May I never be rescued from drowning in the ocean within your eyes. And may we never fear our long moments of contentful silence.
If I could pause my life forever, I'd pause it right now.
And, to Beth Gibbons. Thank you.
Portishead - The Rip
As she walks in the room, Scented and tall, Hesitating once more. And as I take on myself, And the bitterness I felt, Realise that love lost, while
White horses, They will take me away, And the tenderness I feel, Will send the dark underneath, Will I follow?
Through the glory of life, I'm scattered on the floor, Disappointed and sore. And in my thoughts I have bled, For the riddles I've been fed, Another lie moves over, while
White horses, They will take me away, And the tenderness I feel, Will send the dark underneath, Will I follow?
Work is easier when you have friends you actually give a shit about around you in the office and easier still when music keeps you company. Specially when the sky is as beautiful and grey as the one outside my window every morning.
Opeth - Death Whispered A Lullaby Opeth at their best, I've been listening to them from the passenger seat of a car speeding through an autumn street
Opeth - In My Time Of Need Again, Opeth, I wish more albums were like Damnation
Khanate - Dead Oh, so many layers on this one. Listening to these guys is like listening to Black Sabbath for the first time when I was only 10, just scares me into a trance.
Tristania - Libre Yes, I'm into this whole goth with a twist thing at the moment
Therapy - Screamager But, after a couple of hours or three of metal-ish stuff, I need my Andy Cairns fix
The Gathering - Locked Away And my Anneke Van Giersbergen fix too. This one for the retarded elf that makes me smile from time to time. Aragorn is a jerk that doesn't know what's good for him, girl.
First, Leonard Cohen. Got the bus from the train station, me and friend exhausted from work, tried to get a nap on the drive to Malakassa, didn't exactly work. We arrived at Terra Vibe half an hour before the show, got a good spot corner spot on the wooden benches by the arena and waited. Lost and lots of people waiting with us, people of very diverse backgrounds, different ages, lots of, um, senior citizens let's say, the good kind, the ones that know all the lyrics to all the songs and are not afraid to sing them aloud. Lots of kids as well, a very diverse crowd. Leonard got a very warm welcome, greeted the crowd in flawless greek and, with his deep voice, concluded "Κι εγώ σας αγαπώ αλλά νηστεύω" and instantly won the hearts of everyone that wasn't a convert already. The concert started with Dance Me To The End Of Love and, looking at the moody smiles that immediately formed into people's faces and the way their eyes changed, their faces changed, their whole body changed to form a collective sigh, I was reminded of Kurt Cobain's line in Pennyroyal Tea "Give me a Leonard Cohen afterworld / So I can sigh eternally". To be honest, I am not a big fan of Cohen's music per se, but I am a fan of the man himself, mostly for all his other traits, his poetry most of all. But after two and a half hours of melancholy under a clear, starry summer sky, breathing the air of the forest, listening to songs like Gypsy Wife, you fall in love with it all, you have no choice. The guy was awesome, besides the fact that he actually played for around 3 hours, he kept taking his hat off and bowing to the crowd after every other song, he introduced the band, literally showering his musicians with complimentary adjectives around 20 times, he was truly amazing. Also, Terra Vibe may suck for all of us that have no car but the place is quite nice and the sound is much much better than one might expect with the open space and all.
The next day, Bjork (Gudmundsdottir, don't you just love that "dottir" part? Does it not make more sense than her being called Gudmundsson?). The prospect of Bjork's quiet-to-loud voice dynamics bouncing around a basketball court scared me a bit but I was glad to be proven wrong. We got there a bit late and sneaked into the VIP lounge where we saw various semi-celebrities and socialites but had a nice view. We missed the support act that was an awesome Icelandic girl alone with her guitar and her ukelele that actually managed to get the crowd involved and even made us try out singing in greco-icelandic. Trying to figure out who she was cause I liked her a lot. Bjork came out around 20 minutes later, after a prelude by her all female brass band, the clown-like Wonderbrass and started off the concert with Earth Intruders. There were banners portraying what appeared to be a big salmon, Bjork's face was painted and she was wearing what seemed to be alluminum gift wrapping. Surreal anyone? Anyhow, impressive as all the imagery may have been, with the lazer show and the projections and the colorful stage, the concert reached its peak on Army Of Me, at which point Bjork had the whole stadium dancing and screaming and climaxed on Hyperballad and Pluto, and that was it. But the thing is, you can't not pay attention to her, it's her voice, it's as if you can hear it coming from an abyss, you just can't not be drawn into the music, and once you're there, it's, I don't know, quaint as it may appear, it's as if you're one with the universe, it's like a whole new perception, it's like LSD without LSD. I don' t know, many people complained about the stadium, about the support, about the show lasting only an hour and ten minutes, about her not playing their favorite songs (no Violently Happy, no Human Behaviour, no All Is Full Of Love), but I say, fuck it, it was the best concert of this summer, and if you were there and didn't leave the place floating around, too bad cause you missed it all.
With that, what was probably the most fruitful concert summer for me ends here. August is empty, it was nice but now it's over. Kind of sad, but there's autumn ahead, who knows?
