“The night has a thousand eyes…”
No matter how much we wish everything to be smooth and easy in our lives it seems that life has other plans and many times bad things come. Natural disasters are always there, no matter it is our fault or not. The thing is to stand in solidarity for those who suffer each time, a little help from many will make a difference for those in need. So, the same happened this year after the disastrous fires on Evia island, a disaster that hopefully made many people all over Greece to help. The same happened with the greek rock/metal scene, many bands for example gave money from their merch while on Sunday 3 of October three greek bands united for this small festival at the municipal theatre of Ilioupoli district.
“Bleeding the truth a peril is unleashed…”
At the beginning there weren’t many fans inside the theatre but soon people arrived, no surprise here as for many it was the first gig after many months due to covid-related measures. A bit after 20:00 PASSENGERS IN PANIC came on state, a new band that released their debut album a few months ago, the album that they obviously based their setlist on their first ever live appearance. Those of us that knew about them we were happy enough to listen their work live on stage but I’m pretty sure for most part of the audience the was a nice surprise due to their nice music blending of metal tunes with folk melodies.
The band was great on stage and it was hard to get bored due to the variety of their compositions along with the passionate drumming of Eleni Nota. Yes, I’m sure they will be more impressive without the prerecorded parts but that’s something we can expect on a headlining show of their own. I must admit that I loved a bit more two special songs, their cover on «Tsabasin»(with Kally Voo on vocals), a traditional cover from Pontos region and of course «Leap of Faith», a song about the abused women that lost their lives in a oppressive patriarchal society that we must leave behind soon.
Setlist:
Intro / The Undertaking / Gang of Stares / No Ghosts at the Feast / Leap of Faith / Shipwreck / Life at it’s Best / Tsampasin / To Stain
video PASSENGERS IN PANIC live:
“lift the sorrow, hear your wounds…”
After a small break for beer refilling (although I’d like something stronger now that the temperature is in normal levels) we saw on stage ENEMY OF REALITY. They are into symphonic metal and the first thing that impresses everyone is the voice of Iliana Tsakiraki. Iliana is not just another front woman but a great soprano that pushes the band on a higher level. Stelianos was super energetic on guitars while Thanos was imposing on bass (I also liked the brutal vocals on «The Bargaining»).
They were on stage for 45 minutes and I can say I picked «Nouthetisis» as their highlight. Last but not least at the end of their show they also had a song with a reference to Pontos region. Let’s see what their new album will bring.
setlist:
Intro / Reflected / Afraid no more / The Bargaining / Nouthetisis / Taste of defeat / Την Πατρίδα μ’εχασα
video ENEMY OF REALITY live:
“Where is your star? Is it far?…”
Time was 22:00 when the headliners came on stage. ROCK N ROLL CHILDREN is a greek tribute band to DIO, a band that brings us the last years the music of Ronnie James Dio. And it’s not just the diamonds we hear live, it’s their great philanthropic attitude, that’s why we see them often on a charity concerts like this at Ilioupoli.
When it comes to music there’s not much to say, as always it was a pleasure to see and listen to them, Manolis Tsigkos was great on guitar and Yiannis Papanikolaou gave life to the lyrics of Ronnie. As expected they covered all the periods, from the solo albums to Rainbow years and from there to Black Sabbath era. The only difference with their previous gigs was that there weren’t any guests on stage and their setlist was was shorter but the theatre cant stay open after 23.30 because there are many apartments around but I must admit that I’d love to go to bed listening “Catch the rainbow” or any other hymn from DIO
® text/photos: Konstantinos Mindcrimek Vlachos
video ROCK N ROLL CHILDREN live:
