Before describing what happened at this event I want to refer to a nice story that came out from Tartarean Desire. Michael B. had been searching last year about Elfentanz reports in the web, when he came across mine. We started exchanging e-mails and the outcome was to combine his holidays in Greece with attending the Festival. I was delighted by this evolution not only because is Michael a Gothic fan and the exchange of ideas about music was very useful, but also he is an interesting person to talk with. I wish to have had more time and have spared it for touring around Athens with Michael.

Elfentanz is a successful gothic festival series, which has started at the end of 2002 featuring famous bands. This year Elfentanz 4 took place at Gagarin 205 Club. It begun with a small delay at 7:30 with the Greek Electrowavers "Ding An Sich". Although they are compatriots I can't say they particularly impressed me, without being completely indifferent. Nice female vocals, distinguished guitars and synths, however the final result wasn't so satisfactory. This might be due to the fact that the sound was a bit distorted during the first songs, but luckily improved later on.

Next band on stage "In The Nursery" from Sheffield. They are among the most prolific bands in the world in terms of number of releases including abolished ones and some soundtracks. May be they deserve a position in the Guinness World Record Book at least for the category Gothic-Dark Wave. Their performance on stage was impressive mainly due to the huge drums they played and the related atmosphere. As a result some songs were performed in a different way compared to the albums. There were also some songs that were based more on the beat. Personally I prefer the older more atmospheric ones although I am not an expert. I don't know how would have been their show without the huge drums and the dim but imposing lights, I bet it would have missed a lot. Even whose who were not accustomed to their sound (like Metal fans), liked their show mainly due to the evocative atmosphere and dynamic performance rather than the pure music itself. The band played for about 60-65 minutes. Among the others they played: "Mystery", "Sense", A Rebours", "To The Faithful" and "Praxis".

After a while "Projekt Pitchfork" appeared on stage. Their electrogoth-industrial style resembles a bit Rammstein, with some kind of dance beats (at least at my ears). Although this music is not of my liking, their live performance included some interesting elements. The frontman singer Peter Spilles did some theatrical movements to urge the audience dance (sway) with the bands rhythms, which was succeeded up to a point. However he sang so coarse like a Death Metal singer, which didn't fit to the band's style. Remarkable was also the performance of the drummer, whose playing sounded full and versatile. If I remember well the guitarist Dirk Scheuber had also played at last year's Elfentanz Festival as a session guitarist of Wolfsheim. The band seemed to enjoy and relish the front seats audience enthusiasm. They played for about an hour and some of the songs that were heard were: "Green World", "En Garde!", "Carnival", "The Future Is Now", "Awakening", "Souls", "Rescue", "Timekiller", "Alpha Omega", "Vietnam".

It was at about 11 o'clock and most of us were already tired. Some exhausted fans moved backwards and the audience in front was consisted mainly by young fans who yielded and cheered by elation when they saw "Covenant" entering on stage. Although they are considered among the top bands of their kind -let's say electrogoth, electrowave- and this style leaves me almost indifferent, I acknowledge the band performed very vivid and their fans (mainly young) enjoyed it absolutely. I could say their songs remind something from the 80ties new wave adorned by many modern dancing beats. Some of their classic songs had some sort of attraction even for the ones who didn't like much their music direction like: "Dead Stars", "We Stand Alone", "We Want Revolution", "Call The Ships To Port", "Stalker". However some songs especially newer ones were considered as crap even by their fans, like one named "The Noise" or so. The singer Eskil Simonsson apart from his very nice voice was very expressive and hyperactive that night. He literally "ploughed" the stage by moving up and down and hopping continuously drifting Clas Nachmanson and Joakim Montelius to his speed mood and urging the audience to be always active and willing for dance. After having played for about 70-75 minutes they greeted the audience under strong approvals and left the stage.

As soon as they finished some young fans moved exhausted to the rear while some others like Michael and me moved from the "gallery" downstairs as near to the stage as possible. The time was 12:30, I was dead tired because I had a very strenuous day since I had travelled 400 Km and went directly to the Festival. Let alone that I was displeased in a way because the bands so far were not of my taste. However I stayed there to attend the legendary "Deine Lakaien", who appeared on stage beginning with "Return" under the loud approvals of the audience. And yes, I was totally compensated. Alexander Veljanov sang for some minutes being on the backstage and when he appeared all hell broke loose. Next song "Over And Done" from the new release "April Skies". The famous duet "Veljanov-Horn" was supported by two cute violin players Ivve Leon and Sharifa, B.Deutung at cello and the guitarist Robert Wilcocks.

They played some new songs like "Slowly Come My Night", "Vivre" (amazing performance) "Through The Hall" and of course many beloved older ones like: "Don't Wake Me Up", "Generators", "Fleeting", "Silence In Your Eyes" and others.

Alexander was at a perfect shape that night and his unique penetrating voice literally made the audience shiver. I don't think there are many dark wave singers nowadays like him, who combine absolutely high artistic level vocal abilities with lyrical sentiments. Also the session musicians were very good performers, contributing to the band show a lot. The only drawback was that Ernst Horn was a bit bored and didn't play with the respective passion. So the audience didn't have that night the opportunity to admire his indisputable piano performing abilities. After having played the classical "Dark Star" they left the stage triumphantly.

Although it was past 1 o'clock and most of us were exhausted, the Club was at about to be demolished by the tramp and the loud cries calling the band to return on stage, which happened after a while. They played 3 songs (one of them was "Overpaid", pardon me but I couldn't remember the others) and disappeared again. Since their fans hadn't listened to some striking "hits", started very loud to call them play on stage for once more.

And this final encore was unique. They played an extended and extremely vigorously live version of "Where You Are" and "Love Me To The End". It is not a matter of speech but a strict sense to say that it is indescribable and unspeakable to express how wonderful (Wunderbar) we felt from this final encore. The absolute definition of the perfect live performance. Even the bored Ernst Horn played the piano with all his power and passion.

It was already 2 o'clock. Elfentanz Vol 4 was over. From the one side the exhaustion and from the other one the superb Deine Lakaien performance send us to the outer space. Michael and I were in almost a trance situation and discussed in the taxi on the way to home about (what else) the Festival.

The ones who had attended Deine Lakaien acoustic show at the 1st Elfentanz 3 years ago, could possibly be a bit displeased by their performance because then the duet was obliged to yield 100% since didn't exist any session musicians. However the band's standards are high and even an 80% of their maximum performance is enough to send us to other dimensions. Also some might argue that they didn't play some striking songs like: "Wunderbar", "Lonely", "Down Down Down". But how many could they play within 90 minutes?

In general this year Elfentanz satisfied me due to Deine Lakaien. I could argue from the view of a Gothic Rock-Metal fan that the organisers should have included some bands of this kind as they did the previous years, not to say even more. Especially if this year had it not being for Deine Lakaien I wouldn't have attended it. The organisation was O.K. apart from the half hour delay, the sound clear enough with the exception of the beginning of Ding an Sich. This is enhanced by the good acoustics of the club. The most important is that the Festival was embraced by many people. It should have been sold out or so because the club was absolutely full just before Covenant's appearance. Even guys like me who disagree with some music directions like EBM, electogoth etc believe that Festivals like this should continue because it gives the opportunity to many young people attend many bands of the Dark Wave in one day, which some years ago would have seem almost impossible.

I apologise for the quality of some photos and for any mistakes concerning the played songs. After a point I was too tired to remember, take notes and function properly.

Many thanx to my friend Michael for his support throughout the Festival and for wonderful moments we shared during his staying in Athens and to Thanasis from Dark Cell for his accurate remarks.