{AN Club, Athens - 15.02.2009}
When I got the news that No Use For A Name, one of the best punk rock bands ever and a favorite one, were going to play for one show in Athens, Greece, I got really excited. It's been years since the last "major" punk rock band came to Greece (except The Offspring that visited us last year at the Rockwave Festival), so as a consequence many kids were waiting impatiently for that Sunday night show.
4 guys & girls from Larissa accompanied me to the trip to Athens and after hours of having fun, losing things (...!) and hanging around, we went to the usual spot for punk rock / hardcore shows, the legendary AN Club.
Earlier, that afternoon, Markos (Through The Eyes of The Underdog blogspot, www.daunderdog.blogspot.com) & me had a great conversation with Tony Sly, the man responsible for the vocals & guitar of No Use For A Name through all these years (they exist since the late 80s!). The interview will be uploaded later this week, so check back or stay tuned!
Back to the show... At 22.00 the club was full of punk rock kids (around 500 in total!) and it was time for Plus Dots to unleash their energy on stage! Well, I must admit that Plus Dots have slowed down their music a bit, which is more ska rock oriented nowadays, with a lot of punk rock influences of course, but without the hardcore breaks that used to have in the past. They played 10-11 songs, almost all of them new (with my favorite "I Need Some Time" among them), except 2-3 old ones ("No Destination", "The House Always Wins" etc.). I really liked their appearance, they are more mature, more melodic & more emotional since the last time I saw them live in Athens (that was 3 years ago, hehe!). I'm looking forward to their show along with No Fun At All in a couple of months!!!
After some rest, conversations with friends and fresh air that I breathe outside the club, I walked down the stairs of AN Club just in time of a short linecheck of No Use For A Name. Tony & the other guys took the stage and for the next 1 hour and a half we participated in one of the best punk rock shows of the last years. It's been a long long time since the last time I saw so many punk rock kids inside the club; the energy and the passion were overflowing from all the kids' souls which were about to burst.
No Use For A Name started with "Justified Black Eye", went on with "The Way To Be Wrong" (of their latest record, "The Feel Good Record Of The Year", out on Fat Wreck Chords) and the rest is history!!! They played songs from almost all their records (no counting the first ones, unfortunately...) and all their classics, like "For Fiona", "Dumb Reminders" (kolasi!), "Soulmate", "On The Outside", "Friends Of The Enemy", "Invincible", "International You Day" and more!Moreover, they even covered a part of "The Trooper" by Iron Maiden and "Don't Let Me Down" by The Beatles (pff!). Along with the last cover they played some of their songs that are more emotional and slow-paced, and it seemed that the crowd got a bit tired or melancholic, nostalgic or whatever (like me, ekopsa fleves, haha), but afterwards the party went on and they left everybody with a huge smile after the show!
Ah! I forgot to write that they played a very big encore including "The Biggest Lie" and closed their set with one of their favorite songs, "Feeding The Fire".All in all, the show was simply fantastic and I wanna send my props to the guys that organized it. Panta tetoia!
Also, a big thnx to Danai/Icon for the photos and to Steos for reminding me some songs of the No Use For A Name setlist.
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