Children Of Bodom
Ensiferum, Machinae Supremacy
Gagarin 205, Athens, Greece
16/04/11.
Children Of Bodom was the most extreme band that I had listened to for a first time back when I was 16 years old. I had a progress as a listener from Iron Maiden and Metallica to Children Of Bodom and moreover to a new – for my ears – music spectrum. 16th of April was a great chance for me to see Children Of Bodom for my first time ever in Athens along with a great alloy of support acts; Ensiferum and Machinae Supremacy.
We arrived at the venue around 19:30 cause we had to do an interview with Children Of Bodom and unexpectedly Machinae Supremacy was already on stage playing live. From what I anticipated to see, Machinae Supremacy’s music is a mixture of heavy metal and alternative rock with a lot of power metal elements. It’s sure that most of the fans in the venue didn’t even know them but they seemed to enjoy their performance. However I haven’t much to say about them since I saw just a small part of their whole show.
Next band was Ensiferum and due to an unexpected delay of the interview I had the chance to see a few of the Finnish’s show. The intro “By The Dividing Stream” was sounding in the venue that was almost full creating an epic atmosphere. The band appeared on stage wearing just their kilts starting with “From Afar” taken from their self-titled latest release. Next song was “Token Of Time” and the whole atmosphere was like the headliners were on stage; Ensiferum was killer full of confidence and the crowd was completely participating to the show by singing loud and headbanging. However just a few minutes before the end of their show I had to leave cause Janne Wirman was waiting backstage for the interview…
So, right after the interview and having missed the epilogue of Ensiferum, I took a beer and I was waiting for Children Of Bodom. It was around 21:30 when the headliners hit the stage with “Not My Funeral” taken from the brand new album “Relentless Reckless Forever”. The fans that were mostly consisting of young people between 16-22 years old (proving that Bodom has a great effect to the youth) were on fire. Alexi Laiho was brightly leading the band having most of the eyes turned onto him. Next song was “Bodom Beach Terror”, then “Needled 24/7” and as the time was passing by – although the most of the fans seemed to enjoy the show – my expectations were unexpectedly dying…
As I mentioned above, I’m an old fan of Children Of Bodom and that was my first time seeing them live. That’s why I was hoping for a “best of” set-list, knowing that they don’t come to Greece that often. However the show continued with the set-list being mostly a mixture of the last album “Relentless Reckless Forever” and “Hate Crew Deathroll” doing some flashbacks to the older “Follow The Reaper” and “Downfall” which where the only songs coming from the old-era. I’m really disappointed that there was no song of the debut album “Something Wild” which I was so impatiently expecting before the show. The fact that the show lasted just 70 minutes was an additional disappointment for me and most of the fans I guess.
In overall the whole gig was quite good. The fans were more than active, the support acts were great, the sound was quite good and to be honest Children Of Bodom had a great appearance attributing the best on stage but the set-list was definitely not the best choice and the 70 minutes weren’t enough. I can understand the fact that the band wanted to promote its new albums or even have been bored playing the old stuff again and again but they had also to respect the fact that they don’t play to Greece that often and there were a lot of old-school fans. So I believe that they should have made a better choice of the songs and play more than 70 minutes. I’ll be waiting till next time when I will definitely expecting more…
Karagiannidis Panagiotis.