Sodom, Antidrasi, Blynd, Exarsis
Gagarin 205, Athens, Greece
26/11/2011
Sodom are one of the favorite bands of the Greek crowd. They have played many shows here and most of them were killer. I don’t think that I need to write anything about the glory of this band, the legendary albums that they have released and how many bands they have influenced; all the thrash metal fans (and not only) know these things. So, one year after their last performance in Athens, those thrash legends came again to make us have some good friendly violent fun! The support bands were Exarsis, Blynd and Antidrasi.
Unfortunately I arrived late at the venue so I only managed to see Exarsis for only one song which was a cover of “Kill On Command” from Vio-lence, that the band performed very good and with a very good stage performance. What I heard is that Exarsis played a very good and passionable show, but the sound was not very good. They played a couple of songs from their upcoming album, “Under Destruction”, and they had a lot of fans in the crowd.
Blynd from Cyprus was the second support group. They played very good and they had a good stage performance. To be honest I haven’t heard the band before but I liked their music. They were very groovy and their biggest influences are probably bands like Machine Head, Lamb Of God (they covered “Laid To Rest”) and so on. The crowd seemed to like them a lot and the band seemed to enjoy the show. They played 7 or 8 songs and they left the stage with almost everyone clapping for them. Overall, a very good performance from a very promising band.
The legendary Antidrasi was the last band playing before Sodom. I am a fan of the band from a very young age but it was my first time seeing them live. They played very well and they played a very good set. Songs like “Hoirino Kreas”, “El.as”, “Egxromi TV – Aspromauri Zoi”, “Ego Tin Kano”, the legendary title track of the band and so on, created a very big excitement to the crowd that was singing every lyric and was participating in the performance of the band by singing, moshing and stagediving. I was very happy to hear these great songs live for the first time, and to see Antidrasi perform so good. They left the stage after playing about 13 songs.
The venue was full of people once again. Although Sodom have played in Athens many times, the venue is always full of people because everyone knows that Sodom concerts are always killer. That proves how great Sodom are.
Everything was ready for the performance of one of the greatest thrash bands of all time. At around 23:30 Sodom hit the stage with the title track of their new album, “In War And Pieces”. From the first note that Sodom played, there was a great atmosphere created. Moshpits, stagedivings, crowd surfings, singing, everyone was enjoying themselves. Second song? “Sodomy And Lust”! You can imagine what happened! Sodom were in a great mood, they were performing all the songs very energetic and passionable and they seemed to have a hell of a time. Older songs like “Outbreak Of Evil”, “Burst Command ‘Till War”, “Proselytism Real”, “Blasphemer”, “Agent Orange” and so on created panic in the crowd, but the same thing happened with songs from their latest records like “M16”, “I Am The War”, “City Of God” etc. Everyone was having a great time and the adrenaline was at red during the whole concert. The sound was good. The new drummer, “Makka”, performed very well, and he proved that he is a very good drummer that deserves to play in such a big band. Angelripper and Bernemann were in a very good mood and they performed very well. The band played many other classic songs like “Fuck The Police”, “Ausgebombt”, “Remember The Fallen”, “The Saw Is The Law” where the whole venue was headbanging and moshing. Sodom had a very good stage performance once again. The last song of their set, “Bombenhagel” of course, where Tom wore an oxygen mask that a fan gave him for a while (great moment), was the end of another legendary Sodom concert in Athens. They left the stage after 1 hour and 50 minutes and they left everyone very happy once again.
It was the 3rd time that I saw Sodom. I would see them another 1003 times if I could. Once again they played a show that made us leave the venue with a huge smile in our faces. The support groups were also very good and once again it is proved that the Greek scene has countless great bands that play very good music. THRASH TILL DEATH!
Panos “Butcher” Bantzis