CDC
Senseless, Overpain, Hollow Crown
Eightball club, Thessaloniki, Greece
27/07/11.
The 27th of July was one of the days that the north greek hardcore scene has been for once again impatiently expecting, since 8ball club was hosting “CDC”, the rabid hardcore quartet from Pennsylvania. The band visited us thanks to the “Salonika Hardcore Crew”, a company of local kids that are fed up of expecting the hardcore scene to take it’s place in our region just by throwing fancy words and decided to form the crew in order to promote the local artists and book, by sharing the costs between the members, some worthy hardcore shows. Fortunately enough there are not a lot of negative things to mention for this day’s show but let’s analyze each part in details.
The clock hits about a quarter to ten and first on stage comes Hollow Crown, a new-formed line up which is composed by members of “Senseless”, “Overpain” and also from x-members of “Homicide Effect”. I didn’t even know they were about to play that day but since I believe that in a live show “the more the merrier, I was very glad to see the formation of this band and have the chance to see them immediately perform. My nosiness about the guys has quickly settled down cause my first impressions were absolutely satisfying. Their musical style? Aggressive beatdown, enough to rouse each one of the 2-steppers in front of the scene and leave the rest of us with a warm smile. Their stage appearance? Absolutely cool! “Hollow Crown” are consisted of two singers, something that if it is combined with the rest of the goodies a band can present, really gains my impressions since I think it gives more of an energetic mood to the audience (I guess that’s why “Pay No Respect” is my favorite song from Senseless in which they share the mics with a guest, but I will talk about that later). Hollow Crown seemed to really be enjoying being on stage and they didn’t even seem to care about any negative or whatever wicked criticism. They test their selves on stage, stayed for about ten minutes, dressed their guitar player as a singer and passed the torch to Overpain who comes next.
Overpain is a band that I’ve always been enjoying watching on stage and I guess the honor for that goes to their singer, Nikk because of his energetic “loose” hardcore appearance, which reminds you kind of a “Deez Nuts” style (something that has also been witnessed by his t-shirt). Actually my first ever impressions for Overpain a couple of years ago were not pretty good and I believed they had a lot of margins of improvement, but the guys didn’t delay to justify me, since they have been improved in such a way that in their last shows they have gained the most positive feedbacks and the same happened this time where most of the people classified them at the top of this day’s supporting acts. They gave us a 30-minute furious beatdown rhythms in some interesting self-composed tracks, stirred up the crowd and retained the warm atmosphere it already existed. Notice: I’d really love to listen to their own studio album as it seems they have a lot of cool compositions and they won’t disappoint us.
Third up are Senseless, for whom I got a more integrated image after all these times I’ve watched their shows. As in Overpain the same for Senseless, each time I’m amazingly excited about the progress these guys are showing in every gig, something that witnesses that they have worked a lot rehearsing and they don’t face what they’re doing as a joke. But now, I am more than ever satisfied as I believe that they have discovered 100% the musical style they should follow and this is testified by the way they compose and interpret their songs, as well of their cover selection “Time Is Money” by “Betrayal” which I personally believe that fits perfect at their set-list. Senseless got a strange way to gain even from the first seconds an immediacy between their band and the crowd and I think this is achieved not only because of their performance but also due to their humor and their ability to make the crowd a part of their show (and the opposite as the singer decided to stay into the pit and do not jump on stage at all). What I really enjoyed was the fact that a lot of their songs have stuck in my mind from previous shows and it was like listening to a band that I was hosting on my playlist at home. The band lights the blood when Nikk (singer of “Overpain”, guitarist of “Hollow Crown”) enters the stage and that’s the part that I believe they should end their play-list as I believe that they overdid it a bit as far as the time that they remained on stage is concerned. Nevertheless it was a pretty good show and the only negative think I would mention despite the long set-list is the stage appearance which I think should be a little bit more vivid. Thumbs up for the guitar riffs at the last song!
23:30 and it’s about time for CDC to jump on stage. The first thing they screamed was “Salonica” in a tone which reminded me the beginning of the song “Ten Amerikan Days” and I wasn’t wrong since it was the first song of their set-list which immediately started the “crowd war” between the attendees and grow my self’s enthusiasm cause I knew what would follow. The band didn’t lose time in any introductions, “hellos” or whatever. They came to serve real raw hardcore and that’s what they did. Aggressive appearance, rabid vocals and avalanche riffs turned 8ball club into one hell of a mosh party. Some of the songs they choose to play was: “Ghost Writer”, “Crowd War”, Invisible Man”, “This Is Forever”, “Let It Burn”, the self-titled “Cool Dudes Chillen” and a few more that unfortunately was not at all filling and can’t say that they satisfied me the way I expected. But this regards only the number of their set-list cause in general they left me with the greatest impressions and with the lust to see them again soon and maybe next time with a newest record and a bigger track selection.
To sum up the show was amazing, the bands did their best to keep us satisfied and with no doubts they succeed that. As for the “hardcore fans of the internet” who think that hardcore means only posting in facebook a “Terror” song and keeps the miserable cry cause there are not a lot of worthy shows in our country but have never seen their faces live, I’m sure that CDC would dedicate to them their lyrics “If You don’t like the way it goes, don’t wanna see you at our shows”…
Rena Koutsou.