The arrival of these three bands drew in a varied crowd from the “races of metaldom”. The attendance was reasonably good, since at 19:00 which was when the doors were announced to open there were enough fans outside Gagarin 205 in order to cause a small traffic jam. Unfortunately there was a delay, owing to a small technical issue but that was finally solved thus allowing us to experience a quite tasty line-up in really good form.

First band on stage were Sabbat. The British quintet, led by Greek metal fans favorite Martin Walkyier, gave a very honest performance which was pollinated with Martin’s fiery rhetoric against what Christianity has become and peppered with the cries of audience whenever they heard the name of Skyclad being mentioned. The setlist was based on their two first album which could be expected since those were the ones Walkyier appears on. All in all a great performance but I personally have to observations to make, First of all the lead guitarist was a bit under the par on certain tracks. This of course can be attributed two thousand and one factors but still it isn’t exactly justified in a professional band. Secondly, the fans didn’t exactly get what Martin meant in his speeches against wars and organised Christianity, which resulted in the audience either only reacting on certain words, e.g. the mention of George W. Bush, or looking at him in bemusement.

Then we had Entombed. The Swedes came to Greece in real high spirits which was justified since there was a large percentage of the punters that had bought a ticket just to see them. Their death ‘n' roll supplemented the other two bands extremely well, providing a good total concert experience. The band has a well rounded sound and a lot of aggression, but without scaring off those who had come just for Sabbat or Exodus. L.G. Petrov may have been laconical in his speech, especially compared to Martin Walkyier, but that didn’t seem to annoy anyone, especially since there was more time for headbanging.

After roughly an hour and almost 20 song it was time for the headliners. Greeted by the cheers of an ecstatic audience, that to my surprise included a lot of young metalheads, Exodus take the stage and the chaos begins. Rob Duke’s line of “''Are there any old-school fans here?" (To which the fans screamed “Yeaahhh”) and the reply "Well, you know, we’re only gonna play new stuff tonight!! AAHAAAHAΑΑ. A-HAA-HAA. PIRANHAAAA"” was a great move. Nicholas Barker proved once again what an amazing drummer he is even though his credentials from Craddle Of Filth were well known to all. Rob Dukes dominated the stage and definitely roused the audience enough since we all witnessed a good deal of crowd surfing, despite the efforts of the venue’s security.

The hour had finally reached half past one and those of us who remained, and we were not a small number, spilled out of Gagarin with our necks really sore, but very satisfied…

Promoter: An Productions


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