Dodheimsgard
Enshadowed, Gospel Of Grief
Gagarin 205, Athens, Greece
11/03/11.
Friday 11th of March will be an unforgetable day for me and for almost 1000 other metalheads who were in Gagarin 205 this day. I arrived at the venue at 21:15 and after the neseccary walk in the merchandise stand I went to get my pass and live the magic.
The first act of the day were Enshadowed who, to be honest, I don’t think that they fit on the style of the live, being more old-school in philosophy and with a cold show. The sound wasn’t good enough and I observed a few mistakes especially by the drummer. However the whole band did their best and they satisfied their many local fans.
After Enshadowed, the very-promising Gospel Of Grief hit the stage with much better sound but with mistakes from the drummer again. Athenian blacksters added some more energy to the show by playing songs from their debut album “Our Symbol Is Death” and with better moments the title track of the album and “Final End”. Their show had plenty of energy with 108 trying to wake up the sleepy crown but with no result. In general terms they did a very good show and after they finally made the crowd bang with “Carpathian Forest” the title song of this cult band they left the stage and joined the crowd to enjoy the great DHG.
After a long delay (about 35-40 minutes) the place filled with a sick “oriental” sample that made the crowd warmer and super villains appeared on stage! After this as Helakis would say “I don’t decribe anymore”! Amazing sound, awesome stage show and panic! Dodheimsgard raped our ears with a massive performance playing songs from all their discography with better moments the songs “Sonar Bliss”, “21st century devil”, “Apocaliptisism”! With “Swarm Deserted Away” of Ved Buens Ende stealing the show, the singer teaching performance lessons and the crowd trying to calm down from the amazing situation that the track gave us! Then a sick melody started to flow from oneiroscope’s piano and for the first time in the concert I heard the crowd celebrating! That’s right gentlemen! “Traces of Reality” was about to be performed! Whatever I may say about the performance of the song wouldn’t be able to decribe it! Perfect! After the shock that we faced on “traces…” I couldn’t believe that the concert was over.
DHG didn’t do an encore (the crowd didn’t shout for one!). Dizzy from this performance I went to leave the place but I fell on a blue figure with a satanic smile. I spoke a bit with the great Vicotnic who came off the stage after the performance and spoke with the crowd proving that apart from a great guitarist he is a right professional and a social person!
My general impression from the group? Amazing! Apart from some problems Vicotnic faced with his guitar (electricity problem at first and a broken string) he did his best and especially in “Traces of Reality” the guitars were amazingly right! Kvost destroyed our ears and made us wonder if he was singing playback! The new drummer of the group is also awesome! Claudestine in bass was giving stabability in the line-up along with the drums and the satanic samples of Jormundgand filled the place with horror! So along with the low price in the ticket the live was very good and it will remain unforgetable (at least at me) and it left the crowd hoping for better days in the miserable Greek reality.
Leonardos “L.M.D.” Miritis.