Grave Digger! I caught myself thinking that the band is frigging ancient, by now, since it’s been like 30 years since the band released their debut album “Heavy Metal Breakdown” and countless albums have been released since then. Musicians have come and gone, but what hardly ever changed (well there were a couple of albums where the band flirted with a very melodic and commercial sound one released as “Digger”) was their desire to play Heavy Metal, that has probably kept them going for so long.
The band had a decent modicum of success with its initial albums in their native Germany and all around and I suppose the better informed metallers in Greece might have gotten wind of them, as their “return” in the 90s was spearheaded by some of the band’s best works, but it wasn’t until 1996’s “Tunes of War” that became an unprecedented success all over Europe that people over in Greece, really got wind of them here. The band came, to play, their first gig soon thereafter and it was an EPIC live at Rodon Club, that’s still remembered fondly by fans of the group as well as older metallheads alike. They were feeling actually so “enamored” with the country and Chris Boltendahl, their singer, was so inspired, having spent most of his summers in Greece, for holidays that they decided to do a “metal-up-its own butt” version of Vasilis Papakostantinou’s popular rocker “Hellas, Hellas” which was actually immortalized on the B side on the in the dark of the sun 12” single release. Hehe! Fun Times! (There must have also been a Salonica date at the time)
Since then the band did return for a couple of more performances, at Chania and as double bill co-headliner with Rage, but that live, was quite a disaster as far as crowd attendance is concerned as, the people that were in the club were about half of what was needed to even have that show break even.
So, with Rage, canceling their 30th year gig(s) in Greece, due to the ridiculously low – 1 digit number presales, in Salonica and the fact that they didn’t even bother with an Athens announcement, being afraid that it wouldn’t fare any better, I was actually quite skeptical of the gut wrenching decision of the organizers to cast their lot with the “Diggers”, with all due respect to the band that actually did release a quite nice album lately and were playing in support of it.
The Silent Rage got on stage pretty much on time and didn’t lose anytime with lengthy introductions apart from a certain intro they in fact did play... (lol) played a 6-7 song set, that lasted roughly half an hour or so, with only “Leading the Legions” coming from that older EP they had out and most of the rest of the tracks actually taken from their forthcoming debut album, on which they said to be hard at work on. Their powerful heavy metal that used to be more tipping towards European teutonic power, has since the entry of Steve Vernardo as a vocalist taken a slightly darker, hue and sounds now rather darker and more in tune with more classical stuff, without being anachronistic. I still felt like they could have done a bit better, since the sound was really not ideal, but overall they seemed like an ideally suited opener that got the 300+ people that were at that time inside the club worked up sufficiently.
Setlist: Intro: The Coming of The … My Race Won't Last / The Deadliest Scourge / Leading The Legions / The Right To Dream / Between Harmony And Sorrow / A Piece Of Eden.
Roughly around 10 PM and long after The Silent Rage had vacated the stage and a large banner of Grave Digger’s latest album was revealed, a lonely masked and caped man, took to the stage to the funeral like march intro of “Return of the Reaper” with the rest of the band coming forth soon after to attack the fans like a swarm with the bombastic opener from their latest album, “Hell Funeral”. The sound wasn’t bad and soon, any little problems were fixed and the “Diggers” proceeded for almost the next two hours to bombard us with another eighteen tracks. They did perform a decent selection of hits, covering most of their most important eras and albums and did so in a rather spectacular way. While their performance was a far cry from the “rock n roll holocaust” that their debut in Rodon was all those years ago, it was still quite spirited and by no means a tired and routinely affair.
“The Round Table (Forever)” got people quite happy and singing along, but it was “Knights of the Cross” from the eponymous album that had people thrashing around frantically screaming “Murder! Murder!” which was quite a sight to behold! When Chris, announced that the band was to play a song from “The Reaper” album next, “Alex-The Polish” asked for “Ride On” only to get the rather humorous but honest admission – Really, you want “Ride On”? We’re too damn old, we can’t play that fast anymore (!) and the rather unlikely – but quite interesting selection of “Wedding Day” from the aforementioned album. “Ballad of a Hangman” represented its eponymous container and more recent “digs” while “Tattooed Rider” from this year’s, “Return of the Reaper” which is about bikers and all, seemed to be another crowd pleaser.
“Hammer of the Scots” from the “Clans Will Rise Again” album landed down, brutally while, again the atmospheric “Season of the Witch” from the “Return” felt like a welcome change, here... “Death Angel and the Grave Digger” from “Clash of the Gods” itself a rather lousy album, even if it should be a bit of a favorite, as it largely deals with themes from Greek Mythology (but not on this very track) came and went by, without making an impression at least to me, but around me I saw people getting off on it so... “Excalibur” being the centerpiece of the eponymous album, which is one of the better works of the band, challenged anyone to try and test their “steel” against the war machine that is Grave Digger, with one possible outcome only: defeat.
“Killing Time” from the albums magnum opus, “Tunes of War” turned the place into a bit of an arena and “Excalibur’s” “Morgane Le Fay” with its great melodies and rampart mysticism followed close suit. The recent “Grave Desecrator” in comparison, just paled after the onslaught of all these classics. But the band wouldn’t just let go “In The Dark of the Sun” again got people – jogging their memories, well at least those old enough to have been at their 90s gig and got the newbies – worshiping blindly.
Next Christ told us how much he loves Greece and how coming over here, doesn’t feel like coming to a foreign land, but like coming home and as such – the selection of “Home at Last” from “Clash...” felt like a reasonable choice. The last song that the band announced for the evening was obviously their most famous one “Rebellion (The Clans are Marching)” that got the entire club just singing and dancing and moshing around in a crazy notion.
The band then, went back for about a minute only to reappear not before long with Chris, asking if anybody remembered that when they came for the first time – they did a Greek cover – of one of his favorite artists and friends and asked us all if Vasilis Papakostantinou, was still alive btw! Ahahaha! Nice one! (Google it man!) It was obviously time for the quite hilarious take of the band on “Hellas, Hellas” that phonetic as it is, contains a bunch of funny interpretations! lol! Ehm, the crowd really enjoyed it and you have to give it up to the band and Chris for doing this song, especially for “us”. Chris had actually to put on some reading glasses to actually, figure out, what his printouts of lyrics had on, because his eyesight has deteriorated with age... damn, if the band’s a good 30, Chris, would then be easily in his mid-50s. Time flies... “Highland Farewell” took us back briefly to “Scotland” that really #$#@#$@# up and didn’t get its chance to be a free an independent nation, the night before, on which Chris made a small comment, before bidding us goodbye with the classic Digger show-stopper “Heavy Metal Breakdown” the eponymous hymn from their debut that bears the same name. It went down particularly well and the band deservedly won the people’s warm applause.
Another great show at Kyttaro was past and unfortunately, while I can hardly find anything bad to say about the show, there weren’t there, enough people to celebrate this “heavy metal” feast… why I cannot really imagine... they seem to come out in droves when lesser “honest” bands, do the rounds, so what can I say... support your local “Digger”, or end up six feet under! C’mon...
Since then the band did return for a couple of more performances, at Chania and as double bill co-headliner with Rage, but that live, was quite a disaster as far as crowd attendance is concerned as, the people that were in the club were about half of what was needed to even have that show break even.
So, with Rage, canceling their 30th year gig(s) in Greece, due to the ridiculously low – 1 digit number presales, in Salonica and the fact that they didn’t even bother with an Athens announcement, being afraid that it wouldn’t fare any better, I was actually quite skeptical of the gut wrenching decision of the organizers to cast their lot with the “Diggers”, with all due respect to the band that actually did release a quite nice album lately and were playing in support of it.
The Silent Rage got on stage pretty much on time and didn’t lose anytime with lengthy introductions apart from a certain intro they in fact did play... (lol) played a 6-7 song set, that lasted roughly half an hour or so, with only “Leading the Legions” coming from that older EP they had out and most of the rest of the tracks actually taken from their forthcoming debut album, on which they said to be hard at work on. Their powerful heavy metal that used to be more tipping towards European teutonic power, has since the entry of Steve Vernardo as a vocalist taken a slightly darker, hue and sounds now rather darker and more in tune with more classical stuff, without being anachronistic. I still felt like they could have done a bit better, since the sound was really not ideal, but overall they seemed like an ideally suited opener that got the 300+ people that were at that time inside the club worked up sufficiently.
Setlist: Intro: The Coming of The … My Race Won't Last / The Deadliest Scourge / Leading The Legions / The Right To Dream / Between Harmony And Sorrow / A Piece Of Eden.
Roughly around 10 PM and long after The Silent Rage had vacated the stage and a large banner of Grave Digger’s latest album was revealed, a lonely masked and caped man, took to the stage to the funeral like march intro of “Return of the Reaper” with the rest of the band coming forth soon after to attack the fans like a swarm with the bombastic opener from their latest album, “Hell Funeral”. The sound wasn’t bad and soon, any little problems were fixed and the “Diggers” proceeded for almost the next two hours to bombard us with another eighteen tracks. They did perform a decent selection of hits, covering most of their most important eras and albums and did so in a rather spectacular way. While their performance was a far cry from the “rock n roll holocaust” that their debut in Rodon was all those years ago, it was still quite spirited and by no means a tired and routinely affair.
“The Round Table (Forever)” got people quite happy and singing along, but it was “Knights of the Cross” from the eponymous album that had people thrashing around frantically screaming “Murder! Murder!” which was quite a sight to behold! When Chris, announced that the band was to play a song from “The Reaper” album next, “Alex-The Polish” asked for “Ride On” only to get the rather humorous but honest admission – Really, you want “Ride On”? We’re too damn old, we can’t play that fast anymore (!) and the rather unlikely – but quite interesting selection of “Wedding Day” from the aforementioned album. “Ballad of a Hangman” represented its eponymous container and more recent “digs” while “Tattooed Rider” from this year’s, “Return of the Reaper” which is about bikers and all, seemed to be another crowd pleaser.
“Hammer of the Scots” from the “Clans Will Rise Again” album landed down, brutally while, again the atmospheric “Season of the Witch” from the “Return” felt like a welcome change, here... “Death Angel and the Grave Digger” from “Clash of the Gods” itself a rather lousy album, even if it should be a bit of a favorite, as it largely deals with themes from Greek Mythology (but not on this very track) came and went by, without making an impression at least to me, but around me I saw people getting off on it so... “Excalibur” being the centerpiece of the eponymous album, which is one of the better works of the band, challenged anyone to try and test their “steel” against the war machine that is Grave Digger, with one possible outcome only: defeat.
“Killing Time” from the albums magnum opus, “Tunes of War” turned the place into a bit of an arena and “Excalibur’s” “Morgane Le Fay” with its great melodies and rampart mysticism followed close suit. The recent “Grave Desecrator” in comparison, just paled after the onslaught of all these classics. But the band wouldn’t just let go “In The Dark of the Sun” again got people – jogging their memories, well at least those old enough to have been at their 90s gig and got the newbies – worshiping blindly.
Next Christ told us how much he loves Greece and how coming over here, doesn’t feel like coming to a foreign land, but like coming home and as such – the selection of “Home at Last” from “Clash...” felt like a reasonable choice. The last song that the band announced for the evening was obviously their most famous one “Rebellion (The Clans are Marching)” that got the entire club just singing and dancing and moshing around in a crazy notion.
The band then, went back for about a minute only to reappear not before long with Chris, asking if anybody remembered that when they came for the first time – they did a Greek cover – of one of his favorite artists and friends and asked us all if Vasilis Papakostantinou, was still alive btw! Ahahaha! Nice one! (Google it man!) It was obviously time for the quite hilarious take of the band on “Hellas, Hellas” that phonetic as it is, contains a bunch of funny interpretations! lol! Ehm, the crowd really enjoyed it and you have to give it up to the band and Chris for doing this song, especially for “us”. Chris had actually to put on some reading glasses to actually, figure out, what his printouts of lyrics had on, because his eyesight has deteriorated with age... damn, if the band’s a good 30, Chris, would then be easily in his mid-50s. Time flies... “Highland Farewell” took us back briefly to “Scotland” that really #$#@#$@# up and didn’t get its chance to be a free an independent nation, the night before, on which Chris made a small comment, before bidding us goodbye with the classic Digger show-stopper “Heavy Metal Breakdown” the eponymous hymn from their debut that bears the same name. It went down particularly well and the band deservedly won the people’s warm applause.
Another great show at Kyttaro was past and unfortunately, while I can hardly find anything bad to say about the show, there weren’t there, enough people to celebrate this “heavy metal” feast… why I cannot really imagine... they seem to come out in droves when lesser “honest” bands, do the rounds, so what can I say... support your local “Digger”, or end up six feet under! C’mon...
Photos by: Rockavlon
