30 Jan 2005

Report from the club FEVER

The doors opened at 10:30 but the show doesn’t start until 11:30. The opening of the show is done by a few not well known artists. Personally I didn’t know any of them, but all in all they weren’t so bad.

Then it’s time for Helena Paparizou’s appearance. You might know her she was a member of the band “Antique”. She has already participated in Esc 2001 representing Greece and “Antique” come 3rd with the song “Die for you”. Well if you don’t know her yet you soon will. She will represent Greece in Esc 2005 and she is one of the new up and coming Greek stars that have the potential for an international career. After all she started singing in Sweden.

But enough about her. At around 1:00 in the morning a Greek – Egyptian statue appears. It looks a little bit like “The sphinx” but is more Greek. The face cracks up and Sakis shows up singing his new song. Yes, that’s right, he sings a previously unreleased song, that I assume will be included in his new album. It’s called (to the best of my knowledge, but I could be wrong), “Teletourgiko exagnismou” (= Ceremony of purification). And the general gist of the lyrics is about the things his sweetheart must do in order to be forgiven for what she has done to him which includes a pilgrim to Egypt and walking naked in the desert though why she has to do those things and what purpose do they accomplish the song doesn’t say. Of course he is not alone. A whole ballet of girls and boys is accompanying him, but they leave when the song is over.

Then Sakis sings the all time classic: “Ola kala” and the song “Mia zoi mazi” from the album “Ola kala” and while he sings the statue is removed and two giant neon wheels with a star in the middle of each take its place. He continues with the song “Ipirhes panta”. He is wearing something like an old fashion military outfit. It’s black with a white shirt and his coat’s buttons were gold. He is not accompanied by a ballet at the time.

Then it’s time for another all time classic the song “Antexa” but there is a surprise there. Instead of the regular intro of the song you get to hear the intro of “The phantom of the Opera” and a chandelier starts to move slowly from the back of the club towards the stage. Also the ballet makes its re – appearance dressed in black and white costumes like the ones in the musical/film that we’ve seen in the big screen recently, complete with black and white masks and everything. When the chandelier is finally right on top of Sakis it starts to move downwards. Sakis pays no attention to the silly old thing. And then the song is over and the ballet leaves him to sing “Your heart doesn’t have rails”.

Then Sakis goes back stage and changes clothes. He is now wearing a very modern rapper’s blouse with a hood that covers most of his face. The ballet shows up again wearing punk’s clothes and assumes their positions on rising platforms dansing their hearts out while Sakis sings “We will rock you” and “We are the champions”. Then Sakis takes of his blouse, gets a guitar and sings “To koritsi ekeino” (= That girl) and then “Ela mou” (= Come to me).

The set changes once again. This time you get to see three boxes one on top of the other. Each one is lined with neon lights. The first one is yellow, the other is pink and the third is green. Each of the boxes contains two gorgeous and slightly dressed women, doing something that could easily pass for a strip show if they had any excessive clothes to take of (they don’t, they are wearing their underwear). Sakis appears in the first one on top singing “Thelo na koitao” (= I want to watch) and makes his way to the stage by means of a ladder on the left side of the boxes but not before “saying hi” to the girls in each box. When Sakis finally gets on stage, he is laying on one of these platforms that I mentioned earlier while on the other a girl shows up (I think its the one from Esc) carrying a walking stick and doing all sorts of things with it. Then the girls leave their boxes and swarm on Sakis. By the way if you are under aged you shouldn’t be reading this.

Finally when the song is over, the set changes once again. This time it resembles a city with sky scrapers. It would have made an excellent stage for the song “New York, New York”. Sakis changes his clothes again. He is now wearing a 50’s suit and sings the romantic song “All alone” in both the English and the Greek version (in the Greek version the title is “Min ton rotas ton ourano” or “Don’t ask the sky”) while the ballet that accompanies him are wearing very elegant fifties costumes (black dresses and suits). That’s when he dances the tango with one of the girls. That’s when he sings “Ta pio orea laika” (= The nicest ethnic songs). His next song is “To hrono stamatao” (I stopped the time).

Now at this point Sakis sings “Shake it” and then leaves the stage to Giorgos Mazonakis, the other leading singer of the club. But this time things were different. You see this time the Russian pop star Kirkorof (I hope I am spelling his name correctly) and the winner of “The star factory” Anastasia that will represent Russia in Esc 2005 were present. So Sakis asked Kirkorof to sing a duet together. And he did sing the song “Se thelo san trelos” (= I want you like crazy) in Greek! Kirkorof said “Hi” to the audience and mentioned a few Greek words that he knew (Kalispera = Good Evening, Mana mou = My mother and a swear word that supposedly Sakis taught him and he didn’t know the meaning of it).

Then Sakis sang “Shake it” with the same choreography and ballet as in Istanbul. Needless to say he caused a real earthquake. Finally at 01:54 in the morning he left the stage. After him Giorgos Mazonakis was a bit of a disappointment. I mean the inevitable comparison between the two is like comparing a star to an oil lamp! Poor Giorgos is a very gifted artist but he can’t dominate the stage like Sakis.

Mazonakis’ show last until 3:00. Then Sakis reappears accompanied by Helena Paparizou. The two of them sing a few duets. Sakis enters with “Shake it” in its more ethnic version and Paparizou sings “Die for you”. Then both of them sing “Opa, opa” a song that Despina Vandi’s fans will probably know. Then Sakis sings “To feggari panothe mou” (= The moon above me) and Paparizou replies with “Babesa” (= Bad girl). You must understand that they don’t sing the entire songs just fragments of it and sometimes remixes. Well then Sakis continues with “Eisai amartoli” (= You are a sinner) a very ethnic song and Helena sings “S’ agapao koita” (= Look here, I love you, in loose translation). At which point Sakis says “Tha ta kapso ta lefta mou” (= I will burn my money) and then they sing “Den xanapao filaki me ton Kapetanaki” (= I am not going to jail again with Kapetanaki) Weird I know. These songs are really old, very ethnic and not what Sakis is known to sing but his version is marvelous. Bear in mind that a truly gifted singer must be able to sing more than one genre of music. Helena continues with the song “Afti I nihta menei” (= This night will remain, once again this translation is a bit loose, sorry) and Sakis sings “To baxse tsifliki” (= This one is so difficult I am not even going to try translating it, anyway it refers to a place). Then both of the singers sing “Ferte mou na pio” (= Get me drinks) and then Paparizou sings “Apopse irtha gia na pio” (= Tonight I will drink). Then they sing “Ti ta theleis ta lefta” (= Why do you need all that money). Personally I could use them to pay the bill later on but I couldn’t say that. Their next song is “Eimaste alania” (= We are bums). A personal note here. For some reason the Greek language is full of words describing “the bad seeds” and the songwriters of old had no compulsion to use them in their lyrics. Apparently Greece was so full of them that they didn’t consider that bad. Sakis finally sings “Ta esorouha” (= The underwear). The gist of the lyrics goes something like: Your cheap black underwear drive me crazy. And Helena replied that she is not wearing any (Ha, Ha). Finally they sing “Den ehei sidera I kardia sou” together and then Sakis leaves.

Paparizou continues on her own singing a few more ethnic hits. Later Mazonakis says a few ethnic songs too. In fact the program goes on until 6:00. However as soon as Sakis leaves the stage half of the crowd in the packed club leaves as well.

The only thing I didn’t like about the whole thing was the fact that Sakis part was small (of course my opinion is a bit subjective I could stare at him for twelve hours straight) and the prices that were really high. It’s 200 euro for a bottle of wine that me and my friend divided it in 2 and 10 more euros as the price of admission.

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