Although Edguy have released 6 studio albums (and according to my opinion of high quality) since 1997, they still remain among the "obscure heroes" of heavy metal, namely they don't have the recognition they should have. This is their second concert here in Athens. The first one was in 1998 as supporting band of Gamma Ray, if I remember well. Those years they were rather unknown, but they managed to make everyone who had attended their concert to wonder "who is this amazing bands?"

The concert begun with Battleroar, who are 80% Greeks. Their epic style resembles in a way mainly to that of Manila Road but they have influences from other bands of the 80ties like Omen, Cirith Ungol, Brocas Helm, Heavy Load, Jag Panzer etc.

The only non Greek member is the singer Marco Concoreggi, who distinguished for his high-pitched voice and his good communication with the audience. However he spoke in English in between the pieces and this wasn't likeable to the audience who expected (and justified) from an almost native band to speak its own language. The rest of the musicians - Kostas Makrikostas (bass), Manolis Karazeris (guitar), Nick Papadopoulos (drums), Kostas Tzortzis (guitar) - sounded bound and well trained, but the excessive power metal style both musically and lyrically makes them a bit boring. We have already listened these patterns played by many bands and with more variety. Battleroar played with passion for about 50 minutes and the only organizing flaw was the bad sound at the first couple songs. Among the tracks they performed were:

Swordbrothers, Victorious Path, Egyptian Doom, Almuric, Reforge The Sword (new track), Mourning Sword (they seem to have obsession with swords), Morituri Te Salutamt, Battleroar.

Battleroar's satisfactory performance warmed us enough for Edguy, who started after a small (fortunately) break with an Intro exciting the audience in the darkness. Then lights and fireworks lightened up and Edguy appeared on stage playing "Under The Moon", followed by "Navigator", which sounds like Queensryche. The pace (but not the joy) slowed down at the ballad "The Land Of The Miracle" in order to speed up rapidly at "Lavatory Love Machine". Then followed a legendary song from the past "Vain Glory Opera" which demolished the Club by its enthusiasm. The beginning according to the singer Tobias Sammet resembles to Europe's "Final Countdown".

Sammet is undoubtedly the very frontman of the band. On stage he is something between David Lee Roth (look Lavatory's single cover) and Steve Tyler. He is overactive, absolutely communicative, very talkative and generally the soul of the band without ignoring the other members who do their task discreetly but very skillfully- Tobias Exxel (bass), Jens Ludwig, Dirk Sauer (Guitar) and Felix Bohnke, who did afterwards a solo drum.

"Fallen Angels" was approved rather with skepticism by the audience, which didn’t happen at the very interesting "The Piper Never Dies". What I like at this track is the gradual escalation of rhythm. An atmospheric bass part introduces the main trunk of the song and the rhythm accelerates gradually until the end, where everybody couldn't prevent himself from endless headbanging.

Sammet thanked the audience and said that Edguy were on the verge of not including Greece in the tour plans because "Hellfire" didn't have high sales here, but they finally (luckily for us) took the risk. Pardon me Mr. Sammet but at these difficult times of global economical crisis and unemployment don’t expect to have high sales. Of course we understand his justified right but modern youth, whose pocket money or wage has dramatically shrinked, has many "legal - illegal" alternatives like mp3s, CD copying, tape recording etc to acquire a release. Low sales don't necessarily mean low acceptance.

Then he prolonged the next song "Mysteria" by saying they didn’t play it at other concerts of the tour like at Buenos Aires or Mexico and audience there should be jealous of us. The next hit "King of Fools" released a lot of energy and made everybody cheer from delight. Then followed "Avantasia Intro" and "Chalice of Agony". Very few expected that night Avantasia songs to be played and it was a nice surprise.

The audience demanded various songs but after the first notes of "Tears Of Mandrake" everybody was satisfied. Edguy disappeared for a while and came back later with super dynamic "Out Of Control", which literally let the hall out of control from excitement.

The show was over. They played for about 100 minutes and the set list was oriented (may be proportionally too much) on the promotion of the new album "Hellfire". They didn't play any song either from the first album (that's rather reasonable) neither from the recent Savage Poetry. Is this an indirect acceptance of its failure? The audience asked for more since they had enough released material available and this leaves a small bitter taste. However Edguy compensated almost everyone by their dynamic performance.

Musically speaking they wave between Power Metal and Hard Rock (sometimes they edge dangerously AOR) with Progressive influences; mainly Queensryche. There might be argues about the quality of their releases (this is also subjective), but almost no one doubts about their live performance abilities which makes them to be considered among the top live bands. We are eager to see them again in Greece playing more stuff.

Playlist:

• Intro
• Under The Moon
• Navigator
• Land Of The Miracle
• Lavatory Love Machine
• Vain Glory Opera
• Drum Solo
• Fallen Angels
• The Piper Never Dies
• Mysteria
• King Of Fools
• Anvantasia Intro
• Chalice Of Agony
• Tears Of A Mandrake
• Out Of Control