My Dying Bride
Block 33, Thessaloniki, Greece
30/01/10.
It’s needless to describe the professionalism needed to perform in front of an audience, that hasn’t seen your face the last seven years. You do not know what to expect, this goes for every aspect concerning the outcome of a show (number of people attending, performance, audience response!Everything! MDB though, would never fail! After all, they’ve proven it throughout their long carrier! 20 years and still dooming deathly.
BLOCK 33 is a venue I hadn’t visited, since it changed its name from Ydrogeios to BLOCK 33. Given this, I realized that although not much had changed, some real sound improvement and some decoration changes, made the place quite warmer, than what it used to be.
The doors, were open at about 19:45. Garage/punk/psychobilly music, kept company to our ears, for the next few hours. Thankfully enough, just before this crappy music started to become annoying, the lights went off and the haunts started the evening…I’ll just have to keep it to the basics for now on…
This is a year of celebrations for the band, and they looked determined to celebrate with every single person, inside the audience. The performance of everyone was outstanding. Andrew and Hamish on guitars, having a great solid sound and playing everything completely tight. Aaron, having a great day, spitted mercy,wrath, and every other lyric, in his own theatrical style sometimes dancing, sometimes gesturing properly, to entrance everyone in the audience.
Lena, the only female remaining on the line-up, build a stone wall of bass tones with the helping hand of Dan on drums. A brilliant, tight as fist, rhythm section you couldn’t resist to headbang. As for newest member Shaun, on violin and keys. His role on stage has two aspects. One, being the performer of our beloved songs from the past and present, that include violin and keys. Two, being that obscure figure above everyone on stage, with his clothing reminding you of Charon ready to harvest! Awesome player, awesome on-stage presence! As for the sound, everything was in perfect proportions. From everywhere you could hear everything! After all, as it seems, this is so important for the outcome!
Finally, for everyone of that would like to know the setlist was as follows:
Fall With Me
The Whore, The Cook and The Mother
Thy Raven Wings
She is The Dark
Turn loose The Swans
Catherine Blake
Vast Choirs
My Body, A Funeral
The Dreadful Hours
Here In the Throat
Bring Me Victory
Cry Of Mankind
And I Walk With Them
It was an evening of grief and doom, in the form of songs, performed by the masters of this kind. I just hope, we get the chance, to have them more often at our country. And as Aaron stated many times during the show…Cheers!
Andrew Koran.