Live Report: Sanctuary | 22.04.26 | @ Piraeus Club Academy

On Wednesday, April 22, the venue that hosted it was Piraeus Club Academy (Facebook, Instagram) — the long-awaited return of Sanctuary to Athens after nearly 9 years, as part of their tour celebrating the band's 40th anniversary.

Back after 9 years!

A fitting sonic choice for support were Darklon, who benefit considerably from the presence of their new singer Βασίλης Χρέπας, who unfurled more and more onstage as the night went on, their set peaking with the penultimate song, titled "Redeemer".

The last time we saw Sanctuary in Athens was July 2017. In December of that same year, Warrel Dane died suddenly. Their scheduled return in 2023 was cancelled, while just a few days ago, on April 10, they released their first new song in almost 12 years, the excellent single "Not Of The Living".

With three masterpieces to their name, a flawless — and merciless — setlist was a given. They performed their legendary second album, "Into The Mirror Black" (1990), in full, a decision that let us hear songs that hadn't been played live in a very long time. On either side of it they placed picks from their equally classic debut "Refuge Denied" (1987): "Die For My Sins" and "Battle Angels" to open, "White Rabbit" and "Veil Of Disguise" to kick off the final stretch. Perhaps surprisingly, they saved their most recent material for the finale: "Not Of The Living" live for the first time ever, and from the excellent comeback "The Year The Sun Died" (2014), "Arise And Purify" and the title track. That hat trick was a relief, because it's a shame when a band doesn't stand behind its current material, i.e. its creative present. The encore with "Soldiers Of Steel", with those legendary vocals of his, worked as the perfect capstone to the evening.

The dominant presences onstage were singer Joseph Michael and drummer Dave Budbill.

The former has taken on the admittedly impossible task of replacing the one and only Warrel Dane. With that in mind, he's thankfully a successful choice: vocally tireless across the 95 minutes of their set, he manages to sound quite a lot like Dane, but not so much as to be a clone without a personality of his own, which would probably only have produced an awkward, macabre shiver. He strikes a successful balance between his duty to help bring the Sanctuary sound to life — a big part of which is Dane's voice — and his own personal choices, which make it clear he's made these songs his own and knows exactly how to handle them. On the between-songs front, he had no qualms about launching into spontaneous, funny asides that occasionally flirted entertainingly with incoherence. Personally, I was glad he wasn't a self-important bore. It suited the job he had to do far better that he came across as not taking himself seriously — he took the job itself seriously, did the best he possibly could, and the music spoke for itself.

As for Budbill, one of the two remaining classic members of the band, he was a genuine joy both to hear and to watch. The ferocity with which he pounded the drums made the songs sound as flattening as they deserve to, and it was truly fantastic to watch him thrashing about with passion while he played. He gave it everything and looked to be enjoying it to the hilt — and we were right there with him.

Sanctuary have left their mark with their songs

Sanctuary have left their mark with their songs, and every show of theirs is a guaranteed best of: a succession of classics like that can only inspire awe. At the same time, the scale of the loss of a singer and lyricist as towering as Warrel Dane is non-negotiable, and the fact that at some point the crowd started chanting his name was nothing more than the bare minimum, self-evident tribute. It is, however, a happy state of affairs that the band — old and new members alike — honours its past as that past deserves and, judging by "Not Of The Living", has a future worthy of it.