Athens (Greece)
02 SEP - 03 SEP
Belgrade to Athens
Watching 'Video Hits' back in the late 80's it was hard to miss a young long haired lout that went by the name of Bono, sprawled out on the bonnet of an absurdly large and oddly shaped piece of motoring ingenuity somewhere on the Vegas strip singing the apparently gospel like song of 'I still haven't found what I'm looking for'. Put simply, I hated him, and I hated U2! They were everywhere and their songs were being played non-stop. Just when you thought you'd escaped the clutches of their self discovery through America, along came 'Desire', and there was the young, earnest and politically motivated band oscilating between Vegas and San Francisco in their film clip. It felt like U2 were everywhere that you turned and if that wasn't enough their '89 Lovetown tour sold out so quickly at the Sydney Entertainment Centre that I secretly seethed internally and waited patiently for their inevitable demise.
A few years later my cousin, (V), made his way to Australia for the first time, elegantly dodging the tensions and conflicts that would grip the Balkan region for the next few years. At sometime during his stay he purchased a copy of Rattle & Hum and by sheer proximity I was exposed to the Americana inspired musings of Bono in such songs as Hawkmoon 269, God Part II and Angel of Harlem. However, it wasn't until my cousin strongly suggested a late night sojourn with that insipid and quite 'vacant' MTV host Richard Wilkins and a run of the Rattle & Hum movie that I fully took the U2 bait. Watching the moody and atmospheric intro to 'Silver & Gold' with Adam Clayton leading the way on bass, I could feel myself slowly being drawn into their realm. The black and white, (for the most part), rockumentary depicted this band's journey through America and the influence it had on it's newest creation, Rattle & Hum, an album that comprised both live versions of songs off the Joshua Tree album and some new creations. The movie progressed through such classics as 'Angel of Harlem', 'Bad' and 'With or Without You' but it wasn't until their performance of 'Where the Streets Have No Name' at the Sun Devil stadium in Arizona that I had my U2 'epiphany'. With a typically red set design that I now know goes hand in hand with this song whenever it is played, the song commences with chorale like syntheziser notes as LMJ sits atop his drum kit, his silouette visible against the red backdrop, counting in the intro. Then in 'one' of the most recognisable guitar pieces in any rock song around , (yes, my personal opinion), The Edge kicks off with the song's hook, a repeating guitar appregio that utilised a delay effect. When Clayton comes in over that with the bass you can actually feel a wall of sound surging at you. At the end of the intro the whole stadium lights up like a Christmas tree...and that for me was it, I was SOLD! Several months later, somewhere close to the end of November '91, Achtung Baby was released, by which time I had already purchased my tickets for the entire U2 ride, for better or for worse. So with that said, and after now having followed these guys for nearly 20 years, once I saw the tour dates for U2360 and figured out that the logistics of getting down to Athens for a gig at the start of September was more than possible, I picked up two tickets as a kind of 'thankyou' to my cousin for having introduced me to these guys all those years ago. Once 02 SEP rolled around we were in our car and ready to roll!
On the road south - Southern Serbia
Macedonian flag - on the Serbian/Macedonian border
Pointing our vehicle south and lining up with our first checkpoint at the Serbian/Macedonian border, we made our way under relatively clear skies, cutting through Southern Serbia without too many problems until such time we skirted the pheriphery of Nis and closed in on the frontier. As the topography changed, becoming more mountainous with every passing km, so too did the nature of the freeway, turning into a two lane, high speed lottery. With Serbia being the short-cut access to Greece via Macedonia, you tend to find trucking companies of many EU states utilising this route to transport their wares into and out of the republic. The problem, like anywhere else, is that they're painfully laborious and thus for the typical Serbian driver whose patience and temperament is challenged even when waiting in line for some good 'ole fashioned cevapi, when presented with this scenario, they have a tendency of losing their head somewhat. The amount of idiotic and downright dangerous passing manouveres I witnessed in that short section of road even put the chaos of Vietnam to shame. In one particular instance we went head on with another vehicle and only avoided carnage by making use of the additional bitumen outside of the designated lane markings. I mean really, are a few additional minutes stuck behind a truck that infuriating that it can ravage ones nerves to such an extent that they're willing to accept the consequences of failure? F*** me !!! Crazy Serbs, this land is full of them, strangely enough!
'Somewhere' in Macedonia
The final '500'
Thankfully the rest of the drive down to Athens that evening was uneventful. We passed through Macedonia in just a few hours, it's mountainous landscape in some parts being quite captivating, and then once over the border and into Greece made our way down the Aegean coastline commencing from the outskirts of Thessaloniki. As I've mentioned in earlier posts, the great thing about Europe is that it's dynamic in the way that it's landscapes can shift so quickly and how the cultural influences on the spaces that you pass through are unique in that you can easily discern a Greek looking town from a Macedonian village from a Serbian city. Admiring the unique blue of the Aegean on one side and the mountainous landscape of the Olimbos range on the other, we bisected them on our southerly journey passing through the towns of Katerini, Larissa and Almiros. Chasing the sun for sometime as it decided to duck for protection behind the Othris range, we rounded the bay of Maliakos and its main town of Lamia as the night crept in and my cousin told me the story of how he first learnt to swim in this town some 30+ yrs ago. It's a funny thing but it seems that those 'first learning to swim' stories are never pleasant! It often involves 'someone', (a mature and usually semi-intelligent parent), throwing their child into the blue abyss with a literal 'sink or swim' intention. My moment of reckoning came on the Croatian coast when I was 3 or 4. All I remember was my dad placing some ridiculous yellow floaties on my arms, throwing me into space and then me sinking below the surface and into the darkness. There are 'special' moments in my life that I won't ever forgive my father for no matter how amusing he still thinks they are - with that said, if I ever have kids of my own ,well, I'll be taking out my revenge on them!
These mountains are Greek - 'obviously'...?
Arriving in Athina sometime after 9pm with just on 11hrs driving behind us, I had assumed that our Google Maps print off's would be more than satisfactory to allow us to find our accommodation in Dorsia, a suburb approximately 20kms outside of the centre - they weren't. I failed to take into account that most street signs were written in cyrillic and the Google Maps print outs had kindly provided me with 'just' their English translations. There were several occasions when Big V asked pointed questions of his navigator and the best I could come up with was, 'Man, I just don't know'. It took us hailing down a taxi and playing a little 'follow the leader' to discover that we were only within a 5 euro cabride from our destination, although we may as well have been a world away, there's just no way we would have found our digs without a little intervention. It was...wait for it...'All Greek to us', (oh, the crowd groans). Thankfully, even out here in the Athenian burbs, the cafes were still rolling along well after midnight and we were able to have a nice little meal and a few brews to close out our first day down south.
Athens 03 SEP
Waking up to an absolutely bluebird day, there were only a few items that we needed to tick off our itinerary in the next few hours, 1) Check out a bit of Athens, 2) Make it to the Acropolis and 3) Get to the Olympic stadium for the U2 gig. Heading out of Kifissia via E75 into the heart of Athens I thought at times that all three objectives were at some point going to come a screaming halt up against some concrete barricade. The motorcyle riders in this town are maniacs, ducking in and out of traffic at something like triple the speed limit, you take evasive action on their behalf because obviously their brains are located roughly in the vicinty of where their bike seats are. These guys,(mostly guys), are urban missiles, let loose in their bitumen playground, seeking to hunt out and destroy the sound barrier by weaving through spaces that I'd find difficult to walk through even if both vehicles were stationary. Mad men, just plain mad!
The Parthenon - Athens - Greece
The Parthenon - Athens - Greece
Having survived the journey into the Athens proper, it was then time for Big V and I to 'guess' our way around as 'ofcourse' we didn't have a map. So there we were, driving in the midst of Meditteranean traffic chaos, small low rise buildings pathing the way in a place whose status in the world is almost mythical. Athens, as a city, is often considered to be 'one of' the oldest cities in the world with a recorded history of something like 3500 years although human existence can be traced back in this area for something like 7000 years. In terms of global importance however it is known as being the cradle of western civilisation and the birthplace of democracy, something of which, (from a democratic standpoint), that people have been questioning over the last 20 days with Gillard's appointment as PM from the perspective of primary vote% andtotal seats gained in the house of reps - (if you need an explanation of how it works, send me an e-mail, more than happy to go through the details with you! :). Moving through Athens quite intuitively, with the split second views of the Parthenon on the Acropolis as our reference point, we managed to guide ourselves quickly in and then,somehow, quickly out of the city centre in one evil loop. It took some tactical 'guestimating' from V on the return journey to get us both into the city centre once again and close to our main destination, 'The Acropolis'. We ended up parking near the station of Petralona and then jumping a cab for the rest of the distance. It always feels more than touristy and just a little cheesy when you ask a cab driver to take you to the most well known attraction of a city - and in this case, one of the most well known
in the world. For some reason I felt a little embarrased to ask the man to 'take me to the Acropolis', like I had somehow failed in a mission of the blatantly obvious.
Entrance to the Parthenon - Athens - Greece
The sprawling 'white city' over the Attica plain - Athens - Greece
Catching the first glimpses of the Parthenon from the cab, the first thing I thought to myself was, 'they were able to build that freakin' thing up there!!?'. This thing is enormous, even these days you'd marvel at the audacity of building something of that magnitude on a large flat topped rock which stands proudly above the plains where Athens makes its home. On this day also, we were a little fortunate with the weather that we encountered and hence the climb up the acropolis to view the Parthenon was made that much more spectacular by the marvellous blue sky which provided the perfect backdrop to this sprawling white city. From up here It's obvious why they chose this place to build a temple whose dedication would be to Greek Goddess Athena. It is located at one of the highest points in the city and the command that it has over the area gives it a most ethereal feel. Walking up to the top of the acropolis you're able to get your bearings on this sprawling city. This magnificent place is now home to somewhere over 4 million people, and viewing it from this location, you're able to see how the city stretches from the port which makes its home on the Sarconic Gulf, north-east along the plains of Attica (also known as the Athens basin), and is bounded by large mountains on all sides - Mount Aegaleo to the west, Mount Parnitha to the north, Mount Penlelo to the north-east and Mount Hymethus to the east. What's more, the buildings of Athens are very much uniform in terms of height and colour, it's basically a sea of white that lays out before you on the plains, and then when the city 'hits' the bay you get a beautiful contrast with the dark blue of the gulf. Even better still, on a day such as this when then sun was beating down on this white city it feels as though the sun's rays are amplified and you kind of begin to understand the beauty and vibrancy that lies behind a Meditteranean Summer in Greece.
Parthenon - Athens - Greece
Both V and I walk around the Parthenon for quite some time before descending the acropolis and making our way into the area of Plaka for some lunch. It's just one taverna after another and choosing one to stop for a short while was not too hard a task. It's funny, but even if you spend a short time in a city you can quickly get a feel of its vibe and already on this day we figured out that Athens is 'alive'. First of all the people appear to be very friendly, warm and good natured. They were willing to assist us at each turn even if there English was very basic. Then there were the tavernas which were plentiful and filled with tourists and Greeks alike, I mean you could call it a typical Meditteranean town but that would be doing the place a grose injustice. It's specifically Greek, it's vibrant and it has an energy which is kind of infectious. It may not be the most attractive place around but I guess its heart and soul make up for that in spades.
View to the port - Athens - Greece
As the afternoon wore on and our time spent walking around Athens drew us closer to 'go time' at the Olympic stadium, we booked some accommodation down in Kallithea, an area between the city centre and port, and then primed ourselves for the gig. Somewhere close to 6pm we headed for the Olympic station of Irini via the Attiko metro, a lesson in patience and resilience if there ever was one. Now let me say, the Athenian metro is very good, the stations are well maintained, the trains run with reasonable efficiency and the system makes sense. The issue for us, which we only realised once our train terminated far from our destination was then several stations on the line we were travelling on were 'out of service' , (thanks for the notice). A simple 25 minute run turned into a multi-change, 20 station, near 90 minute escapade, where following Greek speaking, U2 t-shirt wearing, individuals meant that you were on the right track. Never the less, with a touch of guile and some good 'ole internal fortitude we made it to the Olympic precint by 7pm, in time enough to see Snow Patrol do their set and warm up the crowd significantly for only their second Greek date ever.
Olympic precinct - Athens - Greece
Olympic precinct - Athens - Greece
V - Olympic precinct - Athens - Greece
Olympic stadium - 'ready to go' - Athens - Greece
The boys doing their thing
The band at work
Mysterious ways
City of blinding lights intro
'Crazy tonight'
Now for those that have never been to a U2 gig let me just lay it down for you in a few words, 'it's an EPIC event '. Filling stadiums in the vicinity of 50,000-70,000 punters night after night is no mean feat but then being able to do it year on year is incredible. The stadium, whilst not at capacity on this night, would definitely have been in the 50K-60K range and the crowd were obviously in the mood from the moment the boys walked out. Whilst I have seen the guys play in Sydney a few times, for Zoo TV in '93, Popmart in '97 and twice in '06 for their Vertigo tour, it's the first time that I've seen them play outside of Australia, so the setting, the environment and the fact that I was finally able to get my cousin along to a gig, all made this a fantastic night for me...and for me, they didn't disappoint. It was a great mix of old and new with the highlights for me being Beautiful Day, I Will Follow, City of Blinding Lights, One, With or Without You and Moment of Surrender, but as always, after a now rarely played version of MLK was being faded out and the familiar chorale like synthesized chords opened the way for Where the Streets Have No Name, well, all I could do was immerse myself in the moment and watch the rest of the crowd come along for the ride. To me the live version of the song always felt like it was able to lift you from where you were and take you to a specific location or perhaps it was even akin to the building of a musical landscape. I've read quotes from Bono where he likens the song to 'sketching a location', and that description to me feels about right. In any case, on this night the location was the Olympic stadium in Athens and I'd managed to fulfill the promise that I made to myself years earlier that if I had the means and if U2 ever played a gig in the vicinity of Belgrade, well, then I'd be taking V along as a big 'thankyou' for introducing me to them nearly 20 years ago - MISSION COMPLETED!
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