Recoil live in Athens April 2010

While still in Depeche Mode,  Alan Wilder had already started his personal project, Recoil. And dedicated himself to it after leaving DM. And back in 2010 he released "Selected", which was basically a compilation of tracks from all those years. During the tour to promote it he performed a gig in Athens on Sunday the 11th of April 2010 at Fuzz Club. I should point out first of all that this wasn't an ordinary gig. And I have to mention that because when I uploaded 2 videos on YouTube, somebody made a comment that looked like this: "You must have had an invitation... Recoil who? We paid 28 euros to see a DJSet of a guy playing with his midi and another one who was looking at a laptop? The biggest rip-off I have ever witnessed" (And that was the "clean" version of the comment) It's true that it was basically a DJ set, accompanied by a keyboard. And we should also make it clear that we are talking about electronic music which isn't necessarily pop, ie we're not talking about electro-pop or synth-pop. Some tracks had vocals, from the guest vocalists that Alan had at times used, which on that particular night were pre-recorded. And all these were accompanied by video projections on 3 of the club's 4 walls. Therefore it was more of a show than a gig. And definitely not a concert. (The word "gig" was suggested by one person who commented on the original Greek post). A similar thing happens when Tiesto comes, he doesn't play his tracks live, but instead he's changing records, CD's, or MP3 files, the guy is a DJ!. This would have been the response I would have given to that comment, but somebody else replied with an even better one: "t****z were you aware of the kind of gig you were attending or did you just happen to pass by and went in? There were plenty of videos on youtube from their previous appearances and even Wilder himself had said in an interview that this wasn't going to be a classic "rock'n'roll" concert"... Anyway, as far as the gig was concerned Fuzz Club wasn't full. I don't know if that means that it was considered a "failure", the point was that you could move about freely and drink your beer like a normal person. The audience by the way enjoyed it,  especially, when at some point a snippet of "Never Let Me Down Again" by Depeche Mode was played as we can see in the following video: 

Support was provided by Greek band In Trance 95. They also played electro and in their music you could hear sounds that would have maybe reminded you of Depeche Mode in the 80's. "Recoil:Selected" was available in different formats one of which was a box set with 3 CD's and 1 DVD (which I think featured the videos projected during their tour).

Alison Moyet live in Athens March 2010

The first concert covered by The PAP DX Blog wasn't properly covered. That's because it was taking place at the Athens Concert Hall (Megaron). It is almost impossible to take a photo or record a video there, because if you do the staff will be on you in an instant. However, when I went there in March 2010 to see Alison Moyet, I managed to take a couple of photos and record 20 seconds of video. And when I originally wrote about it in the blog (in Greek) I combined my post with a review of the Yazoo concert in Manchester which had taken place two years before and which has already been covered here in English.
The first thing I noticed when Alison came on stage was how much weight she had lost compared to 2008. That didn't matter at all to me because I had considered her beautiful since her Yazoo days in the 80's no matter what her weight was.
Thankfully she didn't follow the "program" mentioned in the press release (which was probably the tracklist of the new compilation her record company insisted on releasing as she mentioned in one of her interviews) and as a result we got an extra Yazoo track and more from her first two albums which were her most successful. Most of the songs were presented in a different arrangement to the ones we were use to from her albums. You could say they were more "jazzy" in some cases. 

 

Some of the songs we heard that night (not in the order in which they were performed but in a chronological one) were these: Only You, Situation, Don't Go from Yazoo. We could add Ode To Boy II here, a song she had also recorded with Yazoo as Ode To Boy. Love Resurrection (her first solo single), All Cried Out (the second one, which I didn't care much for, but the audience loved it), That Ole Devil Called Love, Is This Love (one of my favourites from her second album), Weak In The Presence Of Beauty ("This song is like old boyfriends. You know you loved them once...") Ordinary Girl (in an arrangement "without the kitchen sink" as she said which made even me like it although it was never one of my favourites), Love Letters (she brought the house down on this one) This House, Ne Me Quitte Pas, It Won't Be Long, The Windmills Of Your Mind (which most people know from "The Thomas Crown Affair"). These were all that I could remember but I left one as an honorary mention: The last song (before the encore): When in 1994 I had almost forgotten about Alison Moyet she released this incredible track : Whispering Your Name. I thought it was strange that the Greek audience remembered that. After the end of the concert I headed straight to the stand with the CD's so that I could buy those that were missing from my collection...