Two weeks after Saxon’s concert and with the middle time to be spend for Easter holidays in the province with lot of bad Greek music, finally the time came again for a true heavy metal night. Place of meeting, once more, Fuzz Club, that as the time passes by looks more congenial even with its very expensive bar. Rage and Grave Digger, as co-headliners was a very attractive package for the fans of classic metal. Although the crowd once more wasn’t enough to fill the venue, something that is justified from the mediocre studio efforts from both band. On the other hand I can’t believe that there aren’t even 1000 people in Athens that dig to see this historic band live.

The Greeks The Silent Rage, opened the concert with their melodic power metal chafing the still few people that were here at this time with their very good compositions. Surely we will deal with them at the near future. Their set ended with an excellent cover of Running Wild’s classic song “Under Jolly Roger”.

Without delay, the time came for some German heavy metal. Few months after Accept’s concert, one of their many child’s, Grave Digger, came to remind us some of the few good moments of the 90’s when they were at the top of their career. The “Ripper” was the man that firstly came on the stage with his bagpipe and soon the rest of the group followed under the sound of the intro “Days Of Revenge”. “Paid In Blood” gave the primer for true heavy metal. Pure, high enjoyable and played by the heart, didn’t bother anyone for the lack of its originality, and although at the beginning was loose, from the middle of the set and later, when “Rebellion” was heard, and until the end the atmosphere became very hot reminding us the group’s legendary days back in the 90’s. Great moments such as  “Knights Of The Cross”, “Excalibur” “The Round Table” and of course the cover “Hellas” created a great setlist that ended with the hymn “Heavy Metal Breakdown”. A Very good performance from Grave Digger, with 17 songs in total, which managed to gain easily the night’s best act from Rage.

Rage, another band that since many years has problems with its line-up and with the quality of their latest studio albums, returned to Athens after nine years to prove tha is still alive. Finally, they didn’t manage to make this as well, even if their performance was enough good showing that the abilities still exist. The guitarist Victor Smolski made great impression to me but the bad sound, the inexplicable small, and with many lacks of great songs,  setlist didn’t justify the legendary name of a band that is proved can offer a much better live. After only one hour, and with the only great moments to be “Higher Than The Sky” and “Set This World On Fire” Rage left the stage and made us wonder why. Finally after many requests and 3-4 encores managed to create a 1 and a half hour setlist, with the final song to be  a cover of “Highway to Hell” that restored the crowd’s happiness.   

Grave Digger were the winners of this informal contrary, but unfortunately heavy metal didn’t have another great night as the crowd’s attendance was disappointing. As for Rage I want to see them again in a smaller venue with their own crowd and with a much full and better setlist. For now is like I’ve never seen them…

Setlists:

Grave Digger:

Days Of Revenge

Paid In Blood

The Dark Of The Sun

Hammer Of The Scots

Killing Time

The Ballad Of Mary (Queen Of Scots)

Highland Farewell

Rebellion

Ballad Of A Hangman

Morgane Le Fay

Twilight Of The Gods / Circle Of Witches / The Grave Dancer

The Last Supper

Excalibur

Knights Of The Cross

Encore:

Hellas

The Round Table (Forever)

Heavy Metal Breakdown

Rage:

The Edge Of Darkness

Soundchaser

Hunter And Prey

Into The Light

Drop Dead

Empty Hollow

Higher That The Sky

Set This World On Fire

War Of Worlds

Encore 1:

Guitar solo

Black In Mind / Solitary Man / Don't Fear The Winter

Encore 2:

Down

Encore 3:

Highway To Hell  AC/DC cover)