Release Athens Festival 2022 - Pet Shop Boys & Thievery Corporation

My third Release Festival 2022 date, was one that had been announced three years before. In late 2019 we had been promised the Pet Shop Boys for the summer of 2020. That of course was postponed for the summer of 2021. That one too was also postponed, this time for this summer when it finally took place. What's important to note is that the organizers didn't refund those who had already bought their tickets, but kept their money for when the rescheduled dates would take place. Sensing that something like this was going to happen I did not buy a ticket until the very last moment ie this June. And as I have already mentioned in my last post, I combined this as a double ticket with the London Grammar date. This would be my 4th Pet Shop Boys gig, having already seen them in Birmingham in 1991 when the "Performance" video was filmed, in Athens and in Water Square again in 2013 (but this time at the Ejekt Festival, not Release) and finally in 2017 during the Brussels Summer Festival. This would also be my second Thievery Corporation gig whom I had seen at Release Festival 2018.
We arrived in time for the third act in the bill which was Konstantinos Vita. He used to be one half of Stereo Nova who I had seen in 2018 at Nostos Summer Festival. He played some of his own songs but he also treated us to some Stereo Nova tunes and all this while the sun was still shining. 

 

Meanwhile we had already started meeting some of my fellow Pet Shop Boys fans from social media (and we kept meeting more during the course of the night).
During the break between Konstantinos Vita and Thievery Corporation we took more time to explore the festival grounds, meet several of our friends who were also there and stock on food and alcohol. Yes, we once again got the free stuff (like Coca Cola Zero and that special Johnnie Walker cocktail) but we also made sure we got chips and beer. As on the previous date with London Grammar we also had our own alcohol which we managed to smuggle in (Metaxa brandy - maybe not a wise choice for a hot summer day) and we mixed that with the cokes on offer. We were literally our own bartenders! 

Meanwhile, Thievery Corporation came up on stage and having now had the chance to explore their music since the last time they were there in 2018 I was able now to enjoy my favourite songs such as "Voyage Libre". 

 

During their set I made my last foray to the bar (we were somehow close to the stage, but close to the bars as well at the same time) to get more beer. And since three separate beers were selling for the same price as the special four beer set, I got the latter. At the height of the Thievery Corporation set I managed to divide the 4th beer among three people. 

 

After that, it was time to get even closer to the stage because of what we had come for: The Pet Shop Boys! Incredibly, while we were so closely packed together, I managed to phone a fellow Pethead, and by asking her to raise her hand up in the air and wave it, I managed to locate her, get over to where she was, have a conversation and then return to my place and find my friends. Unbelievable!

As their set started the Ukrainian flag was displayed in the matrix. Because it was a festival we got the shortened version of the setlist, meaning, among other things, that we only got one song from Hotspot and that was “Dreamland” the first single. Well, they had to play that since the tour is called “Dreamworld – The Greatest Hits Tour”. But, then again, it was the second part of the tour’s name that made it so enjoyable: “Greatest Hits”. And that’s what we got. However, I do like several tracks off that last album, my favourite two being the melancholic “Burning The Heather” and “I Don’t Wanna Go Out” which became my personal anthem during the lockdown.

 

 

 

All in all, it was simply brilliant! And amazing! Pet Shop Boys do know what we want and keep giving us more and more...

Finally, upon leaving the venue, after a very long time, I succumbed to temptation and bought some of the "dirty" food that was being sold outside. 

SETLIST:
01. Suburbia
02. Can You Forgive Her?
03. Opportunities (Let's Make Lots Of Money)
04. Where The Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes Off You)
05. Rent
06. I Don't Know What You Want But I Can't Give It Any More
07. So Hard
08. Left To My Own Devices
09. Domino Dancing
10. Love Comes Quickly
11. Losing My Mind
12. Always On My Mind
13. Dreamland
14. Heart
15. It's Alright
16. Vocal
17. Go West
18. It's A Sin
Encore:
19. West End Girls
20. Being Boring

Release Athens Festival 2022 - London Grammar, Hooverphonic & LP

More than two weeks after my first Release Athens Festival 2022 gig, it was now time for the second one. The headliners were London Grammar. London Grammar were due to appear at Release Athens Festival 2018, but they had to cancel at the last minute. So, Richard Ashcroft was called in to replace them and I went because I wanted to see him. And now that London Grammar were finally due to perform in Athens, a friend of mine asked me to go with her because she really wanted to see them since she hadn't been able four years ago. I was reluctant at first, not being familiar with the band, started to think about it again when LP was added to the line-up, but was finally convinced when the next addition to the bill were Hooverphonic. Now, I had seen Hooverphonic twice before (the second time in their native Belgium), but this time it was different. The original singer, the amazing Geike had come back. I really had to see her. And so I bought the latest CD from London Grammar (that's what I do, I don't stream, I'm old-school) in order to familiarize myself with their music.

I took my brand new camera with me (this was the concert where it would make its debut) and we arrived at Water Square a little before Hooverphonic were due to appear. Not a lot of people had arrived by that time so I was able to see them from quite up close. All the favourites were played including my own favourite song of theirs, "Sometimes" (the song with which I discovered them) which I was finally able to hear in a proper version (compared to the acoustic one I heard back in 2014) and "The Wrong Place" Belgium's entry on the 2021 Eurovision Song Contest.

Next up was LP. I, as like most people in Greece, got to know her through "Lost On You" and I'm mostly familiar with that song. Her later songs probably didn't get as much promotion. The start of the set was great, but we got tired after a while, probably because we weren't very familiar with most songs and partly because maybe this wasn't the right slot for her in the line-up. I believe Hooverphonic would have been more suitable to appear before the headliners because their music seems to "gel" more with that of London Grammar. (And perhaps she would have fit the bill better a few days later with Liam Gallagher and Iggy Pop). So we moved towards the back of the crowd on order to combine the alcohol we had brought from home with the cokes that were offered at the festival.

Anyway, it wasn't her fault and she was very energetic on stage, closing the set with the song most people expected to hear: "Lost On You".

And then it was time for London Grammar and the occasion that I had hoped to avoid. We realized that we had the chance to get really close to the stage. So what should we do? Well, we wore our masks. We noticed that there were other people doing the same thing and nobody was looking at them in a strange way, so we went for it.
This was the band's first gig outside the UK for three years (due, of course, to the pandemic) and they enjoyed it as much as we did. They played mostly songs from their latest album and that was alright with me because these were the ones I was mostly familiar with.

By the time my second Release Festival date ended and we started to walk towards the bus stop that would take us to the city center, one thing was certain: London Grammar had a new fan now!

 

SETLISTS:
HOOVERPHONIC
01. You Love Me to Death
02. The Wrong Place
03. Vinegar & Salt
04. 2Wicky
05. Sometimes
06. Anger Never Dies
07. Romantic
08. Eden
09. Jackie Cane
10. The Night Before
11. Expedition Impossible
12. No More Sweet Music
13. Lift Me Up
14. Badaboum
15. Mad About You

LP
01. When We Touch
02. Goodbye
03. Girls Go Wild
04. Everybody’s Falling In Love
05. When We're High
06. Yes
07. How Low Can You Go
08. The One That You Love
09. Can’t Let You Leave
10. Muddy Waters
11. My Body
12. Safe Here
13. No Witness
14. Strange
15. Special
16. Dreamer
17. One Last Time
18. Lost on You

LONDON GRAMMAR
01. Californian Soil
02. Missing
03. Hey Now
04. Lord It's a Feeling
05. Talking
06. I Need The Night
07. How Does It Feel
08. Baby It's You
09. Big Picture
10. Hell To the Liars
11. Wasting My Young Years
12. Strong
13. Metal & Dust
Encore:
14. Lose Your Head
15. Lose Your Head (Camelphat Remix)

Release Athens Festival 2022 - Bauhaus & The Jesus And Mary Chain

I was still nervous about going to a festival and mingling with huge crowds of people. However I had decided that four dates of this year's Release Athens Festival were the ideal ones for me to return to proper concerts. The idea was this: They were open air gigs, the pandemic had somehow slowed down, so all I had to do was not go to the very front and experience them from somewhere at the back. The only thing that I insisted on was that I was not going to buy the tickets until the very last minute. You see, most of these acts had been announced for 2020 (Bauhaus and Pet Shop Boys for instance), then postponed for 2021 and then again rescheduled for 2022. That wasn't the main problem though. What was annoying was that the people who had bought the tickets back in 2019 were not offered a refund. What they got instead was the promise that their tickets would remain valid for the date the gig actually took place. Whereas the money I had paid for a festival at London's Hyde Park was refunded to me up to the very last penny. Plus I couldn't be sure, even if most concerts went ahead that the ones I had selected would actually take place because what we've seen a lot this year was that if one member of a band tested positive the whole date was cancelled.

I had actually contemplated going to see Still Corners earlier in the year, but I backed out of it because it was at an indoor venue. So, I narrowed it down to four Release Athens festival dates: Bauhaus, London Grammar, Pet Shop Boys and Iggy Pop. An additional thing that also helped was that there were some "two-day" ticket offers costing cheaper than buying two single tickets for the same dates instead. So, I bought one two day ticket for Bauhaus and Iggy Pop, and another one for London Grammar and Pet Shop Boys.

When I arrived at Water Square, I realized I could go ahead with my plan: Get in, not wear a mask and stay at the back. It helped, because there weren't as many people there that day as on other dates even though I didn't arrive early because all I wanted to see was just The Jesus And Mary Chain and Bauhaus. When I did get in, it was like not one day had passed since 2019. I met most of my friends that I usually meet at gigs at Water Square, most of whom I hadn't seen since 2019.

The Jesus And Mary Chain finally started their set. I had seen them at the exact same place five years ago, back in 2017. Although I preferred the setlist they played back in the day, all the favourites were still here.

After the JAMC set was over and while waiting for Bauhaus I started chatting to someone whose face looked quite familiar. He was Johnny Highway from the Greek band Mr.Highway Band that I've seen at least three times live!

And then it was time for Bauhaus, the main reason I went to the gig. Their date had also been announced three years ago for 2020 and I had thought of going even then. I remember listening to Bauhaus and The Birthday Party on the radio and reading about them in POP + ROCK magazine during the early eighties. And since I managed to see Nick Cave four years ago (who in the intervening years had become extremely popular in Greece), I also wanted to see Bauhaus.

Now, I knew beforehand that their set wasn't going to be very long. But as everybody knows by now those sound problems came up, irritating Peter Murphy and cutting their set even shorter. He left the stage during Ziggy Stardust leaving his guitarist to finish the song. However, all the songs I wanted to hear were played (Telegram Sam, She's In Parties, Ziggy Stardust and a couple of others). Because of that, unlike others, I'm not going to complain or ask for my money back because I've seen what I wanted to see, I've experienced what I wanted to experience.

 

I did end up wearing a mask in the end but only while getting out of the venue where there were a lot of people around me. And finally, this was the last gig for my then current camera which after showing some problems with the extraction of the lens, had to be retired, at least from concert use. A new, but similar one, featuring a retractable display screen to facilitate taking selfies would be used from the next gig...

 

SETLISTS:

THE JESUS AND MARY CHAIN
01. Amputation
02. Head On
03. I Love Rock 'N' Roll
04. April Skies
05. Come On
06. Moe Tucker
07. Taste Of Cindy
08. Snakedriver
09. Teenage Lust
10. Cracking Up
11. Halfway To Crazy
12. Far Gone And Out
13. Nine Million Rainy Days
14. Some Candy Talking
15. Darklands
16. Just Like Honey
17. All Things Must Pass
18. Reverence

BAUHAUS
01. Rosegarden Funeral Of Sores
02. Double Dare
03. In The Flat Field
04. A God In An Alcove
05. In Fear Of Fear
06. Stigmata Martyr
07. She's In Parties
08. Kick In The Eye
09. Bela Lugosi's Dead
Encore:
10. Telegram Sam
11. Ziggy Stardust

 

Hard Rock Calling 2012 - Paul Simon

I returned to Hyde Park the following day after the Bruce Springsteen concert for Paul Simon.

Because the previous day had left me completely knackered I did not go there early and so I arrived when Alison Krauss, who was appearing immediately before Paul Simon, had started playing.

When it was time for Paul Simon, he began his set with old favourites from the Simon & Garfunkel era (Me & Julio Down By The Schoolyard) but also from his solo career (Slip Slidin' Away).

He brought on stage Jimmy Cliff as a guest...

... and later Ladysmith Black Mambazo and his original Graceland band with whom they played the complete Graceland album together, which was what this concert was about, the 25 year anniversary of this classic album.

The sound volume was extremely low and if you were not in a good position, you could not hear the music and you could only hear other people's conversations. The weather was a bit better, the sun came out for a while, it didn't rain, but it was quite chilly at the end of the concert.

SETLIST:
01.Kodachrome
02.Gone At Last
03.Dazzling Blue
04.50 Ways To Leave Your Lover
05.The Harder They Come (with Jimmy Cliff)
06.Many Rivers To Cross (with Jimmy Cliff)
07.Vietnam (with Jimmy Cliff)
08.Mother And Child Reunion (with Jimmy Cliff)
09.That Was Your Mother
10.Hearts And Bones / Mystery Train / Wheels
11.Me And Julio Down By The Schoolyard
12.Slip Slidin' Away
13.The Obvious Child
14.Hello My Baby
15.Nomathemba (with Ladysmith Black Mambazo)
16.Homeless (with Ladysmith Black Mambazo)
17.Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes (with Ladysmith Black Mambazo)
18.I Know What I Know
19.The Boy In the Bubble
20.Mandela (Bring Him Back Home) (with Hugh Masekela)
21.Stimela (with Hugh Masekela)
22.Crazy Love, Vol. II
23.African Sunset (with Thandiswa Mazwai)
24.Under African Skies (with Thandiswa Mazwai)
25.Gumboots
26.Graceland
27.You Can Call Me Al
Encore:
28.The Sound Of Silence
29.The Boxer (with Jerry Douglas)
30.Late In The Evening
31.Still Crazy After All These Years