Iced Earth – Alive In Athens

I came across Iced Earth around 1998.
At that time, I was already into power metal through my favourite band of the genre, Blind Guardian.
When I got an original copy of Blind Guardian´s live album ‘Tokyo Tales’ and read the album credits, the German band extensively cited a North American band called Iced Earth that, apparently, had toured Japan with them when the album was recorded.
Also, and following the release of their latest and magnificent ‘Nightfall In Middle Earth’, Blind Guardian had toured Europe with Iced Earth again as a guest act.
At the same time, turned out that one of the waiters working in the canteen of the chemistry faculty I was attending was also into metal and, when I told him I was searching for some Iced Earth album in order to give the band a go, he lent me their latest studio album at the time, ‘Something Wicked This Way Comes’ (pre- internet era, guys. That was how you met people and new bands in prehistory!)
So, apparently, stars were aligned.
I will talk in the near future about ‘Something Wicked This Way Comes’ but, today, we are posed to discuss the live album that was released straight after it.
Recorded in January 1999, during the sold- out nights of the 23th and the 24th in Athens, Greece, and released later that year, the album has become with the time a touchstone in Iced Earth’s story and to some, including me, is still the closing chapter of their most artistically successful era.
Made up by a luxurious digipack edition comprised by three CDs, and graced by a bloody cool cover in the best heavy metal fashion, the meaty set list is made of an impressive thirty one songs that review all the band’s career up till that point, including their, for me, best albums: ‘The Dark Saga’ and the aforementioned ‘Something Wicked This Way Comes’.
As happened with their latest studio albums to date, the engine that roared beneath the bonnet in ‘Alive In Athens’ is mainly powered by the killer riffs created by the band’s mastermind, Jon Schaffer, and the uniquely distinctive roaring voice of Matt Barlow.
It’s not like the roles of James McDonough (bass), Larry Tarnowsky (lead guitar) or Brent Smedley (drums) were not important here, but you need to acknowledge that the identity of the band at that time was defined by Schaffer and Barlow.
Schaffer’s skilful and fast- paced riffing makes the sound of the band to shift towards the thrash spectra of metal, but always keeping a foot on the brake pedal, enough to wisely dose the whole thing with cool melodies and ambient, as it is clearly appreciated in songs like ‘Dark Saga’, or ‘A Question Of Heaven’.
Barlow, on the other hand, is in state of grace, showed here that his performances in the studio albums were a fair reflection of what he was capable of and, in songs like ‘Angels Holocaust’, ‘The Path I Chose’ or ‘Violate’ he blows off the roof of the gig.
Also, the live setting increases the energy in songs that already sounded powerful in studio, like the fast- paced ‘The Last Laugh’, ‘Vengeance Is Mine’, the opener ‘Burning Times’, or the awesome trilogy that formed ‘Prophecy’, ‘Birth Of The Wicked’ and ‘The Coming Course’, and you can tell how this energy is ed on to the audience, making it go crazy… and giving you the proof that you’re in front of a great live album witnessing how the audience reacts to the energy flowing from the stage.
It is really hard to choose only a song from such an extensive and great set list but, if I had to choose, I will stay with the rendition of one of the band’s best songs ever, and their own epic “Dante’s Inferno”.
All in all, a great way of getting into the best era of one of the best metal bands from the States, one of my favourite metal live albums, and probably one of the greatest metal live albums of the nineties.