Author: Primož Novak
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Trieste / Naima Club / Italy
Concert date: March 22, 2015
Attendance: 100
Ticket price: €18.00 (presale) / €20.00 (day of show)
Greek guitarist Gus G. has taken his solo career pretty seriously. He wants to promote last year’s album I Am The Fire (review HERE) absolutely everywhere. So Gus G. and his touring crew hit the road across Europe, and they also stopped close to Slovenia, at the Naima club in Trieste.
Gus was joined on tour by the Italian band Arthemis, who have some 15 years of mileage behind them. In that time the band could probably have achieved a lot, but somehow they never got any real recognition. The reason is probably the music, which is nothing special and comes across as just another generic heavy/power band, where sadly there’s nothing overly interesting to hear. You can tell the band has mileage, though, they were tight, and the communication with the crowd was solid. The whole Arthemis situation was at times downright comical, with a posing bass player who wanted to be the star of the night with his playing. You’d expect more from Arthemis, but on the other hand, it’s good that bands exist that you can happily go grab a beer to.
Things picked up with Gus G.’s set, which was the final show of his European We Are The Fire tour. Gus and his backing band played almost the entire current album I Am The Fire. On vocals he was joined by the seasoned Henning Basse, who already worked with Gus as Firewind’s touring singer in 2006 and was most active in Metalium. Over an hour and a half, Gus G. more than proved himself. He definitely knew how to draw attention to his skills. He is undoubtedly a top-notch guitarist, who showed it with excellent, razor-precise soloing. He wasn’t even thrown off by the rhythm section, which probably struggled because of the bad sound on stage. The weak link was definitely the bassist, whose sound was poor, and who also simplified the guitar lines of the crazy Gus quite a bit, which mostly reflects badly on Gus. Bassists like that would be better off going to pose and plunk away on a single string in some glam rock band. On drums, young Johan Nunez gave it his all, having previously played with Gus in Firewind. Nunez did his job far better than the bassist.
Gus of course didn’t forget his past, so he also served up the song Break the Chains by Dream Evil, plus World on Fire and the instrumental The Fire and the Fury by Firewind, a band that is supposedly still active, though when Gus will revive it is not yet known. There was of course also a moment when only Gus was left on stage, proving once again that his fast fingers are extremely precise. The band included almost the whole of I Am The Fire in their set. It hasn’t quite caught on yet, but the music, with its catchy choruses, is more than obviously made for a sing along crowd, which this time didn’t really join in. After a break, Gus G. invited the singer and guitarist of Arthemis onto the stage, and together they played a cover of Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love. Here you couldn’t help feeling that Gus wanted to get the crowd on their feet one last time with a tired old cover, which gave the whole thing a village-pub-party vibe. To close things out, he threw in Crazy Train by Ozzy Osbourne, which was a logical choice, given that Gus played on Ozzy’s latest album, and showed his loyalty to Ozzy himself.
Despite the poor sound and monotonous lighting, Gus G. delivered more than a solid show, though a Firewind song or two more would definitely have been welcome. It looks like the Firewind revival will have to wait a bit longer, since Gus recently announced he’s already working on a new solo album.
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