One (festival) for the road

On June 21st I was flying to Rome to see The Rolling Stones. En Lefko Festival was announced in Athens for that very same weekend, the 20th and the 21st featuring among others The Simple Minds, who I would like to see (again). I was lucky because they were chosen as headliners on Friday which meant that I could go see them and catch my flight the next day. I was even luckier because the other band that I wanted to see, Hooverphonic were billed to play just before them.

So, I arrived at Technopolis, just as Hooverphonic were beginning their set, and after some problems with my ticket (which looked more like a receipt) I got in.

(Apparently, the scanner could not read the barcode, but that's to be expected when they print the tickets on cash till paper where the ink gradually fades away - duh!)

Hooverphonic first came to my attention around 2002-2003 with "Sometimes" and continued later on with the "More Sweet Music / No More Sweet Music" package. For most Greeks they are famous for "Mad About You" though.

They played songs from the whole of their career, and they did play "Sometimes". The last song in an acoustic version.

Now, it was June, the beginning of summer and my last gig was surprisingly at an indoor venue. This one was outdoors, but, after the Hooverphonic set was over, it started raining.

We took shelter away from the stage and started worrying if this was going to affect the Simple Minds set which we were all waiting for, but thankfully it stopped just before they came onstage. (And yes, the first thing Jim Kerr said to us when he appeared was "show me your hands". Typical.)

I had seen them before, again in Athens back in 2006. This time there was more of their early stuff ("Love Song", "I Travel"), stuff that they had disowned when they became famous ("Don't listen to our early albums" Jim Kerr apparently said to Chrissie Hynde, his wife at the time). Suprisingly enough it was these "early" albums that they were promoting a few years ago on their 5x5 tour.

But the problem was that there was also quite a few of their later stuff when just as they became famous they decided to go "epic" ("See The Lights", "She's A River").

But of course there was also stuff from when they were famous AND making great pop songs ("Don't You Forget About Me", "Alive & Kicking", "Sanctify Yourself").

And they saved the best for last: my favourite, "New Gold Dream", a song that should have been a single but it wasn't and was my favourite song in late 1982 / early 1983.

So that was the last song of the second and last encore. We were now ready to go home (and in my case to the airport). But then it started raining again. Hard.

We took cover for quite a while, even visited the dance stage which was indoors.

Finally it stopped. Thankfully, because the next day was going to be a long one...

Simple Minds setlist:

        01. Waterfront
        02. Broken Glass Park
        03. Love Song
        04. Hypnotised
        05. Imagination
        06. I Travel
        07. Blindfolded
        08. Dancing Barefoot
              (Patti Smith Group cover)
        09. Dolphins
        10. She's a River
        11. Someone Somewhere in Summertime
        12. See the Lights
        13. Don't You (Forget About Me)
        Encore:
        14. Big Music
        15. Alive and Kicking
        Encore 2:
        16. Sanctify Yourself
        17. New Gold Dream (81,82,83,84)

Like a blister in the summer sun (a.k.a. No more Pliatsikas)

I noticed the Violent Femmes with their debut album back in the early eighties. And I knew one person in my English class who was a fan. This was the time when we used to write the names of our favourite bands on our school bags. So while looking at his bag it seemed strange to me that among several mainstream pop bands of the era Violent Femmes were in there.

10 years passed and we were now in the early 90's. While frequenting a local bar, I noticed that every night the DJ was playing two particular tracks back-to-back. The first one had a very staccato drum beat at the end of each verse and the second one was saying something like "they do it all the time". I leaned over the vinyl turntable (yeah, DJ's were still using these in the early 90's) and noticed that they were the first two tracks from the Violent Femmes debut album. So I went and bought the... CD! And found out that these two songs were "Blister In The Sun" and "Kiss Off". And that there were other great tracks on that album (like "Add It Up" for example).

Next thing I realized, these songs became big hits in Greece. In the 90's! They were also played at the biggest "rock" club of that era "Camel". This even prompted a reaction from the lifestyle press ("NITRO" magazine) saying that "playing this music in a club brings it down to the lever of our high school holidays". Anyway, these 2 songs were now classics, 10 years after their release.

And more than 30 years after their release, last June, I finally got the chance to hear them live, by the Violent Femmes performing that first album in full in Athens. The gig was at a new indoor venue (Stage Volume 1), although summer was now fully upon us. 

The band came on stage, and after about 4 songs they blasted into "Blister In The Sun" and the rest of the album. 

But the fun was not over after that. More instruments were added:

Violin, saxophone...

...cretan lyra (played by G.Dagaki)...

...and bouzouki.

And to top it all off, Filippos Pliatsikas from the Greek band "Pyx Lax" came onstage (we should have seen this coming, he is very good friends with Gordon Gano) and together they played first a Pyx Lax song and then "Blister In The Sun" once more. 

On this last one Pliatsikas adapted the lyrics of the chorus in Greek, that was not a very popular group with the crowd though...

SETLIST:

• 1. Look Like That
  2. Nightmares
  3. Mother of a Girl 
     === "Violent Femmes" album ===
  4. Blister in the Sun
  5. Kiss Off
  6. Please Do Not Go
  7. Add It Up
  8. Confessions
  9. Prove My Love
  10. Promise
  11. To the Kill
  12. Gone Daddy Gone
  13. Good Feeling
      ===
  14. Requiem
  15. Mirror Mirror (I See a Damsel)
  16. Hallowed Ground
  17. Old Mother Reagan
  18. All I Want
  19. Life Is an Adventure / Country Death Song
  20. Jesus Walking on the Water
  21. Gimme the Car
  22. Black Girls
  23. I Held Her in My Arms
  24. American Music
  25. Den tha dakriso pia gia sena
      (Pyx Lax cover)
  26. Omnuei
  27. Blister in the Sun (with Filippos Pliatsikas)
       
       

The return of The Western Ramblers

After more than a year, The Western Ramblers were back in April, with a new drummer, at the Double Trouble club in Athens

Dustbowl - Johnny Cash : The Tribute Show

 [Before we begin, here is some info from www.dustbowl.gr]
"Dust Bowl" were those whirlwinds and hurricanes of dust that infested the South-West States of America from 1930 to 1938. A term born in those hard times from the people who lived in the drought-stricken region during the Great Depression. The "Dust Bowl Days", also known as the "Dirty Thirties", took its toll on Cimarron County. The decade was full of extremes: blizzards, tornadoes, floods, droughts, and dirt storms.

The Dust Bowl did not cause the Great Depression, although it did contribute to some of the economic problems. The dust storms began years after the arrival of the Great Depression, leaving them only to further hinder the economy. When farmers in the Midwest started having problems with their crops because of "black blizzards", they found it difficult to make profit and eventually lost their land to banks and the government. With their land barren and homes seized in foreclosure, many farm families were forced to leave. Migrants left farms in Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas, Iowa, and New Mexico. The Dust Bowl exodus was the largest migration in American history within a short period of time.

Dustbowl (the band) were formed in Athens Greece [May 2006] and built their own flavor of Americana & Alt. Country-Rock. “Dusty Rock - Earth-Elegy” music which reveals their own inner lament and sentiments.
They weren’t concerned about fitting in or being a part of what anybody else was doing but the rebellious and deviant chain gang & the "dust bowl" refugees! 

 I went to see them when they did "Johnny Cash: The Tribute Show" at Athens Concert Hall (Megaro Mousikis Athinon) last March. I heard about them from the internet and a Johnny Cash tribute was not something I was going to miss. They had done this sort of thing before, back in 2012 I think, but this was the first time on a venue of such a scale. And they managed to rock the usually "serious" Athens Concert Hall with a 35 song set lasting for 2 1/2 hours. Several guests were brought on stage, including Makis from The Western Ramblers

SETLIST:
01. Folsom Prison Blues
02. I Walk The Line
03. Man In Black
04. So Doggone Lonesome
05. Big River
06. I'm Free From The Chain Gang Now
07. Get Rhythm
08. Cry! Cry! Cry!
09. Rusty Cage
10. Hey Porter
11. Busted
12. Cocaine Blues
13. Blue Train
14. Home Of The Blues
15. Wreck Of The Old '97
16. San Quentin
17. Sam Hall 
18. God's Gonna Cut You Down
19. Orange Blossom Special
20. Jackson
21. Long Black Veil
22. Ring Of Fire
23. It Ain't Me Babe
24. Green Green Grass Of Home
25. Sunday Morning Comin' Down
26. Don't Think Twice It's Alright
27. I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry
28. One Piece At A Time
29. I Still Miss Someone
30. I Won't Back Down
31. This Train Is Bound For Glory
32. Wanted Man
33. I Got Stripes
34. I've Been Everywhere
35. Ghost Riders In The Sky

 

I'm not a big fan of weddings, but I'm a fan of The Wedding Present

I admit it, I feel uncomfortable at weddings. Not the small civil ones like one of my best friends had a few years ago, but the big budget ones in churches where you have to act in a certain way, dress in the same way and party afterwards in a certain way. (And I really enjoyed it when a friend of mine took off his tie before his wedding, making me feel ankward that I was still wearing mine). I'd rather be at a rock concert as you've probably guessed. I think. Wedding presents are another thing. They are probably the most difficult present to give, since you have to choose something that the newlyweds want, but, at the same time, it is nothing that another guest has already chosen. So, I'm not a big fan of wedding presents either except for this one: The band fronted by David Gedge, who once released one limited edition 7" single every month for a whole year. (And that was in 1992 when the 7'' single was almost extinct and the CD single was the dominant format).

I finally saw them live in Athens last March, having missed them the last time they were here. They venue was six d.o.g.s., a small one, so it was one of those "intimate" gigs that I got to watch from the front of the stage.

Among the songs we heard that night, was "Blue Eyes" from "The Hit Parade" (the album compiling those aforementioned 7 inches and their cover versions b-sides), "Kennedy", "Everyone Thinks He Looks Daft" from "George Best", "Two Bridges" (their latest single) and even some from the band's alter ego Cinerama.

Finally, it was all over, after they warned us that they never play encores. The guitarist is still wondering however where his beer has gone...

SETLIST:
01. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah
02. Everyone Thinks He Looks Daft
03. 524 Fidelio
04. Meet Cute
05. Two Bridges
06. Mars Sparkles Down On Me
07. Runway To Seatac
08. Go, Man, Go
09. Drive
10. Kennedy
11. I Wake Up Screaming
12. So Long, Baby
13. Blue Eyes
14. Bear
15. It's A Gas
16. Crawl
17. My Favourite Dress
18. Dalliance
19. Dare
20. Bewitched