Many people said that this show wouldn't have more than 500 metalheads, but I was damn sure that no deathster would be dumb enough to miss such a great package! I mean, for fuck's sake, CANNIBAL CORPSE, DYING FETUS, OBSCURA, EVOCATION and BURNT BY THE SUN, all in one night! The bands and the people made it look like a small Death Metal festival rather than an ordinary Friday show. Congratulations to the organizers for this billing and the tight time schedule. The bands were on time, even though we were later informed that CANNIBAL CORPSE did not have a proper sound check.

Since Greek organizers are mostly known for the huge delays, I got in to the club about 10-15 minutes later from what the poster said. The result was to miss half of EVOCATION's set, since the Swedish Death Metal beasts played only for about 25 minutes. Their stage presence was cold, but in a good way, since similar bands usually spread chaos with their music and don't need much to make you crash your bones in the pit. Obviously, their setlist was mostly based on their last album Dead Calm Chaos, an album full of classic Swedish Death Metal that fans of this scene should definitely check out. Their sound was kind of weak; the guitars were buried so the melodies were lost behind the rest of the instruments and the vocals. To sum up, EVOCATION was a great band to start the night, although they could be a bit better. The crowd was warm but I heard half of the people being fully pleased, while the other half describing the band as a low category Death Metal band. Everyone can have their personal opinion...

[YiannisD] So, it was about time for OBSCURA to take over the stage. The Germans appeared with Jacob Schmidt (DEFEATED SANITY) on the bass as the original bass player, Jeroen Paul Thesseling (ex-PESTILENCE) had a very busy schedule and couldn't make it for the European tour. The band delivered the show smoothly with a great display of their technical skills and virtuosity. The sharp guitar riffs, time changing rhythms and stable drum blasting added up to effortless as well as flawless performing. Stephen's solid vocals along with band's kinetic energy made the crowd react and get involved despite the -not so good- sound.

[YiannisD] After two Death Metal bands, the one classic, and the other more technical, it was time for a band I love and I was really impatient to see live, BURNT BY THE SUN. The New Jersey based act has successfully managed to mix sounds like Death Metal, Stoner, Sludge and Hardcore into their music. This helped not only please their fans with a great set and performance, but also to earn some new ones due to their more aggressive parts full of blasts and MORBID ANGEL style riffs. From the very first note people started going berserk, the crowd welcomed them with screams and I would say I was kind of surprised that Death metallers were so accepting! Songs like Dracula With Glasses and Boston Tea-Bag Party made many heads bang and formed some pits, but the night's highlight -and personal favorite- was Forlani that created a brutal holocaust! My humble opinion is that BURNT BY THE SUN were the only not-so-relevant band of that night, but for me they surely win the award for the most energetic and ass kicking band of the show! Their on stage show was full of headbanging; the band's frontman was moving around the scene all the time, and their bassist... Well, he's just a huge figure with his long beard and amazing moves with the bass!

[YiannisD] DYING what? Hell yeah, DYING FETUS bitches! Second time I saw this band, and maybe due to pure enthusiasm, it seemed even better than the last one! The band was tight as fuck and precise as a Swiss clock! They didn't lose a fucking note up there and they proved for one more time the energy a power trio can produce! Whether you call it Homicidal Retribution, Grotesque Impalement, Praise The Lord (Opium Of The Masses), One Shot, One Kill, Pissing In The Mainstream, Raped On The Altar... It all sounded the same to me! Pure fucking Armageddon people! Countless (and endless) moshpits, crowd surfing, headbanging, beer drinking, weed smoking and everything else you can imagine, hehehe! These guys were fucking amazing I tell you! They had some slight sound problems, but their sound was surely better than the previous bands. The vocal combination they use were also sheer magic on stage and the heavy as fuck sound with the insane drumming ripped our heads off! Second best band of the night? Fuck yeah!

CANNIBAL CORPSE need no introduction! Reaching at the peak of the show, it was time for the Death Metal beasts to own the stage. CANNIBAL CORPSE are known for their static, yet dynamic performances. The fact is that this was probably their weakest show on Greek ground. The lack of communication and coherence was a result of some sound problems, and the difficulty of Corpsegrinder to interact with the crowd between the songs, when silence was surrounding the stage made the band feel kind of tasteless. Of course, there wasn't even a single mistake audible during their set, since we are talking about skilled musicians that carry years of experience on their backs. Well, even if there were any mistakes, after half of their set the volume got so high that we probably couldn't hear them. Thank god we were at least able to make out the riffs!

Corpsegrinder seemed to try and see the whole incident calmly and though he was a bit restrained, his bold appearance and character prevailed the sound problems. He interacted fiercely with the crowd and he humorously dedicated Fucked With A Knife to all the women of the show -how romantic- when at the same time he was provoking them to respond. Even with the bad psychology of the band because of the sound problem, CANNIBAL CORPSE managed to pull through a decent show and make the crowd go berserk. That Friday was one of the nights to be remembered as the bands' combo was a great one and surely quenched the thirst of the deathsters for some time...

CANNIBAL CORPSE setlist:
01. Evisceration Plague
02. The Time To Kill Is Now
03. Disfigured
04. Death Walking Terror
05. I Cum Blood
06. Fucked With A Knife
07. Sentenced To Burn
08. Evidence In The Furnace
09. The Wretched Spawn
10 .Perverse Suffering
11. Scalding Hail
12. Make Them Suffer
13. Pit Of Zombies
14. Shatter Their Bones
15. Vomit The Soul
16. Priest Of Sodom
17. Unleashing The Bloodthirsty
18. A SKull Full Of Magots
19. Hammer Smashed Faced
20. Stripped, Raped And Strangled

(photos by Eirini)

BURNT BY THE SUN

DYING FETUS

CANNIBAL CORPSE