After almost 3 years Pain Of Salvation came finally back to rock Thessaloniki! During their Linoleum tour they visited Greece for 2 shows together with Lake Of Tears, Agua de Annique, Disillusion and the Greek band Scar Of The Sun.
The show was about to start at 18:00 (as mentioned on the ticket), but unfortunately we had been stood up for one more time. They didn't even let us in until it was 18:20 even though we were freezing outside. Whatever... After we had been waiting for over an hour for the gates to open and the show to start, Scar Of The Sun finally came on stage for about half an hour. I can't say I was excited or that I liked them at all. In my opinion, they were an unlucky choice to complete the line-up, since they don't even have a studio work yet, but only some promo songs, which I found very similar and repeating!
Then it was time for Disillusion to give their show. I had listened to their album Gloria before the concert, but I could never have imagined how their performance would be. A German band with American Sound and a British performance. They were very alive and kicking and they intrigued me to listen more of them. They were passionate and the vibes they were sending were very good! And this, in my opinion, is what made them stand out. Cause if you consider that almost no one knew them and that the club was half empty (most people came hours later just to see Pain Of Salvation), they performed as if they were in a venue filled with their fans. The only bad thing was the terrible sound that made me straggle to hear the singer's voice!
After 40 minutes of Disillusion, Agua de Annique came out! I was very curious to see Anneke live without The Gathering, cause my feelings when I saw them in 2007 were so strong that I doubted she could beat that! And I was right... I can say I was very disappointed by Anneke. She was happy and cheerful, but that couldn't make up for the lack of emotion. I was used to her as an unearthly presence, overflown with emotion and inner beauty. What I saw now was a cheerful lady with shiny clothes, dancing around with the music and singing. But her singing was empty words without meaning to me. Not to mention that she hardly spoke to us. Her only words were "Thank you" and "My acoustic guitar broke during my journey so I will have to play this acoustic version with an electric guitar"... not even "the next song is..." or "this will be our last song for tonight, thank you for coming". When she said that her acoustic guitar broke, some guy from the crowd shouted "buy a new one" and she smiled and said "yeah, buy a new one. You give me the money" and I thought.... "Duh... We paid 38 euro to be here tonight. Are you really saying this?" Whatever... As regards the music, the sound was terrible once again, so even her beautiful voice was covered by the music during the groovy songs and the setlist included new songs mostly which I am not that fond of.
But the hardest time of the concert was when Lake Of Tears came out. We were all so tired and impatient to see Pain Of Salvation, so their show was a torment for most of us. Unfortunately, the band saw that and they were quite annoyed, trying (in vein) to cheer us up! Their music is not my cup of tea, but I can say I liked them as a performance. I wish I could have paid some more attention to them, but I had been standing upright for 4,5 hours before they came on stage and I was very tired! They left the stage at about 23:00 or so... The time came! We would finally see Pain Of Salvation after so many hours of waiting!
Pain Of Salvation didn't come on stage until 23:40 which tired us even more, but I can say it was worth the waiting, cause after 40 minutes of soundcheck, their sound was way better than before. It is unacceptable to pay for a concert and not be able to hear the singer's voice. So I do not grudge the time I waited for them to play. The time was 23:40 and Remedy Lane sounded through the speakers. The crowd woke up from their lethargy and started screaming for PoS! I have never seen such an alive band before. They 'filled' the stage literally and metaphorically! They kept us company for 2 hours with old and new songs. They covered Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOqcuhu1d18 ) and Nights In White Satin by The Moody Blues (nice shot Leo ;) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOaj80J8LdI ). They didn't stop rocking around the stage not even for a minute. Daniel justly gained the title of the most charismatic frontman I have seen live with his power, vitality and sense of humor! He was very talkative. I believe they are of the bands that you MUST SEE once in your life. The definition of LIVE! And the attitude of the audience showed all these too. It was like different people entered the hall. We jumped around, we sang, we shouted our lungs out for them, we sweat for 2 hours, and we danced the night away by the sounds of Disco Queen. There are no words that can describe my feelings for their performance. You can check for yourselves at my YouTube page: http://www.youtube.com/user/AmeliaMarina
+ of the day: Daniel's sense of humor and communication with the fans.
- of the day: the 8 hours of standing (YEAH 8 hours!) and Anneke's indifferent presence.