[Harry] I hate Mondays, don't you? The first day of the week at work, having your boss over your head yelling, all the things that can go wrong, will go wrong and you are, once again, starting to think ways to kill him_her without being caught. Well, after almost ten hours at work and feeling like a zombie in the movie call Braindead, I drove my car downtown to the usual basement called club to see SAMAEL and KEEP OF KALESSIN.

The time schedule was only on paper, as always in Greece and with a delay, NOCTIFERIA from Ljubljana, Slovenia came on stage in front of fifty (50!!!) people! I'm starting to believe that the Greek audience wants to go only in concerts that there is a big (media-wise) name. We're always saying that we are one of the best crowds in the world. Well, we were the best but not anymore. 50 people in the beginning and 150 in total when SAMAEL hit the stage. I believe that we may have to go back in the Stone Age in order to start screaming again for an encore or shouting the band's name. As for us that we were trying to take a photograph, yes I know that being with a camera in the pit (in the what?) is not the best thing, but as you probably noticed, there is not a photo pit and this is not a concert venue!

Anyway, back in the report. I will be honest by saying that I didn't even know that NOCTIFERIA even existed; so I won't write anything about their setlist or anything like that. The band played well for an opening act and -if we want to put a label- their industrial metal was not innovative, yet it was good for starter in order to proceed to the main dish. The stage was to small for those four lads, since they tried to move around while headbanging all the time. NOCTIFERIA won't make any difference in the music industry, but they look like an honest band playing what they want to play. They left the stage in frond of a -unfortunately- sleepy crowd and after a while we're ready to welcome KEEP OF KALESSIN.

Kolossus was one of the albums that made a good impression to me during the previous year; so when I learned that the band was going to visit us, I wanted to see them. Played mostly songs from the aforementioned album, the band tried to woke up the audience and they succeeded it in a way.

With really good sound, something that is only in our imagination for those kinds of venues, they played as good as they could, despite the small crowd. As for their stage appearance, Obsidian C and Wizziac were changing places the whole time and taught the audience that they are not in Teatro alla Scala in Milan but listening to opera, but in a metal gig, by headbanging all the time!.
A good performance from those four Norwegians that left the stage leaving me, and I think some more guys, satisfied by their overall performance.

[George] At first I have to say a big thank you to the distributor company for having such a great ticket design for the show. As a hardcore metalhead every concert ticket is a collective item for me. I have to admit that those were the best tickets I have ever seen. So great, that I kept mine safely with the others and I just had to write upon this piece of shit-paper that this was supposed to be a SAMAEL ticket.

After the encouraging performance of NOCTIFERIA and the entertaining one of KEEP OF KALESSIN, it was about time for us to witness the reason why we all were there. The Swiss Metal machine of SAMAEL.

The lights went down and after a small intro and some smoke (or make it a LOT of smoke), SAMAEL started with Solar Soul and continued directly with Reign Of Light and Shining Kingdom. The band seemed to enjoy it as they were really energetic on stage. Are you ready for some heavy metal tonight' Vorph shouted and the band delivered some heavy versions of Rain and Baphomet's Throne. Still, the crowd (if you can call a crowd an amount of 120 people) was not responding...at least not all of them. Surprised I was, but until the moment I heard someone saying......i haven't paid any attention to the SAMAEL show at the MMD festival last year....

That was it! Harry, call me drunk but I cannot remember SAMAEL at MMD.... You cannot remember probably because...hmm... they didn't play at all actually! answered Harry. We looked and started laughing, meanwhile SAMAEL continued their travel through time and space with songs like The One Who Came Before, Year Zero, Infra Galaxia, Black Trip and Valkyries New Ride. The next track is from the first album... quite dark and sinister...I want to dedicate it to all of you that were here, at the same place, 15 years ago...any of you?, I raised my hand and i counted other 4-5 hands i think.

Like time has stopped, with the first melodies of Into The Pentagram I felt like it was 1993 again. Top moment of the show surely. As Jupiterian Vibe ended Vorph said...We're gonna do two more songs...it's from the album Solar Soul...do you have the album?. No reaction.

OK then...since you don't have it, you're gonna fucking learn it right now!. They played the speedy On The Rise and the video-single of the Solar Soul album Slavocracy. The band left the stage but still no important reaction from the crowd. Fortunately they returned and did a great encore-set with Ceremony Of Opposites, Rebellion and My Saviour.

A nice performance from SAMAEL and I have to congratulate them for their stance, as if I were in their position I wouldn't come out for an encore for such a cold crowd. I left the concert hall with the other Templars, hoping that KREATOR's gig in few days time, gonna be something different...

5 steps before a SAMAEL show :

01. Listen to some Heavy metal.
02. Then listen to some Death_Black Metal
03. Then listen to some Industrial Metal
04. You are ready now to hear SAMAEL's discography.
05. Now that you know some of the songs, go there but don't forget to scream a little bit, do some action in front of the stage or at least move your head up and down

THANKS TO: Greg (for not coming), Elina (for the arrangements), Harry (for ultimate laughter and amazing hazy pictures), Dimitris(for MANOWAR conversations) and Katerina (for pissing me off before the gig).

Wrap Up by Dimitrisk
I have to agree with the above and try to add my personal feelings and thoughts about this gig. If you are living outside Greece and read our homeland live reports then you have realized that we had the same old complaints every time. Make it the sound quality, the high ticket prices and of course the total absence of proper venues. After this concert my initial feelings that this is not totally the organizers' fault were justified; I mean where are the Greek metalheads? They only show up in big time events where despite the (most of the times) disappointing organization are there to praise the event. So, why bother to change or think ways to improve our concert lives? Some years before we were one of the most energetic crowds as many bands said; nowadays this is totally wrong. We have become spoiled and this is proved by the weak attendances and the cold reactions. Let's hope that things will change eventually.

Many congrats to SAMAEL who did an excellent on-stage job and remained totally unaffected by the 2x2 stage the inadequate sound and the prime lights.

(photos by 'dirty' Harry)

NOCTIFERIA

KEEP OF KALESSIN

SAMAEL