Cool Music Central: Ejekt Festival '10: UNKLE, Faith No More, Bad Religion (Athens, July 13th, 2010)

Monday, July 19, 2010

Ejekt Festival '10: UNKLE, Faith No More, Bad Religion (Athens, July 13th, 2010)

The recent economic crisis is not only hurting our pockets but our live entertainment as well. A side effect of the recession is the cancellation of several concerts planned for this summer, while some of the festivals that did take place were scaled down. This was the case for this year’s Ejekt Festival which took place last Tuesday at the Olympic Tae-Kwon-Do Stadium of Athens. Last year’s two day event featured Pixies, Jarvis Cocker, Echo & The Bunnymen, Editors, Klaxons, White Lies, The Subways, Starsailor, Royksopp (review here) - this summer it was down to just one day with Faith No More and Bad Religion being the main attractions and UNKLE, the only band with a worthwhile recent record to promote, playing the closing set in the after-midnight slot. Did I mention that the new site of the festival was an indoor arena with poor acoustics? Slimmed down lineup and a far from ideal setting for a summer festival - the International Monetary Fund strikes again!

UNKLE (live @ Ejekt Festival '10, Athens, July 13th, 2010)

Bad Religion played a 90-minute "best-of" set, not too far away from what I remember from their very first appearance in Greece 14 years ago (July 13th, 1996, when they played alongside The Jesus And Mary Chain and Violent Femmes among others). The legendary ‘80s hardcore punk era is well behind us but Bad Religion stick religiously to their guns and given that there are thousands of kids out there that never got to experience it firsthand, they continue to play the same material that brought them fame in the early ‘90s. So we got to hear once again the likes of "Do What You Want", "We're Only Gonna Die", "Recipe For Hate", "A Walk", "Atomic Garden", "Infected", "American Jesus", "Generator", "21st Century Digital Boy", the kids got to mosh and feel rebellious and I was grateful that at least we got Bad Religion in the festival’s lineup and not some of their many lamentable latter day imitators.

Bad Religion (live @ Ejekt Festival '10, Athens, July 13th, 2010)

The late ‘80s-early ‘90s nostalgia trip continued with the reunited Faith No More who attracted the largest crowd of the day. Given that I’ve never been particularly fond of their music, I took a back seat for the duration of their 90-minute set which included "From Out Of Nowhere", "Caffeine", "Evidence", "Surprise You Are Dead", "Easy", "King For A Day", "Midlife Crisis", "Epic" and an interesting version of Vangelis’ "Chariots of Fire". Unfortunately they didn’t include my only favorite F.N.M. track which happens to be "Be Aggressive". At least they got to break many plates during the final encore, honoring the local entertainment customs.

Faith No More (live @ Ejekt Festival '10, Athens, July 13th, 2010)

And finally, about half an hour after midnight and while the crowd had thinned out considerably, we left the past and returned to the present with UNKLE. James Lavelle’s collaborative project has taken a heavier rock direction in recent years working with the likes of Chris Goss, Josh Homme, Ian Astbury and Mark Lanegan, so the band’s appearance in a rock festival didn’t feel out of place. Understandably, none of the stars of the UNKLE musical universe were present on this night, but that didn’t stop the band from delivering an enjoyable, guitar-driven, 70-minute set that included tracks from all of its records, from the late ‘90s classic "Psyence Fiction" ("Lonely Soul", even without Richard Ashcroft, sounded great) to the recent "Where Did the Night Fall" ("The Answer", "Natural Selection", "Follow Me Down" and "Ablivion" with the last two being among the highlights of their performance). Although we didn’t have the pleasure to see "Restless" performed with Josh Homme on stage or "Reign" with Ian Brown, at least we got an electrifying performance from the band while the absent singers were present in spirit on the video walls. UNKLE delivered a remarkable set accompanied by impressive visuals and lighting show and was the band that reminded us that we were present in a festival that was taking place in 2010 and not in 1990.

UNKLE's setlist: "The Answer", "Burn My Shadow", "Chemistry", "Natural Selection", "Reign", "Restless", "Glow", "Follow Me Down", "Keys To The Kingdom", "Ablivion", "Eye For An Eye". Encore: "Heaven", "Lonely Soul", "In A State".