Slap Back In The Face (The Kioni Music Festival - Night 2) Wednesday 9th August 2017

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The second night of Slap Back In The Face was a more relaxed and 'almost' traditional night of music. I say 'almost' traditional because although the music was Greek and used traditional instrumentation for the songs, they were also spun into some almost Greek jazz rock type variations. All 3 bands had that incommon. First up was L'argo, a 6 piece band from Thessalonika with hints of baltic, epirotic and rembetic sounds and feels.

Largo are - Kostantis Papakonstantinou: electric guitar/vocals, Tasos Kofodimos: acoustic guitar/vocals, Pavlos Metsios: trumpet, Manolis Stamatiadis: accordion - keys, Elias Rotsias: electric bass, Kostas Anagnostou: drums. These guys had great feel about them, charming and melodically and rhythmically pleasing. The audience loved them and although they were first up, were cheered like a headline act and danced to.

Next up were Acropolis Bye Bye who hailed from France and offered up Greek Revival music. This is how they describe themselves: 70's psychedelic rock music and even surf, yet applying traditional oriental music patterns, conceptual, where the greek-echoing sounds and the french, greek and english texts interact interchangeably in a feast of melodies. For me, it resembled Greek jazz rock. Intricate patterns and beats intermingled with traditional sounds and lyrical themes.

Excerpt from their website: The composer and singer Ian Balzan Dorizas narrates in several languages the story of a long exile, that of a modern Odysseus. Wandering on new Mediterranean shores, traveling from rébétiko to psychedelic rock, from a ballad to heavy dub. I found it interesting that they all dressed in white, and at first glance thought they could be doing Bee Gee covers, but once the drummer starting showing his licks, there was no doubt what was ahead.

Xainides headlined the second and final night of Slap Back In The Face - The Kioni Music Festival. The group formed in 1990 in Crete. Band members: Dimitris Apostolakis, Dimitris Zacharioudakis, Michalis Nikopoulos, Takis Kanellos, Giannis Nounis, Spyridoula Baska. It's an open esemble which play music from Crete and also Asia Minor.

They bring an ethos of radical values, lyrics about love and death, but also society in general. Each song is introduced with a speech or story which does more than just embrace the lyrics of the song, but also provides a rich background to the meaning of the lyrics.

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