No Offense Live Report (22/05/2009 @ Mike's Irish Bar)

Well, yes, in fact I managed to go! After around 5 Lives, I managed to go watch Flexxy and company on a humid Friday, finally! I had listened to No Offense's recorded live performances and yes, I thought they were pretty decent (it's a hesitation to say any more, that comes with any band doing covers), but now I have revised my opinion: they are good and not just "hey, they're my friends (well, Flexxy is) - they're OK". No, I mean actually, very pleasantly good.

They played a number of interesting covers, "Give It Away" (which always makes me appreciate Flexxy's voice range), "Unbelievable" AND Gazette's "Cockroach" among them and I believe the whole band is deserving of congratulations, for doing the songs justice. They also played two of their own songs, "A Fresh Start" and "One Step Forward", the first of which I liked very much, in and of itself, while the second brought to mind the music from the fictional band, Trip Cyclone, in the game "Shivers II" (one of the best soundtracks ever in a game, if you like classic rock).

At any rate, here's the photos from that night.

Presenting

No Offense

Vlassis "FlexXxible" Tsiamas
(Vocals)

Haris Pandazis
(Bass)


Panayiotis Kolidas
(Guitar)


Vassilis Nikolis
(Drums)


You know, I generally sort Flexxy under
"depressed", or at least, potentially so...

...but whenever he is on stage
(both when I saw them live and
in videos)...

...he seems to forget himself.

The whole band was perfectly focused...

...not only keeping their building momentum...


...but also augmenting it as they went.


As to the ever-fearful question: "were there
enough people?"...

...I believe this answers it (in part - there were
many more on the other side but taking
wide pictures is a pain in there).

Not to mention some familiar faces
(Velvet Vortex)...

...John and NickUnknown (back from Scotland
for Summer Break). There were also Raziel,
Luna (far left, here), Nickmer, Darkside_Blues
and Cavu (Ergo Proxy sleeped us off, yet
again).




"Give it away, give it away, give it away now...!"



I have a small obsession with
photographing drummers...

...because they invariably give me
a hard time (Chiroto has been
by far the worst).


After No Offense concluded, we ordered beers
and Kamikaze Cocktail, which...

...gave Darkside_Blues the
opportunity to test his...
suction skills (you had it
coming bro)!

I also took a couple of videos ("Cockroach" and "One Step Forward"), but they are huge and I have a hard time uploading them. However, I have given them to Flexxy, so he should get off his ass and upload them himself, yeah?! Well, at any rate, I want to congratulate the guys and thank Flexxy for dedicating "Unbelievable " to me. It did seem a bit weird to anyone who has not been exposed to the company's inside jokes but so long as I understood, alles ist OK.

For myself, I would like to hear more of No Offense's original songs (which, as they say in their page, they are currently working on), but a slight suspicion I have about their next covers (not telling), has me waiting for their coming live performances.

Before I go, here are a video featuring Trip Cyclone's (whom I mentioned earlier) "Was I Even There" and another featuring the remix from the Shivers I game music.





Strangely enough, both I found were edited with Kingdom Hearts footage.

Rock 'n' Roll Children,

Speedgrapher

June 2009 Events

Here's a couple of things that might interest you, which recently came to my attention:

First-off, Bare Infinity, an amazing Greek Metal band, which has passed through much turmoil since its formation, in 2003, will be playing at 8Ball in Salonika on the 12th and at Sfendona (22, Alexandras Ave.) in Athens, on the 19th. What makes this band so amazing (to me), is that they sound like a healthy mix of Nightwish, Within Temptation, Epica and Sirenia, all of which are very dear to my heart. Of course, one would argue that you could always listen to those other bands, but the fact is, simply, Bare Infinity are good, really, really good!

When I first stumbled upon them, I started listening to their first album (Always Forever) medley on MySpace and I thought they were probably Finnish or Norwegian; lo and behold, looking at the profile details, they were Greek! I was amazed that a Greek Metal band could put out such incredible quality, both in sound and vocals (I find very annoying the fact that many Greek bands who sing English lyrics, have blatant accents - not so here, not by a longshot). Needless to say, the lyrics are nothing short of great.

On a personal trivia note, I thought their drummer, George, looked oddly familiar and indeed, I had met him years ago, during my Live-Action Role-Playing days. I will be attending their Athens Live with a 99% probablility and I believe that anyone who holds Melodic & Symphonic Metal close to their hearts, should as well.

As a secondary note, [room302] of ex-Ordre de Ciel and ex-Le Ciel, is organizing a Video Game Music Party at Texas Necropolis (corner of Themistokleous & Gamvetta) on the 5th of June, with a new team (?) called Save Point. The event will feature Video Game Music (and you can bet that there will be a lot of Silent Hill, if the past is any indication), as well as a Video Game RolePlay Contest, where people are invited to dress as their favorite game characters and win prizes.

That's all for now - c' ya,

Speedgrapher