Firewind

Live at The Whisky a Go Go

Hollywood, California

October 27th, 2011

Review and Photos by Travis Baumann

Firewind is a Power Metal band hailing from Greece. Founded by guitarist extraordinaire, Gus G., Firewind has been putting out epic albums since 2002.

They are currently touring in support of their latest release, "Days of Defiance". The band is made up of a host of talented musicians with the mighty Gus G. handling lead guitar and backing vocal as the backbone of the band.

Their frontman, Apollo Papathanasio has an amazing voice that fits perfectly between the heavy guitar riffs and the uplifting keyboard atmospheres.

The rather small stage at the Whisky could barely contain the rest of the musicians. Petros Christodoulidis plays bass and adds his voice with backing vocals. Next to him the extremely talented Bob Katsionis plays rhythm guitar and keyboards which is really amazing to watch, at times one hand on the guitar and the other on the keys. Rounding out the band is Johan Nunez on drums.

Seeing Firewind live is a great experience as it sounds just as good as it does on studio albums but with even more energy. Watching Gus work the frets combined with the other members playing their instruments really is impressive and uplifting.

They opened the set with "The Ark of Lies" off of the latest release. This song lays an amazing intro both to "Days of Defiance" as an album and as a concert. Encompassing uplifting hymns that touch upon many topics, from esoteric concepts of our existence and spirit to apocalyptic journeys that must be overcome.

Their set list would move all around their near decade of musical output. They played "Head Up High" followed by "Destination Forever" before hitting the slightly darker themed "Kill to Live". This lead them to the fitting "Angels Forgive Me".

Their next two songs were a couple of the set highlights for me personally. They did "The Fire and the Fury" back to back with their magnum opus, "World on Fire". You can see a lot of fire references beyond just the band's name when it comes to Gus G., he is on fire and knows it, having recently been selected as Ozzy's new lead guitarist.

Gus exchanged intricate guitar solos with keyboard solos from Bob K's talented fingers at various points in the set. They blazed into "Heading for the Dawn" and continued with "Mercenary Man" and "SKG".

The set was still going strong and the packed Whisky crowd were anxious for more. They finished up the main set with two more that brought cheers from the audience with "Till the End of Time" and "I Am the Anger".

The band retreated to the backstage area to recoup a moment as the chanting of "Firewind!" from the fans resounded. They soon emerged to give us a couple of older favorites, "Into the Fire" off of "The Premonition" and then finished up the set with "Falling to Pieces" from their debut album, "Between Heaven and Hell".

As I said earlier, it was a great show, very moving songs with an amazing talent and energy in a live setting. I can't wait for more from them.

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