Summer Nostos Festival 2019 - Neneh Cherry

Summer Nostos Festival is an annual week-long festival organized by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation at its wonderful Cultural Centre which also houses the Greek National Opera and the Greek National Library. There's so much more going on apart from concerts such as dance performances, art exhibitions, theatre, sports events and activities for families and children.

Last year I attended because I wanted to see Stereo Nova, Greece's most famous “techno” band from the 90's. This year I went in order to see the legendary and fabulous Neneh Cherry.

Not only is the festival free, but the center provides its own mini buses taking you to and from the nearest metro stations. We had arrived much earlier, so we had a chance to have a glimpse at Balthazar, the band playing before Neneh Cherry at another area of the festival grounds.

After that we walked straight on to the stage where Neneh Cherry would be appearing. She was right on time and one of the first songs she performed was “Manchild”. She continued both with songs from her latest albums and old favourites. My only complaint lies with “7 Seconds” and it is that the male voice was pre-recorded. She couldn't bring Youssou'N'Dour along with her of course, but I'm sure she could have added a decent backing singer to her band who would be up to the task. Her own performance was nevertheless wonderful. 

And she finished with a wonderful medley of “I've Got You Under My Skin” and “Buffalo Stance”.

Release Festival 2019 - New Order & Johnny Marr

My second, and final Release Festival date for 2019 was the most anticipated. 8 days after my first with Iggy Pop and James, I went back to Water Square to see New Order and Johnny Marr. I had always wanted to see New Order live. After having seen Peter Hook And The Light not once, but twice, performing the songs of Joy Division and New Order, I now wanted to see the real thing. Plus they are one of the “Girlfriend Bands”, one of her favourites along with Belle And Sebastian, Manic Street Preachers and Blossoms. As for Johnny Marr... well, since I had already seen his other half in The Smiths, Morrissey, I now wanted to see him as well. And it wasn't just Smiths songs that I was expecting to hear. “Easy Money” a single from his previous album was one of my favourites. But before these two I was going to see Morcheeba. It was more than 20 years ago that I first noticed them when “Let Me See” was used on a Bailey's commercial and on the Gwynneth Paltrow movie “Sliding Doors”. 

So, just after arriving at Water Square where the “Yesterday” double decker bus was still in place, their set began. They did play “Let Me See”, understandably towards the end of their set, but not before they had treated us to a wonderful cover version of David Bowie's “Let's Dance”. It was the second David Bowie tribute for me at this year's Release Festival since 8 days before that Iggy Pop had covered “The Jean Genie”.

After Morcheeba, it was time for the customary exploratory walk around the festival grounds, where I bought a t-shirt and by buying a coffee and playing an interactive game I won a bluetooth speaker. (Coffee? It wasn't time for coffee, it was time for a beer!). And moreover, after all these activities we managed to reach the front of the stage where we waited for Johnny Marr. Johnny Marr's set had a little bit of everything. First of all he played songs from his solo career: Quite a few from his latest album, but also my favourite “Easy Money” and even his cover of Depeche Mode's “I Feel You”. There were - of course - songs from the Smiths (his second song of the night was “Bigmouth Strikes Again” but the only song both he and Morrissey in his 2014 Athens gig played was “How Soon Is Now”). 

And finally there were Electronic songs. We were first treated to “Getting Away With It”, but a little bit later we witnessed an actual Electronic reunion when Bernard Sumner of New Order who were going to appear next came up on stage to duet on “Get The Message”. Only Neil Tennant was missing (who had actually appeared at Water Square six years before with the Pet Shop Boys). 

All in all, Johnny Marr live was a wonderful experience and I was so justified for wanting to see him live after having seen Morrissey!

Finally, it was time for New Order. This time it was the real thing and we knew what we would be getting: Hit after hit after hit. Not only New Order hits, but Joy Division as well! I must confess that I am basically a fan of their “Substance” period. That, for me, includes everything up to “Touched By The Hand Of God” and bits of the “Technique” album. “World In Motion” also belongs to that period and I love it but it's a completely different thing. I must confess that I was tempted to request it by shouting, but I thankfully restrained myself in the end. As you have probably deduced by now I am an 80's New Order fan. But then again one of their 90's tracks is, in my opinion, an absolute masterpiece: “Regret”. It's just that I'm not very much into their latest period, the one starting with “Get Ready” (“We're like crystal, we break easy”, I mean seriously?). Well, if you look at the setlist, you'll see that it was mostly suited to my tastes. “Regret' was played, early on, “Subculture” was played, a personal favourite which I first heard on a slightly different version on a 7'' EP given free with Record Mirror magazine in the 80's, and finally, Joy Division songs were played. Bernard was overjoyed that the audience responded so well to the Joy Division songs and as a result the band played two more of them including the obligatory “Love Will Tear Us Apart”.

All in all, it was a wonderful experience. New Order and Johnny Marr on the same night plus a bonus Electronic reunion. Unforgettable!

SETLISTS:

MORCHEEBA
01. Never Undo
02. Friction
03. Never An Easy Way
04. Otherwise
05. The Sea
06. Trigger Hippie
07. Blaze Away
08. Let's Dance
09. Blindfold
10. Let Me See
11. Summertime
12. Rome Wasn't Built In A Day

JOHNNY MARR
01. The Tracers
02. Bigmouth Strikes Again
03. Armatopia
04. Day In Day Out
05. New Dominions
06. Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before
07. Hi Hello
08. Walk Into The Sea
09. Getting Away With It
10. Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me
11. Spiral Cities
12. How Soon Is Now?
13. Get the Message (with Bernard Sumner)
14. Easy Money
15. I Feel You
16. There Is A Light That Never Goes Out

NEW ORDER
01. Singularity
02. Regret
03. Restless
04. She's Lost Control
05. Shadowplay
06. Transmission
07. Your Silent Face
08. Bizarre Love Triangle
09. Subculture
10. Plastic
11. The Perfect Kiss
12. True Faith
13. Blue Monday
14. Temptation
Encore:
15. Atmosphere
16. Love Will Tear Us Apart

Release Festival 2019 - Iggy Pop & James

My 2019 summer festival season started on the 8 th of June. And like last year, it once again started with a Release Festival date. The Release Festival date that I had already chosen for this year would come 8 days after this one (New Order and Johnny Marr), but this one, fell into the same category as my last year's Ejekt Festival attendance. Like Nick Cave last year, Iggy Pop is an artist who often comes to Greece whom I had not had the chance to see yet. And as an added bonus, I would also get to see James again, one of my favourite live bands (or so I thought at the time).

As I arrived, Shame were already playing and were reaching the end of their set. I was pleasantly

surprised by them.

When they were through, I decided to explore the festival grounds as I do every year. My favourite part was the double decker bus used to advertise the forthcoming - at that time – movie, “Yesterday”. 

While I was at the open top deck I heard the first notes of “Come Home”. James were on stage.

A promising start that didn't live up to my expectations. I don't know if it had to do with the song choices or something else, but the band didn't seem to be quite “there” even when they played the songs we had been waiting for like “Laid” and they certainly did not remind me of that spectacular show they had delivered 12 years ago at the Fly Beeyond Festival. It may be my personal opinion, but I did not enjoy it. James have a lot of fans in Greece and many of them were there that day, so perhaps by looking at other reviews you can determine if they were good or bad that night.

As for Iggy Pop, well I thought that I had perhaps waited for too long, that he would be by now too old and that he would not have that much energy. I couldn't have been more wrong. He went on stage starting immediately with his best songs, got half naked as usual and blew us all away! The highlight? A cover version of the first David Bowie single I had ever bought, “The Jean Genie”.

Having finally fulfilled one of my long-time ambitions to see Iggy live, I headed home knowing I had to wait 8 more days for my next Release Festival date: New Order and Johnny Marr.

SETLISTS:
SHAME
01. Another
02. Concrete
03. The Lick
04. One Rizla
05. Cowboy Supreme
06. Tasteless
07. Human, For A Minute
08. Exhaler
09. Lampoon
10. Friction
11. Dust On Trial
12. Angie
13. Gold Hole
JAMES
01. Come Home
02. Ring The Bells
03. Nothing But Love
04. What's It All About
05. Leviathan
06. Five-O
07. Interrogation
08. Sound
09. Johnny Yen
10. Picture Of This Place
11. Heads
12. Laid
13. Attention
14. Many Faces
15. Getting Away With It (All Messed Up)
16. Sometimes
Encore:
17. Sit Down
IGGY POP
01. I Wanna Be Your Dog
02. Gimme Danger
03. The Passenger
04. Lust For Life
05. Skull Ring
06. I'm Sick Of You
07. Some Weird Sin
08. Repo Man
09. Search And Destroy
10. T.V. Eye
11. Mass Production
12. The Jean Genie
13. 1969
14. No Fun
15. Down On The Street
16. Real Cool Time
17. Nightclubbing
18. Sixteen
19. Five Foot One
20. Real Wild Child (Wild One)
21. Red Right Hand

Peter Hammill live in Athens

There were probably two famous Peters in the 70's. One was Peter Gabriel and the other was Peter Hammill. They both became famous as members of successful bands of the time (Peter Gabriel was fronting Genesis and Peter Hammill was fronting Van Der Graaf). I saw Peter Gabriel live in Athens back in 1987, a concert that is available on DVD. As for Peter Hammill, there was a rumour that he would play live in Athens in late 1979. If that had happened, it would have been very important, because the last rock concert to take place in Greece, was by The Rolling Stones back in 1967. And that didn't go down very well as it was stopped by the local police. Probably because of this there were no rock or pop concerts in Greece by foreign artists until 1980 when The Police played in Athens. After that, more artists started coming to Greece and in fact I attended my very own first concert in 1981 by East German rock group City, and the second one a year later by The Boomtown Rats, the band fronted by Bob Geldof. By 1985 we had our first rock festival, Rock In Athens 85. And of course, at some point Peter Hammill did come and play in Greece. And his more recent appearance was last March at Gagarin which was when I at last saw him.

The setup at Gagarin was different compared to usual concerts: There were seats! (One cannot expect to dance at a Peter Hammill gig). And the gig itself was sold out.
Peter Hammill appeared all by himself (no band) taking turns between playing the piano and the guitar.

A very quiet outing for a quite quiet Saturday night!

SETLIST:

Piano:

01. (This Side Of) The Looking Glass 

02. Empire Of Delight 

03. The Mousetrap (Caught In) 

04. After The Show 

05. His Best Girl 

Guitar:

06. I Will Find You 

07. Lizard Play 

08. Slender Threads 

09. (On Tuesdays She Used To Do) Yoga 

10. Once You Called Me 

11. Sitting Targets 

12. Patient 

Piano: 

13. Faculty X 

14. Your Tall Ship 

15. Milked 

16. A Better Time 

17. In The End 

Encore: 

18. Refugees