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Live Review ATHENS - LARNACA January 2011 (An International Special Edition)
When Cyprus Rock Times started to "roll" as an independent, non-commercial webzine almost two and a half years ago, the state of the rock scene on this island looked really quite bleak! As some of you will remember, the perception of what was considered to be "rock" music had more or less stopped at the late 90s releases. In addition, there existed (and still do to some extent) distinct families of fans listening exclusively to rock music, metal music, Greek rock music, etc. You were "allowed" to be a "member" of only one of these ... "clans"! For many years young fans were entering the scene without having the chance to experience the entire wealth and depth of what was "on offer". Many things have changed since then! The so called international "return of rock", have made the younger Cypriot generation "pay attention", especially the ones who are studying abroad. We did our bit to help push things by reporting what is currently going on in the rock world around the clock on a daily basis, by reviewing the entire scene on a yearly basis, and by introducing (in the process) some "alien" acts (albeit mainstream from an international point of view) to the Cypriot rock vocabulary (from Alter Bridge to Silversun Pickups, from Rise Against to Volbeat, from Kamelot to Coheed & Cumbria ... up to ... Kvelertak!). A new generation of Cypriot rock / metal bands have "surfaced", and older bands have become active once again. Independent record companies have been established, promoting the "cream" of the local (and not only!) metal scene. New rock bars have opened, embedding in their playlists current releases. Significant concerts have taken place, both from established and new acts. In other words ... the "ball" has started "rolling"!
Still, there's a long way to go! When Anneke Van Giersbergen and Danny Cavanagh announced their six-days Greek tour for the beginning of January, very few appreciated the excitement of the editor on being able to see them live while he would be in his native Athens. Danny Cavanagh is, of course, well-known and appreciated in Cyprus, and he has performed here live in the past with Anathema. Anneke, on the other hand, is mostly known as the ex-singer of The Gathering, and relatively little is known of her recent solo career, in which she has "belted" no less than five excellent albums within the period of three years (four albums with her solo group Agua De Annique, plus her live collaboration with Danny entitled 'In Parallel', which has "triggered" this string of very successful live events around the globe)! In addition, she has been making some extraordinary collaborations with top bands and artists such as Within Temptation, Arjen Lucassen, Moonspell and ... none other than Mr. Devin 'Genius' Townsend !
CyRock's readers do have some familiarity with Anneke's recent works though! The inclusion of the 'Wonder' clip on the 2009 CyRock's review created a "buzz" (... and made a handful of Cypriot girls "cry their guts out" in the process!). The same can be said for the official and unofficial clips of Agua De Annique ('ADA' for the remaining of this article), which are regularly posted in the News section of the site. Some of you might also remember that in a previous CyRock's feature article on The Gathering's 'Nighttime Birds', we posted a clip of one of the early live collaborations between Anneke and Danny! Still, the announcement that the pair would come to play live in Cyprus really ... came "out of the blue"! It was another sign that Cyprus has been getting slowly but steadily in the concert map of an increasing number of rock artists. We will see much more of it this year, as some of you already know. And for me, personally, the realization that I will have the chance to see Anneke & Danny performing live twice in the period of a week was... well ... mindboggling! ... and the experience was equally extraordinary! This article looks closer on the Athens and Larnaca concerts of the pair, which took place on the 5th and 12th of January respectively. These concerts were part of their Eastern Mediterranean tour, which also included gigs in Lebanon and Turkey. Due to the global interest that exists for the live events of Anneke & Danny, this particular CyRock's Issue has been "transformed" into an International one. Hope you will all enjoy it, wherever you are visiting us from! First stop Athens!
I'm pretty sure that if we were to ask Danny about his "home" away from "home" his answer would most probably be Greece! He has played there so many times with Anathema, that he has become something of a "local" act! Anneke has also played live in Greece many times, both with The Gathering and ADA. Unfortunately, every time she performed there, I found myself either in bizarre places doing bizarre things (like fixing telecommunication lines for the Greek Army on the top of a Mytilene mountain during blizzards & hailstorms!), or I was simply living in another country. We were never in the same place at the same time! Totally unexpectedly and fortunately for me, we managed to get in sync mode not once ... but twice in a week this time around! On the evening of the 5th of January I arrived at 'An' Club, one of the most historic Athenian venues for live rock performances. 'An' is situated at 'Eksarheia', a small area in the "heart" of Athens with a rich history of cultural events and political activism. Not to my surprise, although I arrived quite early, lots of people were already waiting outside the venue. The rock audience in Athens is quite knowledgeable about its music, and they wouldn't easily miss such a great pairing. After a rather long wait, doors opened and we started entering the club. 'An' is a unique gig venue due to its odd shape: Imagine a small amphitheatre (400-500 people capacity or thereabouts), but ... in an orthogonal shape! There are elevated positions left and right of the stage, as well as on the back of the main pit. There are no traditional seats available, everybody is standing. This arrangement creates an effect where the artist is totally encircled by the fans! This works quite well for punk and thrash metal bands ... I wasn't really sure how it would work for an acoustic show though!
I didn't have to wait long to find out since, no later than five minutes after the last fan entered the jam-packed 'An', a girl appeared on stage announcing Danny, and asking everybody not to smoke during the concert (due to Danny's asthma condition). I was pleasantly surprised to see that almost everybody respected this request by putting off their cigarettes immediately, and by not lighting new ones for the remainder of the concert! I've never seen that before in Greece! A good sign of what was to come! (I was later told that some people were smoking in the back ... I didn't notice it, but still it must have been on a small scale) Danny entered the stage under some thunderous applause a few minutes before ten o'clock, wearing his formal outfit (tie included!), as well as his now famous white cap on the head! He immediately developed an Anathema-based feast, which captivated everybody! 'Deep', 'Forgotten Hopes', 'Lost Control' and (a personal favorite) 'Inner Silence' just for the start! However, it was another thing that was immediately evident from the moment Danny played the first note on his guitar. Everyone present at the venue (and when I say everyone, I mean EVERYONE) knew all the songs "inside out" and was singing along with Danny every lyric of every song! This situation (enhanced by the architecture of the place as I described it earlier), created a truly magical atmosphere. Danny, widely known as a man who does not hide his feelings one way or the other, was quick to express his joy on how the gig was developing!
Even more, this exquisite vibe elevated him into a breath-taking performance of 'One Last Goodbye', which, as some of you might know, is a song that he has written for his deceased mother. The following clip (incomplete unfortunately), speaks better than my words!
'Are You There' (a song that Danny dedicated to Anneke) finished the main Anathema part of his solo performance, followed by a great Fleetwood Mac cover of 'Big Love', which set the tone just a little bit higher! His solo set ended with 'Flying' and Pink Floyd's 'High Hopes', the latter particularly enjoyed by all of us, triggering an even more intensive participation! Danny was ecstatic, we were ecstatic, and this was officially NOT an acoustic show anymore, at least in the sense that everybody expects one to be! Only one thing puzzled me at the end of Danny's set ... no 'Fragile Dreams'? I was to get my answer later in the night ... So it was time for Anneke! The Dutch "angel" "descended" on stage in her black dress, under some even more thunderous applause, since everybody was already on a "high"! A jubilant Danny welcomed her on stage, and I think that even Anneke, who is such an experienced performer, was taken slightly aback from the reactions! After all, these were supposed to be the "early days" of the gig! I was really curious to see whether the crowd's level of participation would continue into Anneke's set, especially during her songs from the ADA albums. To the greatest of my surprises ... it did! Anneke and her voice had a different effect on the gig. While Danny's vocal performance is deeply rooted in the misty lands of despair and redemption, the voice of Anneke combines the purest elements of Earth and Life! In other words Danny is continuously "debating" whether it is worthy to be a human being ... Anneke is simply "celebrating" the fact that we are human beings! And she's not only expressing this with her voice, but with her overall presence as well, both on and off the stage. More on this in the ''Afterthoughts' section towards the end of the article! Her set started with a stunning version of 'My Electricity', which had all of us singing along and listening in disbelief at the same time ... I have seen hundreds of clips of her performances, dating back from the legendary early Gathering days (and I was a big fan of the 1995-2000 Gathering era!), up until her latest shows with ADA ... whatever you'll see in this Issue's YouTube clips, or any other clip for that matter, cannot really tell you much. You'll have to be physically THERE to appreciate the emotion and the range of her performance! Mesmerizing stuff!
The set continued with some ADA live staples like 'I Want' (dedicated to all the ladies in the audience ... who responded "en masse"!), 'Beautiful One' (dedicated to the city of Athens! .. well, she obviously has only seen the good parts of my birthplace city!), 'Sunny Side Up', 'Physical', and ... 'Not The Most Pretty Girl' ( ... yeah right!). There was no let down by the fans, who were continuously "harassing" her with impossible song requests ... ranging from 'Addicted' (we were hoping for a Townsend cameo performance, hehe!) up to 'Wasted Years' (yours truly made this request, and many thought it was a joke ... it seems that only "die-hard" CyRock readers had seen this clip ... which I posted here the day after it was originally performed with Maiden United!). The only time when the crowd actually stopped singing was during her performance of a brand new (unreleased) ADA song entitled 'Four Years', a slow song which went down very well. In fact, the second time the chorus came round, we already knew what to sing again! A Gathering "return" with 'Locked Away' set the crowd on fire again, and by this point we were totally "sold"! I would have loved to hear the next song from the same album as well but hey ... we can't have it all, can we? Another interesting aspect of Anneke's performance in Athens was that she did not use the electric piano at all. Therefore no 'Shrink', 'Wonder', 'Sunken Soldier's Ball' or 'Trail of Grief' was "on offer"!
We all knew that there was a third part in the show though, a part which made the entire experience so much more interesting: The part where Anneke's and Danny's music and aesthetic landscapes merge into one! Anneke invited Danny back on stage and they kicked-off with their now classic cover version of Massive Attack's 'Teardrop'. The easy-going 'Hey OK', was in total sync with the lively atmosphere that evolved through the concert. The pair continued with the Anathema classic 'A Natural Disaster'! It really made me think that a full Anathema album with Anneke performing the vocals, would have perhaps been too great for this Universe to bear! Danny, visibly happy, indicated that this was the best show that they have ever done with Anneke, and he repeated that many times from then on! Somebody could argue that these were words spoken "in the heat of the moment", but honestly ... I find it hard to imagine a better one than this! Anneke even stopped and took some pictures of the crowd, which she posted in her official facebook page straight after the show!
The best was yet to come though! The defining moment of Athens' concert came when Danny switched to the electric piano and started playing the first notes of another Anathema classic, 'Parisienne Moonlights'. Anneke sang the first verse but immediately "sensed" the vocal intensity coming from the crowd and "backed off" the microphone. For the next minute and a half, she was just doing backing vocals to us! A really wonderful experience, showcasing the humility of two great artists! Danny stood up at the end of the song applauding us, stating that this had never happened to him before with this song ... says it all really!
'Leaves' took us back to the much-loved 'Mandylion' days, followed by their hit cover version of 'Blower's Daughter', which first appeared in Anneke's 'Pure Air' album. This song has generated endless YouTube comments' debates on its potential superiority over the original Damien Rice version. It's always a matter of personal taste, but I think that even Damien Rice himself would find it hard to choose! The scheduled part of the show ended with Dolly Parton's 'Jolene', a song popularized to younger audiences by White Stripes' live cover version. 'Jolene' is a piece which supposedly serves as a crowd - stimulator at the end of this acoustic show ... no need for stimulators that night! The show had developed into a full-blown rock concert where the only thing perhaps missing was ... some headbanging!
"Encore" action was due: Unexpectedly, only Danny came back on stage ... stating that ... "he had forgotten to play one song earlier"! Whether he was telling the truth or not I don't know, but nobody complained when the first notes of 'Fragile Dreams' were played on his guitar. A defining song of a Greek generation growing up in the 90s, this was enjoyed and "followed" to the fullest extent! And yes, there was also some kind of headbanging action to be seen, albeit in slow motion!
The final two songs of this amazing night came from the bands in which these artists "grew up", matured, and composed some of their finest pieces. And there are perhaps no finer pieces than 'Temporary Peace', and 'You Learn About It'. Anneke's "epic" finale on the latter really summed up what this night was all about: One of these occasions where the artists and the audience start the night as two "distinct entities", and evolve gradually into an "inseparable source" of music expression! This IS music art, isn't it?
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And now for something completely different! The gig in Larnaca, exactly one week after the Athens' event took place, was bound to be an "alternative" live experience, for a number of reasons!
First, Cyprus' rock audience is naturally much smaller than the respective Greek one (the entire island's population is around one million people, compared to the five million plus that live, or sometimes "live", in my birthplace city alone!). Secondly, the venue where the event took place, the beautiful rock bar 'Barrel House' (situated in Larnaca, one of the "big" cities of Cyprus), is ideal for intimate acoustic shows. Small in size, arranged into separate rooms, it allows only for a small amount of physical space between the performers and the audience. In addition, all fans were seated during the concert, either around small tables in front of the stage, or at the bar (see picture below!). Lastly, as I explained in my editorial, the majority of Cyprus rock fans are not familiar with Anneke's solo work. She had never performed here live before, either with The Gathering or ADA. Actually, from what she said during the show, this was her first ever visit to Cyprus ... and we hope to see her back soon, now that she found the way! (Note: Click on any picture of this section to enlarge)
So, no large queues waiting outside this cozy venue, only myself waiting for a good friend, who was kind enough to buy tickets for the event while I was still having a great time in Athens (many thanks Stelio, check the 'Credits' section!). During that time I managed to completely "miss" Anneke passing next to me to enter the venue, since I mistook her for a 17-year old girl coming to see the show! True story, she really looked that young in her jeans! The place was almost full by the time we entered, where "full" in this case meant an audience of no more than a hundred people! This is approximately the maximum capacity of the venue for people that can directly "see" the artists performing (due to its rooms' arrangement which I explained earlier). We took our places at the side of the stage, and you can imagine this being 2-3 meters away from the artists performing! Danny entered the narrow stage around the same time he did at the Athens gig. His appearance was completely different this time though: casual, and free from caps, a sign of a much more relaxed event that was to come. He kicked-off proceedings with his Anathema medley of 'Deep', 'Lost Control' and 'Forgotten Hopes'. He also "colored" his solo set with some songs which were not included in the Athens' set, like U2's 'With Or Without You'. The nature of the audience's participation was also much different than the respective Athens' one. Very audible and thankful after the end of each song played, but quiet during the performances!
The highlight of Danny's solo set was always going to be 'One Last Goodbye', although at the beginning of the song he had to "negotiate" a couple of young guys who were making a lot of noise right in front him near the stage! He announced that his last song before Anneke's set would be Pink Floyd's 'High Hopes', leaving me in doubt on whether he deliberately "forgets" to play 'Fragile Dreams' as a "trick"! Anneke, who watched and enjoyed his entire solo set simply standing next to a 'Barrel House' wall (!), was ready to enter the stage when ... guess what? ... Danny said ... "Sorry Anneke ... I forgot! One more song ... 'Fragile Dreams'!!! There must be something going on with the place of this song in Danny's setlist, but I have yet to figure it out! The Anathema-hungry crowd didn't really care about all this, and cherished the occasion by singing along ... "Athens-style"!
It was time for Anneke after all ... and this time she headed directly to the electric piano ... but it was not to be! She "fought" her oddly-placed microphone to its correct position, but when she pressed the piano keys ... no sound came out at all! She tried everything but nothing was happening ... until support came in the form of a promoter's employee who applied the "mother of all engineering solutions" ... the ON button, he he! Still .. when keys were pressed this time, they made a dream psychedelic 60s sound ... like the keyboards of 'In A Gadda Da Vida' perhaps? ... yes, that's what it was! All these incidents were unfolding in a laid-back atmosphere, and we were all having great fun with what was going on! Anneke might have not enjoyed it that much, but, being Anneke, she was smiling and making jokes all the way through it! Finally she gave up on it and picked-up her reliable guitar which ...
... was fortunately functioning! 'My Electricity' again, to my double enjoyment, since I was now able to experience the full extent of Anneke's performance, with no backing vocals coming from the audience. It was really entertaining to see the reactions of younger people during and after the performance of 'My Electricity'. I've been listening to Anneke for fifteen plus years and even though, as previously mentioned, seeing her live was a whole new experience, I kind of expect to be "thrilled". I am trying to imagine somebody who has never heard of her before and she/he listens to her live for the first time ... the reaction is predictable ... "SHOCK & AWE"!
Danny 'the mechanic' managed to fix the electric piano, and Anneke continued her show with the songs "missing" from the Athens show: 'Trail of Grief', 'Shrink' and 'Wonder'! Simply put ... even more "jaws dropped". Another amusing incident happened at the beginning of one of these songs, when a "strong" backing vocal from a girl in the audience made Anneke giggle, and she had to start it all over again! It really reminded me of one of the cutest incidents ever recorded on tape ... Anneke's attempt to get through an "important" 'Yalin' lyric in a Rio De Janeiro concert earlier in 2010 (see it here, the fun part begins around the second minute mark!). As you understand I was REALLY fortunate to watch both shows, since they developed very differently, but equally entertaining!
A return to the guitar brought some ADA hits like 'I Want' (once again thoroughly appreciated by the female section of the audience), 'Sunny Side Up' and 'Physical'. In between songs Anneke told us that she enjoyed her first visit to Cyprus, although she had to stay in the island for less than 24 hours (next gig was in Turkey the following day). She did manage to experience the traditional meze plates though, "having a go" at everything served ... apart from the snails! She "felt sorry" for one of them when she exposed it out of its shell!!! Well, at least she reached that stage of the eating "process" ... I know many who don't, and they actually live on this island!
On with the show, and it was time for some "requests from hell" again, which of course Anneke would have never been able to play! I was really pleased though to hear a request for 'Witnesses' coming from a young girl next to me! As I mentioned in my editorial, the younger audiences on this island have started "paying attention"! Anneke resorted to the trusted solution of 'Beautiful One', one of her best compositions from the debut album 'Air' with ADA. It was time for Danny to come back to the stage again, and the pair delivered a similar set to the one that I described for the Athens gig, with the notable inclusion of Kate Bush's cover 'Running Up That Hill'! The event had developed into a "cozy affair", similar to the one experienced in a private party! I had a feeling that Anneke was enjoying this just a little bit more than Danny, although this might have just been my impression. The audience was understandably "hooked" on Anneke's voice, due to the "shock factor" that I explained earlier! Many of the younger fans were telling me after the gig that they couldn't believe a voice like this had actually come to perform in Cyprus! The future is bright ...
The 'encore' section of the show was "virtual". The pair played 'Temporary Peace' and 'You Learn About It' without previously leaving the stage, since there was a very early flight for them to catch the following morning, and there wasn't too much time available for the usual process to take place! It was a joy to see that at the end of the show the audience showed how they really appreciated what they've seen, producing some very loud applauds accompanied with the necessary roars for "more"!
... and that was it really! I had the privilege of experiencing a couple of amazing Wednesdays with Danny & Anneke, in between some enormous amounts of food, rakomela and more great music in Athens! What more could I ask for? I can now die a "happy" person! Before I do that though ... I would not be the proper editor that some of you "know and love" (hehe) without some 'afterthoughts', would I? These thrilling occasions really "triggered" lots of thoughts in my mind, but ... no need to panic, I will focus in only one of them! For those of you who could not care less about philosophical discussions, please proceed to the very important 'Credits' section, at the end of the article!
I have really been very fortunate in my life! I have been fortunate to see some of the best rock / metal bands performing live during their prime years ... I have been fortunate to listen to some of the defining rock / metal albums of the 80s and 90s era when they have just been released. I have been fortunate to see it all "come back" during the last couple of years ... and I am even more fortunate now to be able to reflect and report on the past and present of rock / metal music through the development and editing of the CyRockTimes community webzine!
This "comeback" I am referring to, is not simply a theoretical "concept" measured by record sales. It is "made" of hundred of stories which define a new generation of fans ... and re-define the older ones! The "Big Four" events, AC/DC becoming the no.1 rock band in the world, the death of Ronnie James Dio (and the subsequent amazing response by the fans), the rise and rise of new European rock and metal bands, the "invasion" of rock / metal music to places like India, the return of the summer festivals, the surprising success of small independent record companies like Frontiers ... and the list goes on and on! One such story that I have been following with increasing attention during these last few years is the rise of the solo career of our feature girl Anneke van Giersbergen!
Anneke is a modern "phenomenon" ... and I am not saying that just to praise her! She is a "phenomenon" as an artist (we already knew that from the "old" days). She is also a "phenomenon" as a professional who has a unique way of communicating with the fans. And, more importantly, she is a "phenomenon" as a personality who is equally "adored" by everyone (male fans, female fans, young people, old people, cats, dogs and all the creatures of this world in general!), in a "pure", "unadulterated" form ... The focus of my afterthoughts is this "phenomenon", not as a praising exercise (Anneke has lots of it already!), but as a springboard for discussing some important points regarding artists, rock music, fans, and life as we know and live it! So bear with me while the analysis unfolds!
We don't have to try too hard to identify a couple of things regarding Anneke which cannot really be disputed: 1. She has one of the most charismatic voices in rock music ... and beyond! (if 'Hevy Devy' says so, who are we, "mere mortals" to dispute it?). Scientifically expressed, Anneke's voice is 'a composition of mechanical waves which "makes love" to someone's eardrums'. 2. She is a very beautiful girl (self-evident!) Watch out! Mixing 1&2 can be a "lethal" combination, producing female artists in the singers' category widely described as ... divas ... and everything that comes with them! No need to name "names" here, but you can all think of many characteristic examples! Fortunately for this Universe, there is no danger of seeing Anneke going "that way"!
So what's the differentiating factor in her case? People normally stop the analysis about Anneke on her sheer extreme professionalism. And it is easy to see why: During the Athens show, she promised to sign any CDs of her live collaboration with Danny after the end of their performance. As CDs were available "on site", this was a natural and professional thing for her to do. And she did sign them ... but the amazing thing was that she spent an entire one and half hour not only signing the specific album, but also complete 'The Gathering' discographies, posters, tickets, and everything else you can imagine! All these while having a photo taken with ... ehm ... everybody, and having a friendly (real) chat with ... (again) everybody! I was one of the last persons to ask her to sign a CD while having a chat with her about Mike Patton and the forthcoming Cyprus gig ... and she was still going strong with her smile bright as ever, after she had "dispatched" another 400 people like me! It really reminded me of Ronnie James Dio's legendary treatment of his fans.
However, this was not (only) an exhibition of hardcore professionalism. She would have still been a great professional artist if she had just sat down, signed the CDs in an "industrial" fashion, and retired to her hotel room to get some much needed rest for the remaining of the tour ... who would blame her? Not me! People describe it as professionalism simply because they have come to expect that all things in life are connected to measurable personal "benefits". A behavior which does not bring the maximum of any kind of self-profit, is incomprehensible and should not be considered! Some might say that it should even be banned!
So what's the "catch"? The "catch" is that Anneke is always making a conscious effort to transmit to all people her vibe, one that hails life as something to be celebrated in all its dimensions! And this is "in tune" with her natural voice, as explained earlier. Now, this is a really RARE case, in a world "making a living" out of nastiness and pretentiousness! And this is exactly what makes her so "adorable" to all people. Because everybody is really "starving" for "Life", as Devin would put it. All people in modern societies (for reasons that cannot really be discussed in this small section) need to "hold on" to "something" which will implicitly assure them that ... "yes, it's OK to love life", "yes, you can fight through all your troubles, "yes, it's human to do wrong", "yes, things can get better", "yes its alright to laugh and cry", "yes, even if today was not like yesterday, there is still tomorrow', 'yes you are not alone in this world'! ... Something which is beautiful, transmits beauty, and states categorically that life is fundamentally a beautiful thing ... with all its "ups" and "downs", with all the "worries", with all the "mistakes"! And this girl carries these messages not only with her voice / music / lyrics, but with her overall presence and the expressions of her life as we know it... ... and that's why ..."everybody loves Anneke"!
Why did I underline the word "conscious" for her effort then? Because this is what makes Anneke a "phenomenon"! If it wasn't for her conscious effort, I wouldn't be talking about it. Simply put, and without knowing her personally, she is bound to have the problems that we all face in our everyday lives. Having a family and being a mother will bring her enough worries I guess. Coping with a professional career in the entertainment business would be overwhelming to handle for most people. But instead of "dispatching" music and "automating" her relationship with the fans in order to minimize cost and effort, she's "living" it, and she consciously "bares" her "joy" of Life to everybody else ... in a way like Euterpe, the Muse of music in Greek mythology, was baring "τέρψη" (mental pleasure) to all human beings !
... and these thoughts lead naturally to the most important point I would like to make in this small analysis.... I am completely aware of the fact that an overwhelming number of people in this world are "recipients", therefore the presence of a small number of "bearers" is really not going to have a significant impact in the long run. It doesn't mean that this realization will make Anneke, or myself, or anybody else for that matter with a concrete philosophy of life to change her/his stance. But these stances are increasingly "drowning" in the "sea" of negativity in which this world is "floating" ... What would make a REAL difference? If all people who are "recipients" of Anneke's or other people's generous "offerings", become re-transmitters and gradually autonomous "bearers" of this beautiful vibe to all the people in their lives. Now this would spark a silent revolution, wouldn't it? ... just imagine!
After all the "heavy stuff" above, let's finish the section ... on a much "lighter" note! Just a simple advice to many "over-anxious" women that I know: You really don't have to spent "a fortune" in order to look and feel attractive! Take a "cue" from Anneke ... and employ to the full extend what God has offered you for free since the day you were born ... in other words ... ... simply SMILE! :)
First and foremost I would like to emphasize how extremely grateful we all are to Anneke & Danny for their brilliant performances in Athens and Larnaca! We are particularly grateful to them for coming to play in Cyprus, since events like these have a significant long-term effect on the promotion of rock music on this island! We hope to see them both back soon! A big "thanks" also goes to the promoters of the events and to the venues An Club and Barrel House! As mentioned earlier, the editor has a bad habit of enjoying himself "too much" in his native Athens... so if it wasn't for my good friend Stelios, I don't know if I would have managed to get the tickets for the Larnaca event on time! So, a big THANK YOU goes to my mate! Stelios is the no.1 Cypriot fan of 'The Gathering', and he was jubilant to see Anneke performing live again, after their last encounter twelve years ago in London! So here he is with her, in a photo proudly taken by the editor after the Larnaca show:
Yes, despite popular belief the editor can handle a camera "respectably", as you can see from above ... only problem being ... he will never do that during a show! I am enjoying these occasions way too much to think about about taking pics and making clips! Old School! So this is why I am greatly indebted to all the people that do take photos and record clips, otherwise I wouldn't be able to write reviews for the events! For this particular Issue full credit goes to my friend Andreas for taking some great pictures of the Larnaca gig, and to Gilmour3's YouTube channel, which published some excellent quality clips of the Athens show. Did I forget somebody .... yes, my trusted webmaster Pericles for performing his "magic" on some photos from the Larnaca gig! What a way to start the year ... and more is coming for Cyprus later this year ... with Ian Anderson, Deep Purple, Arch Enemy, Spiritual Beggars, and Stratovarius already confirmed ... plus the Nova Rock festival for the editor! Hmmmm .... I am wondering ... should I quit my day-job this week or leave it for the summer? After all ... "... I always wanted to fly in Strange Machines ..."! ;) The editor |
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The CyRock Team (rockcyprus at gmail.com - rockcyprus at hotmail.com) |
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