Jean Michel Jarre live in Athens June 2010

I had wanted to see Jean Michel Jarre in concert ever since the late 80's. Having seen on television excerpts from his concerts in Houston, Lyon and other cities with the incredible - at least for that era - laser shows and the musical instruments that he had created, I decided that this was an experience I would like to have! And I was actually ready to do that since I was in London when he announced that he would organize similar concerts at the Docklands. Of course, the English, being as usual spoilsports set several obstacles concerning safety reasons and what have you and so the concerts were postponed only to take place later marred by the worst kind of English weather as well as reduced ticket numbers. As a result, I couldn't make it.  However, back in 2010 I got my chance to make up for it. Seeing as the concert was taking place at an indoor venue (as was the whole of that year's tour), I was doubtful as to whether he could reproduce all those special effects. I needn't have worried! He performed a bit of everything. Including the musical instrument with the laser beams which played a different note depending on which beam he was touching. He even treated us to some 3D effects... and he played the theremin as well!

The theremin is one of the first electronic instrument invented almost a century ago by a soviet scientist.

One funny thing that happened was when I realized that the two people sitting next to me were talking about their visit to Busch Gardens, the amusement park I was working at back in 2000 in the USA. All in all, this was a night to remember, and what was more important was that the venue was full. And keep this in mind: for those that listen to synth-pop, Jean Michel Jarre (together with our very own Vangelis) is their classical music! 

SETLIST:
01. Oxygène 2
02. Magnetic Fields 1
03. Équinoxe 7
04. Équinoxe 5
05. Troisième Rendez-Vous
06. Magnetic Fields 2
07. Souvenirs Of China
08. Oxygène 5
09. Variation 3
10. Theremin Memories
11. Équinoxe 4
12. Statistics Adagio
13. Révolution Industrielle 2
14. Deuxième Rendez-Vous
15. Quatrième Rendez-Vous
16. Chronologie 6
17. Chronologie 2
18. Oxygène 4
19. Oxygène 12
20. Calypso 3

 

Bob Dylan live in Athens May 2010

 

On the 29th of May 2010, Bob Dylan played at Terra Vibe.  Ever since this concert was announced there were many quibbles expressed as to what we were about to see and whether it was going to be worth it. Let me explain: My brother is much older than me. His friends grew up in the seventies listening to Dylan (and that particular Dylan was the sixties one with peace, love and blowin' in the wind). When he came here for a concert (back in 1989 I think), they rushed to see him and were in for a nasty surprise when he came on stage (at Lycabettus theatre I think), stared at the floor during the whole gig, performed all the songs on the setlist, and finally left without saying a simple "thank you". Well, what can I say, his performance at Live Aid in 1985 should have given them a hint.

Now, let's get back to the present. My first impressions at Terra Vibe were that he was in a good mood (more than usual, anyway) and that his band was exceptionally good.

  There were still complaints from others, though. Several people said that his voice was not up to his usual standard, that he butchered his songs and that it would be a good idea to give it all up and retire. Well, first of all, I think that he's not the first artist who plays different versions of his songs when performing live. On the other hand, his voice may indeed not be up to scratch anymore, but at least I'll be able to say that I have seen Bob Dylan live. Having said all that, you can decide for yourselves while watching the video for "Lay Lady Lay" from that night (No title or details have been provided on the video since he is known to have hired some people who search for videos of his on YouTube and when they find them, they take them down).

All those things aside, it was indeed a memorable night, partly due to the plastic bottle filled with Grant's whisky that was doing the rounds, but also because that day was the birthday of a friend and we celebrated it at Terra Vibe. Having no cake handy, we stuck a candle on a hot dog bought from one of the festival canteens for him to blow. Oh, and those frozen Margueritas that were sold at Terra Vibe back then were amazing!
All in all, I don't regret attending that concert, since because of it friends gathered from all four corners of Greece...

SETLIST:
01. Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35
02. Lay, Lady, Lay
03. I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
04. Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again
05. Just Like A Woman
06. Honest With Me
07. Desolation Row
08. Ballad Of Hollis Brown
09. Rollin' And Tumblin'
10. The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll
11. Highway 61 Revisited
12. Workingman's Blues #2
13. Thunder On The Mountain
14. Ballad Of A Thin Man
15. Like A Rolling Stone
16. All Along The Watchtower

 

City live in Athens May 1981

 

I have just realized that this year I am celebrating 40 years after my first live gig. It was in fact Saturday the 23rd of May 1981 when an East German band called City played in Athens. Unlike other gigs of that period (like "Rock In Athens 85") I did not manage to find any photos or posts about it on the internet. But there are so many things I remember about that day so my post is 100% original and I've used the album covers as photos.
Now, to understand the situation at that time I must give you the background to this story. From 1967 to 1980 there were no gigs by international rock artists in Greece. The last one, on the 17th of April, 1967, was by The Rolling Stones and it was violently interrupted by the police. Four days later, on the 21st, a military junta was imposed. The next gig by an international artist to take place in Greece was in 1980 by The Police (the band fronted by Sting, not the Greek police which had stopped the Rolling Stones gig 13 years before!). After that, more international artists started coming to Greece for gigs. At that particular Police gig, one of the roadies had a tape with him featuring a strange song with a violin solo. He kept on playing that tape while the crowd was waiting for The Police to come on stage. That strange song was "Am Fenster" by City, an East German band. By word of mouth that song quickly became a huge hit all over Greece.
In 1981, I had already bought City's two albums that were available in Greece ("City I" and "City II"), so when I saw the ad for the gig in "POP+ROCK" magazine, I decided to ask my parents to let me go. I asked one of my classmates to come with me and our parents agreed to let us go on condition that my father would come with us. (I actually remember that my dad was afraid that there might be riots of a political nature because the band was from East Germany). I bought the tickets and the day before the concert I went with my dad to the football stadium where the gig would take place so that he would get to know the area. We actually managed to get inside and had a look around while the pitch was being watered.
It's amazing how many things I remember about that gig 40 years later. Before the gig started there was someone going around the stands shouting "Mandolato!". This was what he was selling which roughly translates as nougat, a sweet that was quite popular in Greece. I'm guessing that he was doing the same job every Sunday when football matches were played at this stadium the home of Apollon F.C.
Vlassis Bonatsos a Greek musician, was the support act. He had just released a new album called "Genika" ("Generally").

He played several songs from that album one of which was called "Vgale To Magio Sou" ("Take Off Your Bathing Suit"). The lyrics actually went "Take off your bathing suit and dive into your subconscious". This did not prove very popular with the audience who started booing and taking the piss. He managed to finish his set and as he was going backstage the crowd were chanting en masse "Take off your bathing suit, take off your bathing suit!"
After a short wait, with many more shouts of "Mantolato!", City came on stage. I remember that they played the opening track from the City I album "Es Ist Unheimlich Heiß", I remember "Bulgarien Rock" from the "City II" album (but I think they sung it in English and another song called "Love You" where the frontman was approaching every other member of the band telling them that, well, he loved them. We were of course waiting for "Am Fenster" but while waiting for that, what caught our attention was a song that went "I sing about rock'n'roll and you understand". This one got the audience singing along. The song was actually called "Something To Tell You" and was featured on the third City album that was released in Greece called "Dreamland" which mainly consisted of some of their older songs now sung in English. "Am Fenster" was, of course, saved for last. There was no encore and that was actually good, because if they had saved "Am Fenster" for the encore, we never would have heard it. Greek audiences, deprived of concerts for 13 years, did not even know what an encore was! So when the band went offstage they started leaving.
Two more things that I remember from back then. The following Monday at school, my friend was telling everyone about the guy selling "mantolato", and that on the actual night of the gig my dad had to use makeshift earplugs because he was not used to the loud volume of rock gigs. It was his first concert as well!
Finally, 30 years later, I saw "City" CD's being sold at the gift shop of the DDR museum in Berlin...

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...

Group sex in Berlin

And now that I've got your attention, I will talk about the 4 days we spent in Berlin 10 years ago. No, I did not go for a concert. A friend, who was already there to cover the Berlinale (Berlin Film Festival), invited us to hang out. I didn't have enough money to go at the time, but thanks to EasyHotel which was charging only 25 euros a night for a single room, I made it. I want to emphasize that EasyHotels are not tiny dirty holes, but super-clean hotels providing just the basics: A bed, a bathroom with a toilet and shower including soap, shower gel, towels and toilet paper. No, there's no table to spread your things on. Why would you do that anyway? You wouldn't be planning to spend much time in your room now, would you? If you want to watch TV, you'll have to pay extra (Seriously now, you're going to Berlin and you'll stay in the room to watch TV?). Do you want Wi-Fi? You'll have to pay extra. Do you want something to eat or to drink? There's a vending machine at the reception. But don't worry: If you need more toilet paper you WON'T have to pay extra. It's free. So we went to... Alexanderplatz... Potzdammerplatz... ...we basically went to so many platzes that we became very mixed up with their names. The only one that was easy to remember was Hanzaplatz. We also went to the Brandenburg Gate (natürlich)... ...and at Checkpoint Charlie, where the people pretending to be the "guards" charge 2 euros to take a picture with them and when we told them that we were Greek we were greeted by shouts of "Geia shou, malaka, Olympiάkos, Panathinάikos" And since we were movie fans, we remembered Wim Wenders and his movies "Wings Of Desire" and "Faraway, So Close" We also went to the East Side Gallery to see what was left of the wall We also went to the new synagogue... ...which was particularly interesting for a vinyl fan like myself  And now for some museums: The Film Museum (Deutsche Kinemathek)... The DDR Museum (East Germany Museum), where we were reminded of the cars the proletarians used to own... ...and those that belonged to party members... ...as well as of the fact that one way of showing resistance to the regime was through the practice of nudism... At the gift shop I found a CD by City (East German rock band, which was the first one I ever saw live back in 1981 in Athens), as well as a "Best Of" of East Germany titled "Hits Der DDR". I ended up buying the latter. At the Checkpoint Charlie museum we had the chance to observe the various ways that people were using in order to try and flee to the west... And of course we went to the Pergamonmuseum. Berlin girls were a little bit cold... ...but that was probably due to the subzero temperature that persisted while we were there. There was no snow. In fact, the only snow we saw in Berlin was this: near the Brandenburg Gate. Of course we did manage to track down the Greek elements of the city: Near the hotel was the "Kunsthaus Tacheles", an art house that was permanently closed down a year later: As far was food was concerned we didn't eat anything German. We went to the Monsieur Wuong Vietnamese restaurant... and to an American fast food restaurant called "White Trash"... ...where you can eat Elvis's favourite burger! As far as drinks were concerned we went to Scotch & Sofa, where a Jack Daniel's will only set you back 5 Euros and 10 cents. Want to try to find Jack Daniels at this price in Greece? Good luck! We also went to Solar, 16 floors above Berlin I've still haven't explained why I have used "Group Sex" in the title of this post (apart from the fact that this will probably attract perverts to my blog). This was a something that came from C, a member of our gang who had a habit of changing the names of everyday things and places. So the "group ticket" which we had to buy at the metro became "group sex" and "Checkpoint Charlie" became "Charlie Brown". Of course Hanzaplatz became Hanzaplast, but this was something that could happen to anybody... And since I mentioned the metro, one of the lines reminded me of one of my favourite bands: Finally, I said that I didn't go for a concert. But the opportunity for one presented itself. At club Bassy we saw Kilroy, a band from Sweden who played "cheesy rock'n'roll" as they claimed. A great night out for my last night in Berlin which ended with me buying their CD and their 7 inch single...