It seems that visits from great bands are on the rise here in Greece finally. Just couldn't believe it when I red that this “package” would make one single stop in Athens. Thank God I managed to buy my ticket early. The club holds 1.800 people but what I experienced that night was a novel for me. I have seen dozens of gigs in this club (many of them sold out long ago) but nothing like it! There must have been 2.500 people squeezed in there... needles to say about people who lost their senses due to the heat and were carried out unconscious. We couldn't even applauded as we were so squeezed that we couldn’t move our hands.... and imagine that things were so even at the back of the club.... The most amazing thing was that when on Monday I went again to the club to see HTP (read the other report) I had a word with my friends, the bodyguards of the club, who told me that things were even worse one day before UFO, when Sepultura played there (I just cannot imagine how much more people could sneak into the club!!!).

Anyway, 9:00, lights go down and Uli with his unique Sky Guitar is on the stage with his “classic” hat with the huge feathers. He says a few words to the people (it was his first ever visit in Greece) and by watching the stacked crowd he notes: “I hope you can breath down there". He is only accompanied by a keyboard-player and all other instruments being sampled. We don’t mind as his performance was astonishing that night!! He played for a full hour most of the “Metamorphosis” album (which is amazing by the way), a song from “Transendental Sky Guitar” and closes the show with a Scorpions medley, where we got parts from “The Sails Of Charon” and “Fly To The Rainbow”, which set the club on fire. Excellent!!

After that I found it difficult for a band to play better.... and I'm afraid I was right. 15 minutes later UFO is on stage with a track from their new album (which I hadn’t listened then). The sound is great, but the atmosphere inside the club is horrible. We cannot move (as more people have sneaked in), cannot sing, I have to be lifted on my toes to see the stage (it has never happened to me before). Mogg seems to be in a terrible day. I have good faith and will not say that he has lost much of his voice, rather stick to the idea that he had a bad night. Furthermore the whole band (with the exception of Pete Way) seems to be distant to the crowd... as if they were there just to deliver a show and then leave (by the way it was their first visit here).

However the performance of the rest of the band reaches good levels. Paul Raymond on keys was fine, Jason -a rhino in your rhythm section – Bonham follows his father's footsteps in bombarding the drum kit, but the surprise (well not for me - but for most others) comes from Vinnie Moore who has replaced Schenker on the guitars. The guy is a perfect virtuoso and made the guitar melt that night (no surprise that the crowd applauded him like crazy). The setlist was great, as the one all time classic followed the other: We got “Natural Thing”, “I'm A Looser”, “Too Hot To Handle”, “Lights Out”, “Love To Love” in an astonishing performance, “Only You Can Rock Me”, “Mother Mary”, “This Kid's”, “Let It Roll”, three songs from the new album, with “Daylight Goes To Town” and “The Wild One” being really good. Two encores with “Rock Bottom” and “Doctor Doctor” closed the show after 1 hour and a half. Unfortunately they didn't play a tune from the amazing "Walk On Water" album. But the biggest disappointment was the absence of “Belladonna”! I thought that I would listen to one of my favourite songs ever that night and I was very disappointed. Plus cannot understand how a band which has written one of the best love songs of all time, does not play it live.

Hope to listen to it next time...

by Alex Savatianos