SHORA + YNDI HADAL
18 JAN. 2009
GAGARIN 205
ATHENS, HELLAS-GREECE
I no longer feel gigs as I did a few years ago. I can watch a good gig, under good conditions & have a good time but it is very rare that it feels like the real thing, that I get mesmerized and carried away, that the music really touches me. This is why eventhough Shora are a proper excellent band on record, I didn’t show up with high expectations on this low profile Sunday evening in Athens.
For starters, I was pissed off with the high price of the ticket (35 euros at the entrance, 32 pre-sale) and with the fact that I had to pay more for a second band that I didn’t ask for. This is the kind of gig that we should pay normally no more than 20 euros. And let me tell you something, I was fucking right. The 2nd band on the bill, YNDI HADAL from the UK, is simply one of the worst bands I have ever seen live. “Pussy-ass post rock” is a description that does justice to the boring, pretentious, lifeless crap that they are playing. No riffs, no melodies, just some random notes played by cute young faces that the girls are supposed to fancy, and a … violin. I am not prejudiced with post-rock, it’s just that it’s fashion and there’s too many bands playing nothing. As a matter of fact I’ve already seen a post-rock act with a violin live, and it was very emotional and deep (that was THE EVPATORIA REPORT supporting RED SPARROWES @ Paris a couple of years back). The fact that they collected a lot of applause and that there were people actually familiar with their stuff, simply proves that the audience was crap too.
“What now? What comes next?”, I asked to myself like a modern day Raoul Duke with my wrists slit after YNDI HALLAL’s set finished. And then ze band started to play, everything shutted down and we took off immediately. A special moment, suspended in time. All our senses in alert, struggling to absorbe every millisecond of music, every gesture… SHORA transported us far away and beyond. I knew instantly that this was the gig I wanted to see for so many years. This precious special feeling that I forgot with the years, re-appearing majestically. Pure magic my friends, pure magic! A concrete proof that SHORA is a HUGE band, is that the tracks from “Malval” that they played, they played them in a very, very different way. Actually for most of the song you could barely recognize it as something familiar. A band that has the balls to fuck with original material that is certified gold, is my kind of band if you know that I mean. Comfortably happy in this heavy/psychedelic haze, shouting at my mates’ ears “Shitcool man!”, little did I know that these swiss knives had more surprises for us. What about the fact that unlike on record, these dudes actually played METAL for half of their set? And when I am talking about metal, I mean what we call around here “intelligent black metal” ( ®Tsamashi Toyo): Ved Buens Ende, Dodheimsgard, Thorns and company.
I can not tell for sure how much the audience actually appreciated this unique performance. I know that me and my friends were in heaven. My idea for an ideal SHORA audience composition would be 50% hardcore Pink Floyd fans and 50% intelligent black metal fans. Then we would have a good base for optimum interaction and maximum mayhem. I certainly hope to see those guys again soon enough, with a little bit of luck @ Roadburn/Tilburg in the good company of Mantas, Pascal Cretain and co. In any case, do not miss them for nothing in the world in they ever hit your town. If I was your lawyer I would even advice to bring over your women, friends, family and colleagues. Free post-show blowjobs guaranteed!
Raoul Argos 2009
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