MariaV: "What kind of a concert is with one bass guitar and a drum kit?" "How good could be a God, after all?" These questions and much more were on my mind when I heard the announcement of the upcoming OM concert in Athens, on February, because of the latest release, "God Is Good" and I would not lose it for nothing on earth. Venerate Industries put together 2 artists from USA belonging to the psych experimental doom music idiom (sharing also the same record label, Drag City Records) and our homeboys, SUN OF NOTHING in one package. So, here we were; 10 minutes past ten while the Greeks were getting of the stage; sorry guys, you should blame the working hours! An Club was filled to its capacity counting 300 people who came to see the mystery of the unknown through the third eye of OM's mystique.

Mr. Robert Lowe (no, not from CANDLEMASS!) stepped on stage few minutes later to prepare the land for his show, since LICHENS is his music solo project. I was quite curious to see how this man could fill the stage with his own presence and nothing more, having seen only a couple of his videos of live performances on youtube. With one chair and a mixer device for vocals, Lowe took his microphone and tried to initiate us to the unknown experimental world of LICHENS with discursive drone looping vocals being his only weapon. Through the next 25 minutes, he played only one composition that left the crowd untouched and indifferent because of the chitchat noise (too small place, too many people) and then, he finished and started packing up his gear. The conclusion is that some stuff must stay at home between friends and private moments; otherwise, cheapens due to exterior factors, mainly, and the result is being aggrieved.

DimK: Although this concert was not near my cup of tea I was convinced to go in a pursuit to expand my musical horizons. Well, the one man project LICHENS was the first failure to stretch my listening/understanding preceptors since I did not understand a single thing from Lowe's performance. The looped samples grew in the chanting 'music' but blame it on the sound quality or to the indifferent audience but in the end it was noise to my untrained ears. Sorry, Mr. Robert...

MariaV: After the short drone progressive addition, it was time for OM to take the stage; the down tempo duo (Al Cisneros, Emil Amos) comprise today's OM; Chris Hakius has left the band and has been replaced by Mr. Amos of GRAILS. The differences are so many and noticeable, if you are an OM fan. Let it be; we were here for both so, Hakius belongs to the past. The time clocked 25 minutes after 11 and the suspense reached the end when the 2 men stepped on stage of An Club. The crowd greeted them with a generous applause and the show started. OM were traveling us through steppe, fire and dust and they stand between the very firsts "Variations On A Theme" and "Conference Of The Birds" and the following "Pilgrimage" and "God Is Good" that fans received with joy. From medley "Bhima's Theme" / "Thebes" till the combination of "Flight Of The Eagle"/ "On The Mountain At Dawn", Al spread a powerful magnetism with his moves during playing bass, while his chants were just like on the CD. Emil was the perfect companion to Al's work and charmed the crowd with his jazzy fusion playing style, although the die-hard fans were impenitently faithful to Hakius' figure.

Highlights of that evening full of mysticism were the reading of "Cremation Ghat" because of Robert Lowe's participation with various tympanis and trippy guitar sounds, giving a different dimension to the melodies and the 15 minutes' "At Giza" that has to been interrupted twice because of technical problems; the first was the low volume in the monitor where Al could not hear himself while he was singing and the second, the result of his burnt out amplifier. The problem was fixed quickly (we were already at the encore, 20 minutes after midnight) and the final track completed successfully at the end, leaving everybody happy and ecstatic. With the bad mood of Mr. Cisneros and Mr. Amos' tiredness being the only bad players of the night, OM's concert satisfied every fan of the band, even though 80 minutes were not enough. The only thing that I remember vividly from their show is the way they communicate on stage, since this kind of music is difficult to synchronize. Hail to Amos for the freshness gave to OM and his unique drumming style that get away from the traditional sharp stoner drumming play; I wish you all the best.

One o'clock and all the above belong to the music history; OM gave an atmospheric show making a deposition of soul satisfying every OM fan, without missing some technical problems though, because of the bad and low sound quality that reached our ears; apart from that, they seemed to enjoy it pretty much. As a duo, I don't think that they are much closed together but the time is here to test them and make OM phenomenon bigger and bigger. The experiment is successful and full of ideas and the SLEEP era has been left behind. And we are here too, to make our presence clear and support that kind of live shows: only for the chosen ones and with low price ticket.

DimK: Having as an alibi my irrelevance to this type of music I have to admit that OM left me totally apathetic. I really tried to get into this 'chantra' mood several times but I failed miserably. I got the impression that OM played one song that night and this just underlines the fact that I am in no position to judge their performance. Although, I did like the drummer and the general vide that was lurking around. You should be a fan of OM to watch OM on stage; otherwise stay at home...

(photos by the Zen teacher)