We got to the place a bit late, but right by the door the guard comforted us that “ the band have just gone to have a bath” and that nothing was going on yet. so we sit down with our colas and we started looking around. I was surprised by the audience's high age average and a low attendance. The point of booking of tickets in advance was only financial then. As the the age we managed to observe two grannies aged 50 who were sitting in the other side of the club for the whole concert. “Piwinica 21”hasn't changed I'm afraid – the scene is set low and the result is poor visibility, but better sounding then it used to be.

After one hour of our waiting the band finally appeared on the darkened stage and we could see Simone Hellvis Salvatori wearing black shirt with a bright, wide tie, with a mafia hairdo:) I think it's his stable stage uniform, as I've seen him wearing the same outfit on several shots in the Net... From the first moment he made enormous impression – he started singing bathed in a single ray of light making him visible in the darkness with his head bent on the old-fashioned microphone... Extremely charismatic figure creating a specific atmosphere by his marvelous voice, mimicry and hand gestures. From the very beginning one could have an impression that s/he participates in a cult poetic meeting; the impression was additionally strengthened by accompanying piano. The next instruments and two other musicians appeared during the following tracks. The fact that there were few people added to the cameral atmosphere of the event. Simone was drinking beer, first he was standing, then he sat down and played acoustic guitar. The performance of the tracks was even clearer than on the CD, more touching and astonishing...and it had a kinda atmosphere of the significant events from the history of most marvelous Viking rulers...

Simone has a unique, strong voice that passes from the monumental singing to the sharp, hypnotic whisper fluently. Just after he had performed the first song he reckoned that we are wonderful audience and he asked how to say thank you in Polish and we were clapping as strong as we could to mask the minute number of the listeners and to tell them what unique band they really are. As first he said two sentences and it was like he would have a poor contact with the audience, but in the course of time he warmed up, especially while he was commenting – with an agrowing embarrassment – the behavior of a couple which was moshing and waving a symbol of Satan right in front of his face.

In the background on the right side of the stage there was a black-white film projected, it was a “Raging Bull” of 1980' by Martin Scorsese featuring Robert de Niro. The film with its prevailing airy atmosphere suited the concert perfectly, it was a mutual complementation of meanings, semiotic symbiosis. In the film there is a phrase “My kingdom for a horse”, so it's the title for one of the Spiritual Front tracks...

I was particularity enchanted by the words "Jesus died in Poznan" that were intertwined in one of the refrains of "Jesus died in Las Vegas" – it was a good trick, working in every city :)

According to Managarm played "Bastard angel", "Cruisin", "No kisses on the mouth", "I walk the (dead)line", "Jesus died in Las Vegas" and something more of the previous album, bu unfortunately I'm unable to remember all the songs...

The whole performance lasted for about an hour, and , unfortunately, they didn't play my favorite "Love throught vaseline" – or perhaps they did as an encore, but we were so tired after DM Party that took place on Saturday that we didn't have strength to clap till the end of the world and wait. Anyway, it was a special concert, I give it 100%. And there should have been several hundred people on such an event and not something less than 100.

The text was published by permission of ebm.stu.pl

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• Spiritual Front - Rotten Roma Casino - 2011-03-24 (Music reviews)
• Kunigunda Lunaria Festival 2007 - 2007-05-19 (Live reports)

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