Ελληνικά
Last Updated on 04:43 PM by Giorgos Tsekas
Words: Thanos Mitras, Photos: Anastasis Kostopoulos
Yesterday at Gazi marked the beginning of 3 Shades of Black’s bold effort, no other than gathering all dark “body”-sound glorifiers at their 4-day festival and Metal Invader wouldn’t miss it for the world. For your information the event took place at a new venue which the guys opened to host the label’s happenings, the Temple. I may be running ahead, but I believe that they couldn’t have a better start.
Suffering from the famous “Greek reviewer” syndrome, my little delay upon arrival combined with the charm of sidewalk chit-chatting made me miss the biggest part of the night’s opening act, Dead Gum and I sincerely am really sorry about this. He managed to create a dark atmosphere with his guitar and his haunting presence was ideal for the audience to taste what’s about to come. The few people so far seemed to be really pleased between the changes of sets.
Truth be told, I had my fair share of doubt about last night’s attendance because of the challenging nature of the artists’ music, but I was pleasantly surprised at the beginning of Puce Mary’s set. The attendies gathered before the stage and let go before the Danish’s majestic presence. She began putting us through some dark Scandinavian vibes with an ambient start, but didn’t hesitate to destroy the stressful inertia she created with a rhythmic war overloaded with bass and dissonance. Where one may thought this was the peak of her performance, she leaves the stage coming before us, grabs her microphone shouting through crashing waves of reverb when at the same time stands back on the mix being barely perceivable. This was an ode to the screams of agony which were never heard.
Everything was moving according to schedule and it was time for veteran Colin Potter to get on stage accompanied by his guitar. To be honest, I was expecting to listen to something completely different from the Englishman, if you sit back and think about his synth-driven sound and largely british-wave aesthetically inspired works for which he’s known for. Through his set he managed to create an impeccably leveled wall of sound, although it didn’t reflect his unique recording career at all in my opinion. The heat he created seemed to have won the audience with everyone being almost hypnotized at his set.
It was now time for the headliner of the night, Mr. Croatian Amor. It took some more time than the rest of the line-up for the stage to be prepared for his set, but surely not in vain. He attacked aesthetically at the blackness of the stage accompanied with tropical plants, post-modern visuals of chat roulette chats, Athens’ riots and parts of Ghost in the Shell (anime) and dressed in a cloud rap genre way. Not that any of that was important before the greatness of his set. Quoting a friend of mine, what we witnessed was an aesthetic deconstruction of techno music. The aesthetic post-modern vibe of the stage perfectly reflected the Danish’s view of his music. He played clearly with our expectations for a rhythmic attack and gave us arrhythmic heavy hammerings coming through chaotic soundscapes. That’s when we knew that this is what we needed.
Unfortunately, we didn’t make it for the after show with Jay Glass Dubs because of the late time and our lack of transport. The festival’s and Temple’s opening were crowned with success, the attendance was big, the organizing was impeccable, the sound was unbelievable and our eagerness for the rest is endless.
P.S.: It should be noted that everything went according to schedule as the organizers made clear. So, everyone interested don’t make the mistake to be late.
