be one of the best performers from all the ‘70s revivalist bands we’ve seen. You could even say that he was like Bill Ward especially with his drum fills in the middle of the songs. As for the rest of the band it seems that “Swede” and “mediocre” seem like two terms that never go together in the same sentence. Everyone was superb and surely much more interesting playing live than listening their music at home. We had a great time with Graveyard and the heat didn’t become an obstacle with the venue seemed quite improved as compared to the past with that issue.
Kostas Kounadinis
{gallery}LiveReports/2016/Graveyard{/gallery}
