The second day of this year’s edition of Ladies Of Metal festival included three local bands and one from Spain. Meden Agan have proven their worth over the years while Marialena Trikoglou’s band under her first name (Marialena) as well as Disillusive Play are clearly not very familiar to a wider audience, so the festival was just a great opportunity for them. As for Barbara Black from Spain, we’ll talk about later.
Marialena and her band took to the small stage of the club at the scheduled time for a forty-minute, decent performance. The singer’s voice is good, the musicians are good, the songs from the symphonic metal genre were good, but without something to set the audience on fire. Plus, the cover on Nightwish’s “Sahara” was mediocre. Overall, however, the vibes of the opening act and the reactions of the crowd at the festival were positive.
Up next were Disillusive Play, an interesting band that showed that it has pluralism in their repertoire. We heard some really good songs – most of them from their upcoming album, but there were some technical problems shortly after the beginning of their appearance. Antigoni is a very good singer and quickly became the crowd’s favourite. I was thrilled by their excellent cover of “Cum On Feel The Noize”, a great hit for Quiet Riot in 1983! After about forty-five minutes, Disillusive Play was justifiably applauded.
I have to admit that Barbara Black won me over! Hard metal from the Spaniards, who reminded me of early Battle Beast and a modern rock and roll, while they also grabbed the people by their throat with their excellent performance and their general stage attitude in a field in which the previous bands lacked. Barbara chose to play Marilyn Manson’s “The Beautiful People”, which I must admit seemed a bit awkward due to the recent legal issues of female abuse the American artist is facing. Their appearance lasted an hour and for me it was the revelation of the festival.
I can hardly judge the appearance of the headliners of the festival, Meden Agan. Since the beginning of their set, the sound was bad, I heard very loud guitars and drums while the bass with the keys was as if they did not exist. I could hear Dimitra’s voice well in the operetical parts, but during the rest it was lost. Because I know the singer, I know she doesn’t sing like that, so the responsibility probably goes elsewhere. Meden Agan took the risk of playing three tracks from their upcoming album which has not yet been recorded, they sounded good to me but as I said, the sound wasn’t their ally that night. The set of the band lasted a little less than an hour and at the end they invited the singers from the previous bands on stage for a cover of Ever Dream.
Ladies Of Metal 2022 ended with the promise of Angels PR, the organizing company, that the effort will continue next year.
Dimitris Kazantzis
