The announcement of this concert was great news for me since I had missed EVERGREY's last visit on Greece despite the fact the band's latest discographic attempts were not in total harmonization with their own standards. Nevertheless, after work I made my way to the Sin City club to be on time for the acoustic set of the Swedes. Actually, this one was only for 30 lucky metalheads who got the permission to watch the show after a draw organized by the Greek edition of Rock Hard magazine and MTV's Headbanger's Ball.

After the excellent (and kind of short) acoustic performance the venue was prepared for the regular concert that featured four bands in total. But, NEED and SILENT RAGE did not share the stage with EVERGREY for technical difficulties as announced by the promoters. So, at about 21:00 the Italian band CHAOSWAVE took over the small stage inside Sin City.

I have not done my homework and thus I didn't have a single hint about this band. In particular during the first minutes of their set I thoughts they were Greeks judging the Mediterranean looks. But I didn't feel alone in this; I believe many of the crowd shares the same thoughts with me since it took some time to get connected with their up-tempo and definitely uplifting on-stage presence. Ok, the good looking singer Giorgia helped in that direction but in general CHAOSWAVE did manage to earn most of the crowd. Their modern sounding Heavy Metal with minor (fortunately for me) progressive finishing touches warmed up the already anxious metalheads. The band seemed to enjoy their time on-stage and this feeling get them connected with the audience who at least acknowledged their passionate performance along with their high skills. On of CHAOSWAVE's high moments was the NEVERMORE-esque Rise. The very good dual vocals harmonies took this song in another level revealing the band's strong composing potentials. The bottom line CHAOSWAVE succeeded 100% as a supporting act since: 1) they warmed the crowd 2) put their hearts on the concert and 3) definitely earn some fans that night. So, many kudos to them and I will keep an ear on them...

Things were moving smoothly and judging by the timetable I think that the promoters chose not to give the stage to the aforementioned Greek acts since the live would end at a out 02:00 in the morning and this could not be good since it was a working day.

By the time the stage was ready to host the Swedish band the venue looked packed making me think that this concert should have been move to a bigger place.

As I said the stage was very small and looked even smaller when the tall Swedes got there trying not to hit each other with their instruments. EVERGREY kicked in with Fear spreading waves of enthusiasm to the audience. Despite the recent albums the Greeks seem to love this band and judging by EVERGREY's energetic performance they are something more than justified to do so. Without pause in between we got As I Lie Bleeding, Soaked and More Than Ever. The sound was very good and clear despite the fact that sometimes Tom's voice was a little bit buried. She Speaks To The Dead and the place was on fire! The heat immediately rose to the point that the air-conditioners starting dripping from the condensed humidity. This heat wave did strike the EVERGREY that sweated their arses off something that was not in the daily round since they come from Sweden. One of the concert's climax was the piano-based performance of Words Mean Nothing where everyone joined Tom in singing. I just wished they had chose to do the entire Trilogy Of Damned...

The first encore saw Rikard Zander on the keyboards and Jonas Ekdahl behind the drum kit kicking in with the excellent instrumental When The Walls Go Down. I could have enjoyed this emotional track if only the recorded parts were louder and not be buried by the drums. Nevertheless, the rest the band joined the two guys and gave us another reason to headbang. After another EVERGREY hit -under the title Recreation Day- and then something special and outside the schedule happened; Tom invited the singer of NEED Jon V on-stage to sing the song he was requesting. Actually, he said If you want us to play Blackened Dawn you should sing it; of course John accepted this offer and so EVERGREY left aside the setlist and hit us with the aforementioned song. I was pretty surprised with John's very good performance and by the fact that the rest of the band supported him to the maximum! So, it was a special moment and I bet everyone enjoyed it. The band returned to the 'regular' program and gave us the video of the latest album Broken Wings and put an ending to this excellent concert with A Touch Of Blessing making the tiny venue more humid than can anyone think.

As you have probably understand this is one of these rare moments where I do not have something to complaint about. Ok, the bands that missed the supporting slot must be disappointed but you just cannot have it all in Greece. Let's hope that this is -still- an ongoing process and that eventually everyone you learn to organize properly a nice concert. Many thanks to Peter for the excellent arrangements!

EVERGREY setlist:
01. Fear
02. As I Lie Here Bleeding
03. Soaked
04. More Than Ever
05. She Speaks To The Dead
06. Watching The Skies
07. In Remembrance
08. Blinded
09. End Of Your Days
10. The Masterplan
11. Still In The Water
12. Monday Morning Apocalypse
13. Words Mean Nothing
14. I'm Sorry
Encore

15. When The Walls Go Down
16. Recreation Day
17. Blackened Dawn
18. Broken Wings
19. A Touch Of Blessing

(photos by Nosferatu)

CHAOSWAVE

EVERGREY