Between the 12th and the 14th of April, Paul Dianno and his band, the Killers, visited Athens for one and only performance during their world tour. The whole thing apart from some minor problems that occurred worked out very well. The concert finally took place at the "AN Club" on the 14th of April and not the day before as it was scheduled (venue problems, but everything finally went fine).
Two Greek bands, "Dark Nova" and "Black Sun" were the opening acts and stayed on stage for about an hour, these bands deserve congratulations, their performance was absolutely great. Dianno and the Killers appeared on stage about 21:30. With Cliff Evans on the guitars, Pete Newdeck on drums, Markus Thurston guitars and Daryus Kaye on the bass, Killers gave an extremely powerful and full of energy performance in front of a very passionate and very close audience.
They played 11 tracks. 9 were from the Maiden era and two from their own albums. The reasons Paul chose this set list are obvious and you can very easily understand them when reading Paul's interview. They played songs like Killers, Wrathchild, Prowler, Sanctuary, Phantom of the Opera, Running Free, Remember Tomorrow and others.
All from the 1980-81 period, the one where Paul DiAnno was a member of Iron Maiden.
The total time they played was one hour and 15 minutes and they also had an encore with two more songs. Paul has changed a lot through the years, even the vocals in Sanctuary seemed more brutal, but it was made to us very clear that he went on stage determined to give us an unforgettable performance. Sadly he announced once more: "Three more gigs and we'll stop playing these bullshits! We'll stop playing f**king Iron Maiden" and everybody was let down. Generally speaking we must admit that even so many years have passed, Paul has never lost the magic that he had back there at the golden Maiden years.
Looking at the reactions from the audience it seemed as though they believed they were watching the original Maiden line-up, which is great! Congratulations to the boys!
Now personally I would honestly would like to thank the band: Paul Di'Anno, Cliff Evans, Pete Newdeck, Markus Thurston and Daryus Kaye (for becoming a real brother to me)! Lea James Hart, for being a friend to me, supporting and helping, me in person and Alexander The Great (our Fan Club). Makis, owner of Dionysos Metal Cafe and Texas Rock Club for everything! Kostas Kiriakakis and Viky (his wife), for being so friendly and of course for their support! Eleni and Lida, great friends and supporters of me. Dimos for his phone call! Many many more people, for being supportive and friendly, like: Kostas, Christina, Olga, Tasos, Nikos, Ilias, all boys and girls on our Party in Texas and Dionysos, and of course everyone I may forget... We had a great time in Athens! Thanks for everything!!!
Manolis "In Heaven" Varouhas
