Samsara Blues Experiment, Spacement // An Club, Athens, Greece // 17.05.2014

Samsara Blues Experiment visited our country for the third time in three years, this time as a trio though, due to some personal issues of their bassist Richard Behrens. I don’t think that particular thing affected anyone because the live was SOLD OUT. This proves how the greek audience loves and trusts Samsara Blues Experiment. Their guitarist, Hans Eiselt, was the one who performed the bass for the concert and replaced Richard Behrens.

Along with them were the Greeks Spacement with their more heavy stoner and sometimes doomy sound. They started exactly on schedule at 21:30 and I can say that I really liked that band as the rest of the almost full An Club did. They played for about forty minutes and they performed three songs .It was the best way for an incredible night to start..

The time had come for Samsara Blues Experiment to hit the stage, a full club was cheering them up and I could see in their eyes the excitement and the anxiety they had. They started the show with their song ‘Center of the sun’ and the crowd went crazy by the first note of the guitar. I don’t think that someone had problem with the absence of the second guitar, although they couldn’t achieve the sound of the studio albums. However, they tried their best and gave one hundred percent of their effort in order to avoid letting even one fan disappointed. The sound was great and Hans Eiselt “behind” the bass was truly awesome. He did his best to help his mates and I think he did a marvelous job. Christian Peters was fantastic; he sang ,played the guitar and tried to fill the empty space from the absence of the second guitar. For me he managed to deliver the feeling and the sound of Samsara Blues Experiment. Unexpected things can happen anytime though; a broken string of the guitar was the reason for the band to stop playing “For the lost souls”. However, while Christian was trying to fix it, Hans Eiselt (bass) and Thomas Vedder (drums) started to jam together in an effort to mantain the crowd’s enthousiasm and they achieved it!

After a while they started the song exactly from the point they left it and all went great till the end. They closed the show, receiving a great applaud from the athenian fans and waved goodbye, until a crazy fan went on stage, grabbed the microphone and kneeled down begging the band to play one more song. His exact speech was: “Samsara please, play for us ‘Army of ignorance’”. The band couldn’t do otherwise but come back to stage to satisfy the fans’ desire. Everyone was smiling and clapping and when they started their encore everyone went crazy. You could see and feel the mosh pits in the front rows and everyone was headbanging!

So that night had it all, there were happy people everywhere, claiming what a great band Samsara Blues Experiment is. We hope the band will return again in our country, for another great, sold out show and we wish the best for them and CTS productions, as well !

Report: Dimitris “MitsDoom” Balabakis
Photos: Sofia Theodorou and Dimitris “MitsDoom” Balabakis