Ordered list of CDs purchased, best to worst:

Rage – Ghosts
Dream Theater – Scenes From a Memory
The Kovenant – Animatronic
Samael – Eternal
Dark Tranquillity – Projector
Arch Enemy – Burning Bridges
Immortal – At the Heart of Winter
Solefald – Neonism
Heavens Gate – Menergy
Dismal Euphony – All Little Devils

In Flames – Colony
Nevermore – Dreaming Neon Black
Iced Earth – Alive in Athens
Godgory – Resurrection
Angel Dust – Bleed
Agalloch – Pale Folklore
October Tide – Grey Dawn
Evereve – Regret
Dodheimsgard – 666 International
Crematory – Act Seven
Otyg – Sagonvindars Boning
Grave Digger – Excalibur
Grey Skies Fallen – The Fate of Angels
Darkane – Rusted Angel
Liquid Tension Experiment – 2
Dimmu Borgir – Spiritual Black Dimensions
Skyclad – Vintage Whine
Withering Surface – The Nude Ballet
Anathema – Judgement
Kreator – Endorama
Nightfall – Diva Futura
Mithotyn – Gathered Around the Oaken Table
Children of Bodom – Hatebreeder
In the Woods – Strange in Stereo
Nokturnal Mortum – To the Gates of Blasphemous Fire
Amorphis – Tuonela
Peccatum – Strangling From Within
Emperor – IX Equilibrium
Morgion – Solinari
Helloween – Metal Jukebox
Iron Savior – Unification
Ebony Tears – A Handful of Nothing
Seventh Omen – Polarized
The Gathering – How To Measure a Planet?
Diabolique – The Black Flower
Steel Prophet – Dark Hallucinations
Gamma Ray – Powerplant
Iced Earth – Melancholy EP
Gandalf – Deadly Fairytales
Type O Negative – World Coming Down
Arcturus and the Deception Circus – Disguised Masters
Roland Grapow – Kaleidoscope
Shock Machine – Shock Machine
Vond – Slipp Sorgen Los
Various – The Holy Bible Vol. II-III
Various – A Call to Irons 2

It’s good that it’s been a long time since I’ve seen someone make a post about how dead metal is, because I just might have to smack someone around if they were to be so stupid today.

Case in point, I saw two European bands, Samael and Dimmu Borgir, twice in the Chicago area in the past week. And not only did they make two appearances, both shows were surprisingly well-attended. I estimate they drew 150-200 people on a Tuesday-night 21-and-over show in the city (Doubled Door), and around 300 (completely packing the place) at an all-ages show on Sunday (Riley’s Rockhouse).

Before the tour started I’d seen a fair amount of questioning who would be headlining, and I was rather surprised to hear that Samael was playing last. As it turns out, it seemed to be more of a co-headlining kind of thing, as both bands appeared to play about the same amount of time. Although Samael has been around longer and has toured the U.S. before, I think Dimmu Borgir is the bigger band around here these days, and it was proven by the small dip (or at least no increase) in attendance after Dimmu’s sets. Personally, I like Samael a little more than Dimmu, but they’re both great bands, and hopefully Samael showed some of the Cradle of Filth kids there that you don’t have to wear corpsepaint to be cool.

Ok, on to the music. Epoch of Unlight and Monstrosity opened, I missed EoU at both shows; I saw them at the Metalfest though, and they seemed pretty cool there. I would have gotten there earlier to see them if not for having to endure Monstrosity. Unfortunately, I didn’t get there late enough for the second show, so I had to sit through Monstrosity’s wonderful new take on shitty death metal.

Then there was Dimmu Borgir. I guess there is a point in most successful bands’ careers where they sit down and decide that they’ve had enough of just jamming together for fun, and realize that they want to go all the way and do everything they can to be the best they can and really make a name for themselves. It’s just very pronounced in the case of Dimmu Borgir, mostly because of the stark contrasts between For All Tid / Stormblast and their latest works. Seeing them live, their distance from the “true” black metal scene becomes even more obvious. These guys seem to be first and foremost, entertainers. Or it’s at least equal with them being “artists”. That may make a lot of people uncomfortable, but personally, I love it. As I was watching them, I realized that even if I completely didn’t care about Dimmu Borgir, I still wouldn’t have felt ripped-off going to the show, simply because they put on such a quality act. Even though they had very little room to move at both places, all of the members were very into their performance (except for Mustis) and quite fun to watch (particularly with the impressive use of lights and fog). It’s funny how they’re all the same height, except for Simen who is about a foot taller than the rest of them. Astennu really does play his guitar between his legs like in that pic in GSG. Very strange. Anyway, it was nice to see that they know the first three songs on Enthrone… are about 100 times better than any of their other stuff, because they played all of them, and a bunch of stuff from SBD. The Insight and the Catharsis, In Death’s Embrace, and Mourning Palace were probably the highlights for me.

After they finished, they cleared the drums off the stage and replaced them with Xy’s keyboard and big rack of electronics, along with a couple real toms, cymbals, and snare. Darkness fell, the stage filled up with fog, and moments later the synth and drum machine started blaring as Xy appeared alone in the fog. The other three guys then made it up on stage and started kicking ass. I’ve definitely never seen anything like a Samael show, and at first it was a little off-putting, but once I caught the vibe it was incredible. Like Dimmu Borgir, Samael has also evolved from some kids trying to be evil to a professional band that’s doing everything they can to get their music and message across. Vorph is a completely unique stage presence, he’s very aloof yet very intense, much like his lyrics and Samael’s music, so it fits perfectly. Most of the time he was tied to his microphone (which was placed very low to match with his spread-legged stance), but Kaos handled most of the guitar work, and on a couple of songs (Moonskin, All), Vorph went completely without his guitar, which allowed him to do even more of his strange and almost spooky hand gestures. As for the other guys, Kaos was rather interesting, a very clean-cut, short haired guy who would fit in perfectly in a Calvin Klein ad. He must have been taking some happy drugs the second show, because he was way more into it, going nuts with the crowd and screaming along and stuff. Masmeseim on the other side was the bounciest and happiest-looking of the bunch, mostly whapping haphazardly at his bass. And finally there was Xy in the back, easily the headbanging-est keyboard player I’ve ever seen. And it was awesome when he’d play the real drums, he’d basically jump up in the air and just beat the crap out of them whenever he got the chance. They played mostly stuff off of Passage, with three new ones from Eternal, one from Exodus, and Baphomet’s Throne off of Ceremony of Opposites. Their CDs have a very unique atmosphere, and the feeling at the show was much the same. Very cold and heavy, yet quite danceable and majestic at the same time. I’m not quite sure what I mean by this, but I get the feeling that Samael might be just a bit too “European” to gain mass appeal with American audiences. Anyway, halfway through the set, Vorph, Masmeseim, and Kaos went off stage while Xy did some drum and synth stuff, and two fire jugglers came out. Then they got back to the metal. At the second show, apparently Xy was having monitor problems, since his live drumming kept getting off time, and they ended up stopping right in the middle of Baphomet’s Throne, and Xy walked offstage for a couple minutes. Apparently everything got fixed, since he came back and was dead-on for the rest of the night. The second show then got an encore that we didn’t get at the first one, which included The Cross from Eternal, and My Savior. They left the stage (except for Masmeseim, who jumped into the crowd for some surfing) while keeping a synth loop still playing, and the jugglers came out with some different stuff, and then that was it. My favorites were probably Jupiterian Vibe, Rain (which was rather different, particularly the intro, which seems like a strange thing to change since it’s such a kickass and memorable intro), My Savior, and some of the new stuff.

Both bands seemed geniunely pleased with the crowd reactions, particularly the second night (when the crowd was much more into it), and I was very pleased with the bands. Hopefully everything else will go well for them on this tour, and they’ll keep the stream of European bands coming over to the States.

The Scandanavian Invasion of the U.S. began on Friday night in Chicago. The massive tour of Emperor, Borknagar, Witchery, Peccatum, and Divine Empire (plus four local acts) rolled into the Congress Theater and played to a crowd of what I’d estimate as 300 to 400 black-clad dark metal fans. The crowd was much more like what you’d see at the Milwaukee Metalfest than at an Iced Earth or Iron Maiden show or something like that (except that there were a lot fewer CoF shirts than you’d see at the Metalfest!) The Congress Theater was a nice, big, airy place, but as a general rule, the sound sucked ass. Then again, I don’t imagine that black metal bands are the easiest thing to reproduce correctly in a live environment.

Anyway, on to the bands:

The local acts: I missed the first two bands, and got there in time to see the end of a curious black-ish metal band led by a diminutive, corpse-painted singer wearing a hooded jogging suit. He drew one of the most enthusiastic rounds of applause of the night when he proclaimed that he was going to kill himself soon. Next up was some brutal death band with some blackish tendanices. They had some cool riffs, and the singer did a lot of pretty impressive alternating between the low death grunt and the high black scream. Nothing I need to even know the names of though.

Divine Empire: Ah, my favorite, brutal Florida death metal. Why do bands like this still exist? There must be bands out there that are doing new and innovative things with the style, but Divine Empire isn’t one of them, as far as I could tell.

Peccatum: If you thought their CD was weird and/or silly, seeing them live takes it to a whole new level. The band consisted of Ihsahn on guitar/vocals, Ihriel and Lord PZ on vocals, some a fatter version of Ihsahn on second guitar. They covered up the drum kit with a Peccatum banner for their set, I guess so that people wouldn’t think that Peccatum had an invisible drummer. Thus, the drum, bass, keys, and maybe even another guitar track were provided off a DAT, or maybe even the Peccatum Karaoke CD. Ihsahn was dressed like a first-rate dork in a plain white Peccatum t-shirt, primly tucked into his pants. Lord PZ, on the other hand, was a black-metal badass, with the long hair, corpsepaint, and weird leather skirt/pants outfit. Ihriel was looking like you’d expect, in a multi-layered goth-ish outfit, complete with the swirling cloak. The sound for Peccatum was overall very good, maybe because much of it wasn’t live. Ihsahn and Lord PZ actually both do a wide variety of vocals, it almost seems like one of them could cover all the styles. But it was really cool when the three would sing together. Ihsahn was pretty much normal, just playing his guitar and singing off to the side, but Lord PZ and Ihriel were doing their overly-dramatic strutting around and leaning on each other and stuff like that. Anyway, I’m sure Peccatum doesn’t intend their performance to be liked for its cheesiness (“Peccatum is Art” after all…), but I definitely had a good time watching them, and the music was cool too. My second favorite act of the show.

Witchery – I like their CD, it’s pretty fun to listen to, but they didn’t impress me too much live. Their sound was rather bad, everthing kind of ran together, and the vocals were really quiet. They put on a good show, definitely way more interesting than brutal death metal, but it just seems like there would be bands doing the same thing that live a lot closer than Sweden.

Borknagar – The band I had the highest hopes for, and they didn’t disappoint. Their sound actually ended up being rather good, the unique Borknagar guitar sound which sounds like nothing else was quite recognizable and clear. Nick Barker was of course a badass on the drums (which didn’t have a riser, for some reason), Oystien was clearly into it on guitar on one side, while Jens handled the other side, and
the really tall Simen was front and center singing and playing bass. Notably absent, however, was a keyboard player. Keyboards are rather integral part of Borknagar’s sound, and with Emperor/Peccatum bringing over 8 people, it seems like Borknagar could have rustled up a keyboard player somewhere. Maybe CM just wasn’t willing to pay for one to come over. So there were points in the music where something was clearly missing, but I think in some points they might have replaced the keyboard melody with a guitar to fill things in. Also, Simen didn’t seem to be the most comfortable singing and playing bass at the same time, occasionally he’d look down at his bass and forget to continue singing. Anyway, the songs were great, they split things pretty evenly between The Olden Domain and The Archaic Course. I know that they played A Tale of Pagan Tongue and The Dawn of the End (including the excellent “…and I close my eyes” part I love so much) off the former, and Oceans Rise, Nocturnal Vision, and Ad Noctum off the latter, and probably something else too. Simen did a good job of Garm’s parts, and of course a very good job of his own parts. Definitely the highlight of the show for me.

Emperor: Finally, Emperor came on. Let me say first that I rather dislike the earlier Emperor releases, and have a lukewarm appreciation for IX Equilibrium. So I wasn’t expecting a whole lot, although I really enjoyed their performance at the Milwaukee Metalfest last year, even without their keyboards. This time they had the keyboards, but not even that was enough to save them from the terrible sound (and annoying music too, I suppose). There were a few slowed down parts where Ihsahn sang with clean vocals that sounded really good, and occasionally the keyboard would throw out a recognizable melody, but for the most part, Emperor just put forth a solid wall of unrecognizable cacophony, which, after prolonged exposure, my overstimulated brain just converted into buzzing white noise. It was actually difficult for me to sit there and listen. Anyway, Ihsahn was looking a lot cooler with Emperor (even though he didn’t bring his spiked shoulder pads with him), TYR (of Beyond Death fame) was a monster on his six-string bass, doing some backup vocals as well, and the keyboard player was yet another Ihsahn look-alike (although he was skinnier this time) who also did backup vocals. I guess most of the fans like the show enough though, because they brought the band back out for an encore with a rather loud “Emperor!” chant. The whole time Ihsahn was apologizing profusely for the sound problems, and was clearly unhappy with the situation, which is an attitude and professionalism I don’t think you’d really see out of a “true” black metal band. “You deserve better than this, so we’ll try to give you the best we can!” (said with a Norwegian accent)

Overall, it definitely wasn’t the greatest show I’ve ever been to, but I wasn’t expecting it to be. It was kind of like the Metalfest, just a thing to see for the sake of seeing it. It’s definitely not every day that such a package plays in the U.S. Hopefully this tour will do well and open the doors for still more bands to make the journey across the ocean. Actually, things are already looking up, since Century Media’s page mentions a Dimmu Borgir/Samael tour in the fall, and Cradle of Filth/Rotting Christ is going to be coming around soon, and at the Nevermore show (which was AFTER the 9-band Emperor show, if you can belive that), Warrel Dane said that they’d be back touring again in the fall with no less than Arch Enemy!

Everyone got up early for the trip out. Leaving Greece actually seemed to go much smoother than leaving the U.S. A few fans even made it to the airport to see us off. Thankfully we were on Delta for the flight back over the ocean, so it was much nicer this time, although it was still at least 24 hours worth of travel. When we arrived back at Indianapolis, at about 7 P.M., Jimmy went to go bring Jon’s van by to pick up the equipment. It was taking him forever to get back, and finally we learned that the battery was dead. So Larry and Wendi stayed at the airport with the equipment while everyone else went back to Franklin (20 minutes away) so Matt could pick up another truck and go back and get the equipment. Not the greatest ending to the trip, but compared to all the great times we’d had over the previous week, it wasn’t a big deal at all.

The next morning everyone got to see a bit of the island, as we walked around looking for a bank to change money at. It’s quite a magical place, it almost doesn’t seem real. I definitely wish I could have seen more of it, but we had to catch the ferry back. This time, everyone was a bit more sober, and some people just slept. Also, it was a nicer day, so we were able to spend more time up on deck. The trip itself is really very nice, you go right by all sorts of islands. I really wish I would have had my camera for it.

We finally arrived back at our hotel that evening (after an hour long cab ride from the ferry), and reality came back to us as Jon and Matt were once again mobbed by the fans. Most of the group that didn’t go with us wasn’t too pleased at us running off like that without much notice, but they seemed to get over it. And they’d had a good time the previous day as well, and seen some stuff that I would have liked to have seen. Apparently they’d also eaten at Ambrosia a couple more times, so we all went there together once more for our final meal in Greece. Once again, they seemed very pleased to see us there, even serving us complimentary lamb’s heads this time around. Yum! Then everyone went to the Plaka to pick up gifts for people back home, and I went back to the hotel and called it a night.

…woke up a little more than an hour later, since someone was knocking on our door. It turned out to be Jon. It was 7 A.M., and apparently hardly anyone else had gone to bed at all. As the rest of them had been sitting down in the bar (and drinking more and more), someone came up with the great idea of going out to an island. Somehow they convinced our native Greek tour guides, Stella and Mary, to look at the ferry schedule and see what they could come up with. Thus, Jon Schaffer was standing at my door at 7 A.M., rather drunk, saying “Hey, we’re taking a ferry out to an island, it leaves at 7:30, so if you want to go, you’ve got five minutes to get your shit together!” Of course, I was all for it, so I quickly threw a few things in a bag, and in five minutes was in a cab on the way to the ferry!

A few people were too tired (or maybe not drunk enough) to go, and some others we had to leave behind because we knew they couldn’t get ready in five minutes, so it ended up being me, Jon, his wife Wendi, his dad Tom, Matt, Mike McGill, and Stella and Mary on the six hour ferry ride to Mykonos. We all ran onto this boat with basically no idea where we were going, no idea when (or if) we would be able to come back, no idea if there’d even be places to stay there, and most of us had hardly any Greek money. Finally we managed to be free of all the fans for a little bit, although I was somewhat surprised that I didn’t see a bunch of them jump in the water to swim after the boat! In the words of Mike McGill, “Man, we used to do spontaneous shit like this all time, it rules!” Thus, we found ourselves in the middle of a room on the ferry, surrounded by people quietly reading the morning paper and drinking their coffee, while we quickly made a pile of empty beer cans at our table and made complete asses of ourselves. Since we were being so loud, someone from the boat came by and turned up the TV by us really loud, so a little while later, Jon got up, and since he couldn’t find the volume to turn it down, he just shut the thing off! We soon moved to another area of the boat. Every five or ten minutes, Jon or Matt would spontaneously belt out “STELLA!!!!!” (a la “A Streetcar Named Desire”) as loud as they could, much to the embarrassment of Stella. It was quite a fun time, and actually the guy from the ferry by us seemed to like us, and he even would have played some Iced Earth on the boat if we would have had a cassette. I was also treated to Matt singing wonderful versions of “The Love Boat” and the “Gilligan’s Island” theme.

Eventually, we arrived on Mykonos. Since it was winter, almost everything was shut down, and it took us a little while to find a hotel where they weren’t completely ripping us off. Once there, Tom instantly passed out in his room, so the rest of us just kind of hung out in the hotel bar (once again). Eventually, we made it out of the hotel and walked around looking for a place to eat. We ended up at a Mexican place (well, sort of Mexican), which was sort of cool at first (they played some Black Sabbath for us), but then Jon almost got in a war with them because they wouldn’t take Mastercard. Again we returned to the hotel, where we hung out for a while talking and drinking, and I actually learned a lot about the whole Iced Earth family that I didn’t know. I wanted to see some of the island while I was there, so even though it was night, I went out walking around by myself. It was definitely an interesting place, and quite eerie since everything was closed up. When we finally went to bed that night, we calculated that Stella and Mary had been up for 40 hours straight, and somehow they looked just as good as they always did.

This became the day of rest. Not too much happened. The main thing was that we moved to a different hotel. Apparently everyone wasn’t too pleased with the first one, so we went to a new one a few blocks away. Of course, it took all morning and some of the afternoon to get everyone roused out of bed, get checked out, and checked in at our new place. At least it gave the fans there plenty of time to get all the autographs they wanted, although that didn’t mean they didn’t follow us to the new hotel. A group of us discovered a very cool place at dinner that night, it was a very “local” joint called Ambrosia, and basically no one there spoke any English, which always means that it’s the best place to eat. And of course it was. They gave us all sorts of free food too.

When we got back from dinner, almost everyone was just hanging out in the hallway by our hotel rooms, when all of a sudden this crazy masked man explodes out of a room wielding an ax and spraying everyone and everything with a Spiderman web-shooter loaded with Silly String. Of course it turned out to be Brent, pulling out some of his after-tour tricks. Someone from the hotel told us to quiet down because we were laughing so much, but of course we didn’t pay much attention. A little later, we all just headed down to the hotel bar to have some drinks. After being down there a LONG time, I noticed that it was 5:30 A.M., and decided to go up to bed. I fell asleep, and…..

I got up the next morning at about 9 or 10, and went down to the lobby. And all the kids were still there! Apparently, many of them had stayed overnight. Unfortunately for them, Jon and Matt had already left to do interviews (Jon recorded a show for Germany’s VIVA at various places around Athens). There were a couple other members of our group down there, and the fans knew we had something to do with band, so they all came and questioned us! Thankfully no one asked for my autograph! Of course, none of them really believed that we didn’t know where the band was, but we really didn’t. Rick (who played keyboards for the shows) was the only person who actually had something to do with the music down there, so he got mobbed by autograph seekers. Jim Morris and I were laughing at his predicament, so in turn, he made a general announcement that that was Jim the Producer over there…so that made a whole wave move over to Jim to get his autograph, which was a completely bizarre experience for him. I had to go up to my room once to get my sunglasses, and a crowd of 10 or 20 chased me up the stairs and all the way to my room…it was a real frenzy! I told them there wasn’t anything exciting in my room, but apparently they assumed I had the whole band stashed in the bathroom or something.

Finally, the whole non-band portion of our group got together, and we headed out as tourists to the Acropolis. It was a beautiful day, and the Acropolis was just amazing. As we walked around, our group got split up, so I spent the afternoon with Jenny and Claudia, the new managers of Iced Earth’s European Fan Club. They’re definitely dedicated to putting together a much better club than there was before, and it was cool to hang out with them. After walking around a while, we returned to hotel (still full of fans), and waited for the bus to get together to go back to the club. As we were sitting in the bar talking, I realized that there were six of us sitting at a table, and we were all from six different countries: Greece, Germany, Sweden, Japan, the UK, and the US. I thought that was very cool. The guy from Greece was Joe, who was with the promotion company, and he finally told the hotel to clear the fans out of the lobby. I don’t know why the hotel didn’t do that themselves long beforehand, but anyway, they just stayed out on the street then, right in front of the doorway. Eventually, everyone got together, the bus showed up, and we returned to the Rodon Club.

Since I got there a lot later than I had the previous day, the crowd of fans waiting out front was MUCH larger this time. Because it was their second night in a row at the same place, all of the equipment was exactly where it was the night before; there had been no need to tear down the equipment and set it up again, which was very nice for the band and crew. The soundcheck was much shorter, although several adjustments were made of course. It was at that point that my new digital camera decided to break, so I only got about half the pictures that I wanted to from the trip. After a while, the doors opened, and the same process which had occurred the night before commenced again: the fans running in, waiting, the excitement building, singing to the pre-show music, and going crazy when the show began

For this show, I got a completely different perspective than I did the night before. I was at the very back of the club, up against the wall. After a while though, I still had to get into the crowd, but I stayed pretty far back, where it was slightly more relaxed. It was a nice change, because I could observe everything better, from the band, to the sound, to the crowd. One amazing thing about the Greek fans is that they seem to know and love every song equally well. In the U.S., people are generally more familiar with the newer stuff than the older, but these kids knew everything. Most people I talked to who saw both nights seemed to enjoy the second night more. For me, it was hard to say, since they were both so different, but the second night was definitely more “evil”, as it seems like they played more of their darker songs. They only repeated a few from the previous night, so those fans that came to both shows got to see two very different sets, and that provided more songs to put on the live album.

After this show finished, there was a much longer wait, since the equipment had to be broken down and taken with us. So by the time we left, the crowd outside was much smaller than the night before and more manageable. This time, instead of going to the hotel, the promoters took everyone to a very nice restaurant, where we were given tons of great food and drink. It was a very cool experience, sort of like a very big family dinner. The promoters were very pleased with the results of the two nights, as they apparently didn’t really believe Iced Earth would be able to sell out both shows…but the band (and the fans) proved them wrong!

Finally, the day of the first show. I woke up at about 7:30 after a good night’s sleep and went down to breakfast in the hotel. I was a bit surprised to see that Tom’s bed (we were sharing a room then) was unused, but it all made sense when I saw everyone else was already at breakfast. Jim had simply gotten up before me, but the other three had never went to sleep (and were still pretty juiced) after running around to various bars all night long. I’m kinda sorry I missed it, and am sure I didn’t hear half of what happened that night!

Since those three were going to get some sleep, and Jim was heading out to the club to meet the truck finally, I decided to go with him. We arrived at the Rodon Club before 11AM, and there was already a group of twenty or thirty kids outside. I’d never seen a show being set up before, and it was pretty interesting. I got an opportunity to explore the whole place, and see how everything comes together. The crew was very cool, and like Jim, said that the fact that this was a live recording didn’t mean any added pressure for them; it was just another day at the office. With the help of a few fans, all of the gear made it on to the floor, and then slowly into its assembled form onstage. Meanwhile, the lights were aimed and set, and Jim worked outside in the truck to get everything up to speed there. The truck ended up next to the venue, parked precariously at the edge of a huge pit, so that made things a bit of an adventure. They had walkie-talkies for communication, but sometimes messengers had to run back and forth.

At about 4PM, the band finally arrived. The show in Thessaloniki had been a big success, so they felt good for the shows here as well (despite the fact that Jon had managed 15 minutes of sleep between the two shows). They got to soundchecking pretty quickly, and of course spent a lot of time getting everything just right. Brent did his very cool drum solo/warmup, and then the whole band played some stuff together. I think they started with “Melancholy”, and after a little bit of that, suddenly busted into “Dante’s Inferno”! They played the full thing (to a crowd of about 10 people), so I got to hear it twice live. I felt I could have gone home without even seeing the show after they played that. Eventually, everything was all set, and at about 6:30, they opened the doors.

Immediately, a steady stream of kids started flowing in, and as soon as they got in the door, they sprinted up to as close to the stage as they could get. I really wanted to be up close for at least one of the nights, so I went up there before too many people came in. But I kept getting squeezed back, and I figured I had three hours to wait, so after a little while, I returned to the back of the club. Eventually, the entire place was filled…the floor, the balcony, and even the big staircase. Banners were unfurled and hung from the balcony, and an electric feeling began filling the place.

If I didn’t already know that Greece was a very special metal place, it became quite obvious when the pre-show tape rolled along and got to Metallica’s “Master of Puppets”. At the intro, a huge roar went up from the crowd, and every person in the place began spontaneously singing along. I’d never seen anything like it. Not only were they singing, they were jumping around and generally going crazy. I was completely amazed. They continued to sing to every song from then on, for at least an hour…Iron Maiden, Slayer, Blind Guardian, everything that the tape played. Of course, I just had to be in a crowd like that, so I began to work my way up from the back once again. The little mosh pits formed during “Master of Puppets” helped me quite a bit, as I was able to sneak through them. Still, it took me close to an hour to make it up as far as I could go (three or four rows back), which shows how densely this crowd was packed, and how unwilling they were to give up an inch in their quest to see Iced Earth. About half an hour before the showtime, the Iced Earth chants began. There were about three different versions, all loud enough to drown out the PA. Then, smoke started leaking out from between the curtains on the stage, and there was a huge surge forward (which I didn’t think would be possible, but somehow we managed to pack even tighter). The curtains opened, and Iced Earth’s first official live recording was underway.

I’d seen plenty of Iced Earth shows before, and metal shows in general, but none could compare to this. The energy from the crowd was unbelievable, and the band just reflected it right back to us. They’d played a few times before in Athens, so they knew a little bit of what to expect, but they were still obviously blown away by the response. After about the fifth song, I decided I couldn’t take it anymore up there. Between the singing, the screaming, the jumping up and down, and trying to keep my balance in the constantly shifting sea of bodies, I was getting seriously worn out. Which makes the kids in Greece all the more amazing: I was quite a bit bigger than most of them, and tall enough to get some fresh oxygen every once in a while, but every one of them was giving non-stop, insane energy, even if their face was buried in the back of the person in front of them. So I started to make my way back. But after moving a few inches, I said to myself “Wait. This RULES! I’m staying right here”. I did the same dance for the rest of the set…after every song, I’d tell myself that I had to get out of there and take a break before I died, and a soon as they’d start the next one, I’d be drawn right back into the thick of it. I simply couldn’t leave, it was that incredible.

I did finally work my way back through the crowd about halfway through the final song, “Iced Earth”. Once I broke free, I ran up to the backstage area, to the side of the stage where Jon’s parents and wife had been for most of the show (which was very cool for them and for Jon). The rest of our group was also there by then, and I arrived right at the “we are together now” line, which I thought was pretty neat. The band took their bows, and cleared off the stage. The venue slowly emptied out, and we waited around for the band to get cleaned up, still reveling in what we had just seen. After an hour or so, it was time to leave. My job temporarily turned from fan to bodyguard, as I had to help hold the crowd back from the band and the smaller women in our group. We ran through the gauntlet of hundreds of screaming fans, and safely made it onto the bus (although Brent almost got smothered, but hey, he’s tough.). They surrounded the bus, yelling, waving, and jumping up and down. As we drove off, kids even ran down the street after us.

After driving about halfway back to the hotel, we stopped at a McDonald’s (yeah, classic Greek food) to pick up some food for the band. We weren’t stopped for more than two or three minutes before a bunch of kids spotted us and came running up to the bus. Luckily, Mike McGill was standing guard at the door, and was able to keep them from surging on. Since it would have been too hard for the band to go out, or for the kids to come on, they instead passed their CDs, records, tickets, and shirts on to be signed by the band and then passed back out. Unfortunately, some jerk stole a signed shirt that belonged to someone else, and the band was pissed about that, but there wasn’t much they could do. The food came back, everything was signed, and we continued on our way. Of course, there was a large crowd waiting at the hotel when we returned. Apparently the magazines let the kids know where the band is staying, and it becomes fairly common knowledge. So while the band was held up signing autographs, I went up to my room, got out of my still-sweaty clothes, took a shower, and passed out.

I woke up at about 4AM (my body clock was all messed up, of course), and with sleep nowhere in sight, I took a walk up to the Acropolis by myself. Of course the main area was all closed off, but there was plenty of other cool stuff to check out in the darkness. A sat up on a big rock overlooking the whole city for an hour, and on the way back to the hotel got to see the city waking up.

This was the day that Jim Morris was supposed to get in touch with the people providing the recording truck, and go get everything set up. As it turns out, for some reason, the recording truck people decided that they’d wait until the next day. Jim was kind of pissed, since that was the whole point in him coming over a day earlier, but it gave him a chance to hang out with the rest of us. With so few things going as planned in this business, it’s amazing most stuff works out as well as it does. Sometime later in the day, we all got out and walked over to the Olympic stadium. It’s quite a work of art, and it has a lot of steps you can climb. While I was up at the top row, I took a picture of the Acropolis, which you can now see in the background of the “Alive in Athens” cover art. When we came back down, we found Tom talking with a few locals hanging around at an outdoor bar next to the stadium. (Since it was winter, we were about the only tourists around). We all stood around and had a nice conversation, and before we know it, it’s three hours later. After about the fifth time that Jim said how hungry he was, one of the guys we were talking to, Nino, said “Ok, you all come over to my place and I’ll make you a nice dinner”. If someone says that in the U.S., you pretty much run the other way as fast as you can (and Jim almost did). But we figured it would be reasonably safe, so we walked to Nino’s apartment, where he proceeded to make one of the best meals we’ve ever eaten. We had a great time, and we invited him to the Iced Earth show the next night, but it didn’t seem like that was quite his thing.

Overall, I was very happy to have this time in Athens before the band got there, as it gave me a chance to see the area a bit more “normally” than I would later on when the band joined us.