Moonspell @ Fuzz Club

\r\nLast Sunday, the 25th of January, it was finally time for us to enjoy the Portuguese Moonspell and our own Inactive Messiah as a supporting act at Fuzz Club, in Athens. The doors opened at 8:40 and around 9 at a crowded Fuzz, Inactive Messiah came on stage. The people were at the club early to enjoy both the bands and after 9 the club was full of people.\r\n

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\r\nInactive Messiah have released three albums; Inactive Messiah (2004), Be My Drug (2006) and Sinful Nation (2008). They opened with their intro and continued with tracks from their two latest albums. Leaving a small problem with their sound aside (the prerecorded parts wouldn’t play in the song “Soulless” so they had to stop playing and restart the song) they appeared very professional and adequately prepared for the show. They continued with their song “Sing” and the same named tracks from their albums “Be My Drug” and “Sinful Nation” and they closed with “My Endless Lament”. They also did a minute long preview of their remix to Michael Jackson’s song “Beat it” (for those of you that wish to look it up, it is in their second album). In general they had a great performance, their singer was adequately theatrical and he had a good communication with the crowd under them – even the people who hadn’t ever heard them before (judging from the comments I heard around me).\r\n

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\r\nAs I finish this report I would like to state the fact that the club was accessible to people with special needs and the employees where more than polite with those people providing excellent service for them. After Inactive Messiah, came the head-liners, Moonspell.
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\r\nReport : Iro Kapeloni
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\r\nMoonspell are one of the bands I have watched play live many times. However when you go into their concerts one thing is for sure, they won’t let you down.  \r\n

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\r\nFuzz is a really nice venue but really hard to estimate how many people can fir into it. I guess we were around 500 people and more. The atmosphere however wasn’t heavy and thankfully the air ventilation was working suitably. \r\n

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\r\n There has never been a time when I watched Moonspell play live and have been let down. And this time was no exception to that. The band had added two projectors at the sides of the stage which were producing images both from artwork they have had but also from diverse atmospheric scenes. Totally useless, Moonspell are a band which fills and overflows the stage. Projectors were there but no one was looking at them. Fernando was in a really good mood but also in excellent shape and his voice was at it’s best. Their sound was immense and I have to say that for the most part of the show I was under the opinion they left their gothic style behind and focused on an huge robust heavy sound with the keyboardist Pedro Paixão playing guitar rather than keys. \r\n

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\r\nThe effect enhanced the sound and made it huge! They focused on presenting to the Greek audience their latest release Night Eternal – whose cover was also on the drums- but didn’t neglect including classic Moonspell songs. \r\n

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\r\nOnce the time came for Scorpion Flower came, Fernando called to the stage the Greek singer Maxi Nil (ex- Elysion) who was excellent in her performance musically but having had the chance to watch her in the past she seemed somehow uneasy. Once the song was over Fernando admitted he likes Greek women and that after a while she will be returning to the stage. And Maxi did return to the stage when the band performed for the first time in Greece the song Luna. As Fernando explained he was unaware of how much Greeks like this song until he saw the reactions of the crowd in a club in Athens when the particular song came on. \r\n

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\r\nThey played a thorough set of almost two hours without tiring, neither themselves nor the audience - who was responding to each call of Fernando to join him in shouting Hey! Hey! Hey! They hadn’t played a club show ever since the release of Memorial and they hadn’t presented any songs of Under Satanae to the Greek audience in support of that release and so they had a lot of catching up to do. And even though they played RockEmAll festival in the summer an appearance in the middle of a festival under the 40 degree hot Greek sun isn’t suitable for these dark creatures that captured our souls. Moonspell are dark creatures and Sunday night was perfect for them. It is true that being Portuguese probably makes us love them more as our cultures are really close alike. Peak of the show, I’d have to say would be when the band played Alma Matter, I thought the excitement of so many people at the same time was so great it could make the walls go down. Indescribable!\r\n

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\r\nIn my opinion the MVPs of the show were Fernando Ribeiro and Miguel Gaspar on the drums. Native Americans believe the drums are the sound of a heartbeat. If this is so Moonspell’s heartbeat is loud and fierce breaking the stillness of night and reaching the very depths of light and shredding it into millions of pieces. \r\n

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\r\nSurely guitars were melodic and keys were captivating but the drums were leaving you no choice but to synchronize your heartbeat to their pace and follow their path into darkness.
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\r\nAs for Fernando, well I have seen him before being more theatrical and to tell you the truth, I miss that part of him on stage but I am sure that this guy really IS the Prince Of Darkness. Elusive, gentle and fierce, desirable, tempting dangerous but also scary and creepy- can someone be all these things? Well Fernando can. Because he transforms accordingly to each song he sings and his voice gives him the advantage to change. If he were an actor he wouldn’t need to change costumes because each expression and color in his voice alters him into someone else. Can this be? Well, if you’ve watched Moonspell play live you know this can be and Fernando is the one who does it. \r\n

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\r\nClosing, I’ll have to repeat some of the things Fernando said before surrendering into a Full Moon Madness. He dedicated to their friends SepticFlesh who as he said are conquering the US at the time (on tour with Cradle Of Filth and Satyricon), Inactive Messiah and the crowd who makes them feel they could play forever in Greece and not get tired or feel they’ve had enough. And then there was ecstasy, a song which remains to my ears an erotic elegy of the absolute submission to the beauty and enchantment of a full moon. Until next time, Full Moon Madness….
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\r\nSet List
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\r\nAt Tragic Heights
\r\nNight Eternal
\r\nMoon In Mercury
\r\nFinisterra
\r\nThe Southern Deathstyle
\r\nScorpion Flower
\r\nEverything Invaded
\r\nOpium
\r\nRuin & Misery
\r\nLuna
\r\nVampiria
\r\nFirst Light
\r\nAlma Matter
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\r\nWolfshade
\r\nLove Crimes
\r\nGoat On Fire
\r\nBlood Tells
\r\nFull Moon Madness
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\r\nReport: Elena Mihailidou
\r\nPhotos: Jim Hatzimoisis
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