It was mid-week but I wouldn't miss it for anything. BEHEMOTH were coming to Greece after almost ten years and I had to be there. So ,after a hard day at the office, I took the car down to the center of Athens, hoping I would be on time to see the supporting bands, too.
Managing to be on time, BLUSTERY CAVEAT hit the stage minutes after I have entered An Club. Even though it was quite early (since most Greek fans have this stupid habit to snob the support acts), the club was half full from the beginning (but still a lot of people were outside doing P.R. and drinking beer). Those four guys from Larissa, Greece played for about 40 minutes, if I'm not mistaken. The sound was good for the club's standards, the guys were headbanging most of the time and enough fans seemed to have a good time. As always, though, whatever style has the "-core" word in the description of their music is not for me. Most of their songs sounded more or less the same, so I sat back to drink a beer or two. Still, for fans of Death/Grindcore music BLUSTERY CAVEAT will probably have something to say.
After some minutes, grabbing the chance to see and talk with familiar faces, INVERACITY hit the stage. Unfortunately for them, their singer George wasn't there for reasons that the band didn't say, so with another guy behind the microphone (I'm sorry but I didn't catch his name) they played as good as they could. I'm not that familiar with their material, but from what I listened the sound didn't help them, since you couldn't pick out some of the riffs and well hidden melodies under their Death Metal veil. Surely the thing that their frontman was missing was a loss, but overall the band was full of energy and tried for the best. INVERACITY is a well rehearsed band and will surely make a very good impression to Death Metal fans at their upcoming tour throughout Europe. INVERACITY left us at around 21:50 to 22:00 and we greet them with a warm applause.
The club was already full and it was a hard task even to go for a beer since you would lose the good spot found to see the headliners. So we waited…the fans started shouting "BEHEMOTH - BEHEMOTH"… and still waited…After half an hour we saw BEHEMOTH entering the club. The soundcheck lasted for ages, many fans started mumbling, but at around 23:00 the gig intro was heard and everyone forgot everything.
With the first notes from "Ov Fire And The Void" mayhem begun! The fans made a hellish atmosphere, and the first moshpit made its appearance from the first minutes. Unfortunately, there was a problem with the sound and in particular with the vocals but after the second song things started improving. Nergal and the rest of the band gave 110% with a great stage appearance. The funny moment of the night was when he remembered the last time that they were in Athens and that, at that time, were not more than 60-70 fans so he asked us who remembered that night. The whole club said "Yeah!", and he responded: "Why are you saying yes you fuckers? You weren't there". For about an hour we traveled to hell and back, listening to most of the songs we wanted to, including "Decade of Therion" (were everyone was singing "apo pantos kako daimonos"). Of course, we were hoping to listen to "Christians To The Lions" but unfortunately they didn't played it. They left with "Lucifer" and a big smile was carved on our faces.
A great performance from a great band, yes. Well, it can always be better but we don't have to grumble about everything every time, since we had a good time. It was now time to gather our pieces from the floor and the memories from that evening's concert and roll back home.
BEHEMOTH setlist:
01. "Ov Fire And The Void"
02. "Demigod"
03. "Shemhamforash"
04. "Conquer All"
05. "LAM"
06. "As Above So Below"
07. "Slaves Shall Serve"
08. "At The Left Hand Ov God"
09. Drum solo
10. "Alas, Lord Is Upon Me"
11. "Decade Of Therion"
12. "The Antichristian Phenomenon"
13. "Chant For Eschaton 2000"
Encore:
14. "Lucifer"
