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The concert began promptly at 21.30 with a song from H.I.M's newest album (Venus doom), which caught most of the fans off guard. Despite the fact that they had never heard it before, the crowd was nevertheless excited to see the band live again and welcomed them back warmly.
Their second song, called "Rip out the wings of a butterfly", was sung so loud by the fans, that the singer (Ville Valo) was hardly audible and in fact, during the refrain, stopped singing to allow the crowd it's moment. After the song ended he presented the rest of the band (namely Mige, Linde, Burton and Gas), which were readily applauded, and went on to be" Buried alive by love" along with his" Poison girl". By the time they played "Vampire heart" and " Your sweet 666" the crowd had become so involved it, at times, outshined the band itself and as the intro to "Join me" was heard there were people screaming and shouting like they had a "Soul on fire"!
The first cover song for the night was Chris Isaak's"Wicked game", followed by the popular "Killing loneliness" and the more emotional "It is all tears". The "Kiss of dawn" was sung along vividly as it is the first single of the new album and the video clip has made the song a favourite already. As the concert was slowly reaching its end the pace slowed down with "Under the rose","Razorblade kiss" and "Right here in my arms" to come to a fine conclusion with the melodic sweetness of "The sacrament". One hour and a half already gone by and the concert ended with a cover from Black Sabbath's classic song" Black Sabbath".
All in all, the concert was a great success for the band, who always finds an enthusiastic crowd in Greece. H.I.M's performance was satisfactory and they were all in a good mood (especially Linde, Mige and Gas).Burton, who usually avoids the crowd seemed to be savoring the attention(a little too much maybe) and Ville wasn't his usual spontaneous self(like last time),but seemed to be "performing" in a way and at times too preoccupied with his smoking than singing(though the ecstatic fans didn't seem to mind and would be just as happy even if he just stood there doing nothing)!
The only major disappointment from the band's appearance is, that they didn't return for an encore (it is the first time, in my thirty years, I've seen that happen at a concert) and so the live ended abrubtly, despite Linde's solo and Gas's sincere farewells in the end. Thus concluded H.I.M's fifth appearance in Athens leaving the fans dreaming of the next time and flattered that their latest world tour began in Greece (including only two more live appearances in Europe - London / Berlin -before they embark overseas to dazzle America). Good luck on that fellows; until we meet again…
Ps. Due to the organizer's prohibition of photographers, we could not supply to you any photos from that concert…sorry for that!
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