Puta Volcano Post Full-Set Livestream Video From An Club in Athens
Posted in Bootleg Theater on February 16th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
I know everybody’s sad there are no live shows. Believe me, I know it. I know it every day, over and over again. I miss concerts like I miss the members of my family whose house I haven’t been in for a year. But can we pause all that misery for a second and appreciate the absolute age of wonders in which we live?
I’ve never been to An Club in the anarcho-refuge of Exarchia. I’ve never seen Puta Volcano live. And but for financial constraints, neither is an impossibility in a (more) perfect world, but I watch the Athenian four-piece’s recorded live set to support last year’s AMMA (discussed here), and with the pro-shop sound and video, I wish I could go back and deliver an “it gets better” message to my teenage bootleg-loving self. I imagine going back in time and saying that there will come a day when all these bands will basically start issuing their own soundboard recordings and not only will videos and audio like this exist, but it’ll be free to stream. Of course, there’s a cost when one considers what’s been given up in order to usher this age of alt-experience live music, but I’m just trying to look on the bright side here. I know lives have been lost. I get it. I check the numbers every day.
You want the truth? I’m tired. I’m tired of the whole thing. I’m tired of masks. I’m tired of social distancing, restricted travel. I’m even tired of Anthony “The Fauch” Fauci. I’m tired of pretending each loss of life is a tragedy or like I can imagine the scale of loss. I’m so tired. Tired of the secret thanatos in all of us rooting for the virus. I was tired of 2020 and I’m already tired of 2021. I want real life back.
The corresponding truth? None of that matters. Me being sick of the plague has no bearing on the increase or decline in new cases, new mutations, any of it. Could not be less consequential.
Take what you can get. That’s the moral of the story. I wish like hell I had some pseudo-zen social media bullshit wisdom to share with you about living through this time, like it’s some learning experience from which to draw strength. It isn’t, and that toxic-ass selfishness is part of why we’re in such a fucking mess. I wish I could believe any of that, like I look at the bear in Grizzly Man and see a friend when Werner Herzog sees boredom and a vague interest in food. I don’t. That guy got eaten by the fucking bear and it’s not supposed to make sense. Carl Sagan said that the universe does not owe us conformity to our expectations of it. It ain’t about you and it ain’t about me. Don’t look for answers.
So take what you can get. Eat what you can eat, drink what you can drink, fuck when you can fuck. None of it means anything anyway and sooner or later whether it’s the plague or you’re hit by a bus you’re gonna be fucking dead and it won’t matter anymore. You might as well enjoy good music while you can. In four billion years the sun will swallow the planet and everything that was ever done by our pitiful species in its probably-embarrasingly-short run will be burned away. Blow off work — shit, quit your job — watch Puta Volcano for an hour, and if you can escape the volume of your own thoughts by giving it some competition through the volume of your headphones, do it. That’s paradise, that hour.
That’s all I’ve got. AMMA ruled. This is a good band playing a cool room and putting on a killer show to an imaginary crowd (what seems to have been a substantial crew notwithstanding). Enjoy it while you can.
Puta Volcano, Live at An Club, Athens
Puta Volcano on ‘Live at An Club’:
Transforming a legendary venue, one that has nurtured the musical underground scene of downtown Athens, into a starship sailing towards an event horizon. Instead of focusing on the undeniable bleakness of our present, we’d like to think that initiatives like this hint at an evolved meta-gig. One where in the future, we can connect people moshing in the venue with people all over the world streaming it at home.
PUTA VOLCANO at AN CLUB | STAGES A/LIVE
STAGES A/LIVE, a series of concerts in support of the independent Greek music scene, presents Puta Volcano on the stage of AN Club, the legendary basement club of Athens, with an explosive digital live show.
The essence of Puta Volcano, a band with a powerful stage presence and crystalline sound, lies not in appearances but in the very being of their sound, created collaboratively by four fanatical bandmates: Steve S. on drums, Alex Pi on guitar, Bookies on bass, and Anna on vocals.
Turn the volume up and tune in Sunday, February 14, at 9 pm (EET) at the Onassis Foundation YouTube Channel. Until we can all be together again at a live concert, music will be bringing us closer, even if we’re far apart.
Concept & Curation: Christos Sarris
Production Coordinators: Smaragda Dogani, Elena Choremi
Production: Onassis Stegi
PUTA VOLCANO
Anna Papathanasiou: vocals
Alex Pi: guitar
Steve Stefanidis: drums
Bookies: bass
Management: Mihalis Kaloudis
Anna Papathanasiou’s styling: Philippe G.Missas
AN CLUB
Location Manager: Panagiotis Kaparidis
Art Direction: Eva Kolomvou
F.O.H Sound Engineer: Tasos Malliouras (aka. Anastasios Tsompanis)
Electrician: Charalampos Tsimpanis
PRODUCTION EXECUTION
Production: Marina Danezi
Production Manager: Steven Elpiziotis
FILMING
Director – Camera: Christos Sarris
Director of Photography: Evan Maragkoudakis
Cameras: Dimitris Zivopoulos, Orfeas Kalafatis, Filippos Zamidis, Koralia Dogani
Lighting Technician: Menelaos Orfanos
Recording Engineer – Mixing Engineer: Jacopo Focas
Editor: Tryfon Karatzinas
Colorist: Manthos Sardis
Photography: Pinelopi Gerasimou
ONASSIS STEGI
Technical Manager: Lefteris Karabilas
Technical Director & Project Support: Phil Hills
Lighting Technicians: Pavlos Pappas, Giorgos Tsitsigos
Stage Technicians: Panos Koutsoumanos, Platonas Tsamados
Production Manager – Production Management Consultant: Dimitra Dernikou
Production Coordinators: Smaragda Dogani, Elena Choremi
Line Production: Irilena Tsami, Ioulia Stamouli
