Athens trip to see Bad Religion and Faith No More - again!

After returning to London Heathrow airport from Bilbao via Madrid, I literally only just made it onto my flight to Athens, having had a delayed flight from Madrid. It was well worth the rush and arriving in Athens at 3.30am Greece time! I was so exhausted, but after arriving at my hotel at around 5.00am, I went to bed for a few hours, then got up and lay in the sunshine by the rooftop pool at the very nice Metropolitan Hotel. I made it into a mini holiday, which was the idea. Get some sun and rock 'n' roll in the evening.
Luckily, the venue for the one day Ejekt Festival was changed from the Olympic Fencing Stadium to The Olympic Tae Kwon Do arena which was just 15 minutes walk from my hotel.

This time it was too short notice for me to get a photo pass for the show, as I only decided to go to Athens a couple of weeks before and booked the flights and hotel package before I even knew whether I could get on the guest list, but I was all sorted out by the Ejekt press man and crew, so thank you to them I was still allowed to bring my camera into the venue and take some photos from at the front of the barrier without getting kicked by moshers!

Bad Religion were the first band I saw when I arrived, celebrating their 30th anniversary, the Californian punk icons were as energetic as always and performed an ultimate Bad Religion greatest hits setlist. They played about 30 songs (but of course, most of their songs are very short anyway), opening with Do What You Want and saving most of the best for last with American Jesus and finishing with Sorrow. I couldn't get many good shots of them, as Greg always moves around so much anyway. Faith No More opened with Midnight Cowboy, which I was glad about because in Bilbao it was Reunited. The setlist was similar to Bilbao BBK Live, but of course like with any Faith No More performance it was mixed around again and there were some differences and a surprise double encore with As The Worm Turns and then Prisina, when Mike did the Greek thing and smashed up plates (an old Greek tradition usually practised at large weddings and wealthy family dinner parties). With the usual Patton stage mischief and the pleasure of hearing Pristina being sung again, it was probably even more enjoyable than their Bilbao set.

Mike Patton holding one of the plates he smashed onto the stage floor at the end of the Athens Ejekt Festival concert.







Greg Graffin of Bad Religion, with Jay Bentley in the background. Below: Bad Religion onstage at Ejekt in Athens


Me with Mike Patton the morning after the Ejekt concert as everyone was leaving our hotel for the airport. The same thing happened in Adelaide after Soundwave festival! Good luck timing!