Despite the fact that I had already watched live ARCH ENEMY and DARK TRANQUILLITY in their recent concerts in Greece I thought that catching the 'Tyranny And Bloodshred' US tour would be an excellent excuse. Adding to the above bands my fellow countrymen FIREWIND and the Deathsters DIVINE HERESY then you will understand why I had to skip work to get at the House Of Blues that sunny Monday.

I don't if I had said that before but this venue is one of the best I have been in my life. The excellent bluesy decoration, the kind security boys and the excellent sound system are some of the reasons for literally love that place.

I consider FIREWIND as a rising power in the Metal scene taking into account the very good albums Allegiance and The Premonition with Apollo behind the microphone. So, right on time the Greek band entered the stage in a really high mood with Into The Fire from their latest album. I was surprised to see that the band faced a more than warm welcome from the 600 fans that were in the venue. I also saw a couple of Greek flags and heard some Greek salutations to the band. I think that with the addition of Katsionis and Papathanasio in the lineup FIREWIND became a solid band actually this is one of the reasons that the new album was so successful. Gus as always was tormenting his signature guitar while playing with the audience. Petros Christo and Mark Cross built an compact rhythm section concluding the band's excellent condition. Head Up High and Mercenary Man came from the new album while the instrumental Feast Of The Savages really blew us away. Their performance was powerful and for that reason they earned a something more than honest applaud by the US metalheads.

I was never a die-hard fan of FEAR FACTORY and thus Dino Cazares' new band DIVINE HERESY was just a name in my mind. The band had recently changed singer after parting ways with Tommy Cummings. The band found Jake Veredika from the metal band PERIPHERY as the temporary replacement. DIVINE HERESY caught me off guard with a really loud and crystal clear sound. Tim Yeung is a really beast behind his drum kit that had a rough time during the band's performance. One thing that I did like in DIVINE HERESY music was the almost Hard Core profile especially in the vocals that to my ears doesn't fit the Death Metal foundations. The band has only one album under the belt so all the songs came from Bleed The Fifth. Things became violent during Impossible Is Nothing, False Gospel and This Threat Is Real. So, combine their relentless on-stage presence to the excellent sound and you will get to my conclusion that DIVINE HERESY did a fine job that night!

Next, on the billing were DARK TRANQUILLITY. I consider the Swedes as a warranty when it comes to concerts since they always give 110% when they are on-stage. The lights went down and the intro from Terminus announced the band's entrance on-stage. I think it's trivial to say that Mikael Stanne is an excellent frontman that literally lives his songs. I was totally satisfied to listen live to Focus Shift, Punish My Heaven and of course Misery's Crown with the excellent chorus. As always Stanne connected to the audience immediately and you could see him singing almost in the crowd a couple of times. Niklas Sundin and Michael Niklasson showed us how the Gothenburg sound was born through their twin guitar treat. The metalheads responded to the band's performance with a large mosh pit that dominated the centre of the venue's arena. After Final Resistance DARK TRANQUILLITY left us pretty sweaty and definitely satisfied.

DARK TRANQUILLITY setlist:

01. Terminus
02. The Lesser Faith
03. The Treason Wall
04. The Wonders At Your Feet
05. Focus Shift
06. Misery's Crown
07. Punish My Heaven
08. My Negation
09. The New Build
10. Final Resistance

I've read somewhere on the internet that Angela was close to fall sick so I was not hoping for something better than their show in Athens, Greece. The pre-recorded intro and the very good light show (that was based on the red color) ARCH ENEMY kicked off their setlist with Blood On Your Hands. The crowd went totally crazy when Angela came on-stage. To my surprise she did not look ill at all! Since this was the second time I saw this band live I can be sure that this girl is possessed by demons. Despite her hot looks her voice comes from hell while her on-stage presence is relentless. The Amott brothers did not miss a single note playing both the melodic and the cutting edge riffs. ARCH ENEMY have managed to create a solid and wide fan-base in the US and that was proven by the crowd's excitement that screamed, singed and formed an even larger mosh pit. After the drum solo that was kind of interesting with the pre-recorded samples the band did Dead Bury Their Dead and after a while the catchy I Will Live Again. The next ?intermission was the twin guitar solo by the Amott brothers. After one encore and We Will Rise ARCH ENEMY concluded their setlist and proved why they are considered to be in their prime.

ARCH ENEMY setlist:

01. Blood On Your Hands
02. Ravenous
03. Taking Back My Soul
04. Dead Eyes See No Future
05. My Apocalypse
06. Revolution Begins
07. Dead Bury Their Dead
08. The Last Enemy
09. I Will Live Again
10. Enemy Within
11. Nemesis

Encore:

12. Snowbound
13. We Will Rise

(photos by the Great Old Ones)

FIREWIND

DIVINE HERESY

DARK TRANQUILLITY

ARCH ENEMY