The PAP DX Blog: Ejekt Festival

Thursday, 19 December 2024

Ejekt Festival 2024 - Maneskin

Maneskin are the band famous for winning the Eurovision Song Contest in 2021 with Zitti E Buoni which was, essentially a hard rock song. Contrary to what people might think, hard rock songs are usually quite popular on Eurovision. What comes to people's minds of course is Eurovision 2006 and the winning song Hard Rock Hallelujah by Lordi from Finland. But the year before that, it was the Norwegian entry which not only was a hard rock song, but it also got a lot of points. In my opinion, it sounded a lot like The Scorpions. Going back to the subject of Maneskin, they didn't just win the contest, but they've also broken what is believed by many to be a cardinal rule of Eurovision: That, apart from ABBA, all artists who have won the contest are one hit wonders and are quickly forgotten a few months after the victory. Maneskin however, not only were they not forgotten they had already had a career in Italy and they became even more popular after Eurovision. And that's not all. They won the acclaim of several international artists from Duran Duran to Tom Morello and Steve Van Zandt. And as far as my relationship with Maneskin goes, I had already bought their "Teatro D'Ira" album shortly after Eurovision, but I later bought another one. Usually,on my frequent trips to Italy for concerts I make it a point of buying an Italian CD and an Italian DVD. So on last year's trip to Milano to see Bruce Springsteen in Monza, I bought Maneskin's latest album "Rush!". And that was the one that convinced me to go and see them live when I learned that they would be appearing in Athens.

As I was entering the venue, which was not the Olympic Stadium itself but in one of its parking lots Alice Merton had already started playing. I had already heart of her, but not her songs and I read somewhere that one of her songs was in fact a hit in Greece. I did enjoy her set, more than the next support act, I must admit.

Then it was time for Palaye Royale. I hadn't heard of them, but I was happy to notice that the frontman was sporting a "Heart Of Glass Blondie" t-shirt.

While Palaye Royale were still playing, I started walking around the venue. After having attended so many different dates of Release Festival, this was something new for me. Some sponsors were the same, some were different, so there were some freebies being offered that were new to me, including, for the first time at a festival, ice creams! And I was glad that one of the sponsors was Jack Daniel's!

It was then time for Maneskin, the main act. You could sense the anticipation in the atmosphere of mostly young people who were there, especially as the band took a bit of time to appear. But when they did, it was explosive. They played both the Italian and the English language songs, as they do on their albums. One of them was "Gossip" their collaboration with Tom Morello, which he himself had performed in Athens a few days earlier when he had supported the Smashing Pumpkins.

On the last song of their main set, "Kool Kids" they even invited members of the audience onto the stage with them, which they thoroughly enjoyed!

They finished the encore by playing "I Wanna Be Your Slave" for the second time.

So, one would think that a concert which attracted young people to listen to a rock band would please the, by now notorious on this blog, "Greek rock fans", right? Wrong! The following day, I read a review on a site by one of them who claimed that Maneskin were not a "serious" band and their music was just for kids and invited his followers to join him on a festival that was going to take place on one of the mountains of Greece where they could listen to Greek "artistic" music! But these are the people who complain that young people don't listen to "quality music" these days. But when they do listen to the music that they themselves approve of they still complain! Go figure! Of course, some of the members of the audience (mostly young girls) were so young that they were accompanied by their mothers. But the mothers themselves seemed to enjoy the show as well. And some of these girls were accused of fancying Damiano, the frontman! So what! I fancy Victoria myself, but I went to the concert to listen to their music!

Oh well! Some people will never be happy... At least we were!

SETLISTS;

ALICE MERTON

01. Run Away Girl

02. Hit the Ground Running

03. Vertigo

04. Learn To Live

05. Mania

06. Same Team

07. 100 Stories

08. Don't Leave Me Alone With My Thoughts

09. Pick Me Up

10. Lash Out

11. Waste My Life

12. No Roots

13. Why So Serious

14. The Other Side

PALAYE ROYALE

01. Little Bastards

02. Black Sheep

03. You'll Be Fine

04. Fucking With My Head

05. No Love in LA

06. Hang On to Yourself

07. Just My Type

08. Dead to Me

09. Paranoid

10. Showbiz

11. Fever Dream

12. Lonely

13. Mr. Doctor Man

MANESKIN

01. Don't Wanna Sleep

02. Gossip

03. Zitti E Buoni

04. Honey (Are U Coming?)

05. Supermodel

06. Gasoline

07. The Driver

08. Beggin'

09. For Your Love

10. Own My Mind

11. Baby Said

12. I Wanna Be Your Slave

13. MammaMia

14. In Nome Del Padre

15. Bla Bla Bla

16. Off My Face

17. Kool Kids

Encore:

18. The Loneliest

19. I Wanna Be Your Slave (Reprise)

Wednesday, 26 August 2020

Ejekt Festival 2019 - The Cure

The Cure were one of the bands I has seen at the Rock In Athens festival back in 1985. I hadn't seen them again since that. I remember a summer night in the 90's when a friend and neighbour of mine came back from the city center declaring "I have just seen the Cure" and me thinking how nice it would have been if I had gone as well, to see them again. Well, that moment didn't come until last year, 2019 when I finally set a new record for the longest time gap between gigs of the same band. With Depeche Mode (who had also appeared at Rock In Athens) it was 21 years when I saw them in 2006, the same with AC/DC three years later (1988 and 2009), then it went up to 26 years with Eric Clapton (1984 and 2010) - and let's not forget 22 years for the Pet Shop Boys (1991 and 2013), 23 years for Bon Jovi (1988 and 2011) - while finally it went up to 30 years with Erasure and a few months later Iron Maiden last year (both 1988 and 2018). But The Cure set a new record with 34 years (1985 and 2019).

I wanted to be there in time to catch Ride (I remember those differently coloured EP's from the beginning of the 90's) but my biggest discovery of the day was the band I just managed to catch when I arrived : Khruangbin. With their mostly instrumental tracks based on guitar (they inserted snippets of "Misirlou" and other popular songs in there).

Then it was the turn of Ride and a return to that wonderful, baggy, brilliant, indie-rave summer of 1990.

After that it was time to return to the present though with Michael Kiwanuka, a rare example of an artist playing a Greek festival in his prime.

It was, however, time for The Cure now. They kicked off with "Plainsong" and from the beginning it was clear that they were going to play a lot of "Disintegration". 2019 was actually the 40th anniversary of that particular album. They did in fact play 7 out of its 12 songs, however their set was structured in a similar way to their 2018 concert at Hyde Park in London which was celebrating their 40th anniversary as a band.

Indeed at around the middle of their main set, the older favourites started to appear and there were even more of them during the encore.

It was a pleasure to listen to songs we had already heard back in 1985. And from the look on his face, Robert seemed to enjoy it...

Unfortunately, this was the last summer festival that took place in Athens. Most of the 2020 ones are rescheduled for 2021, but we'll see what happens...