Ever since Shai introduced me to Pain of Salvation back in 2004 I became a great admirer of Gildenlöw's work. I think he’s a brilliant composer and always stays very true to his messages and thoughts. His presentation is oftentimes very dramatic, but he manages to pull it through while rarely being too much over the top. (Said exception: That part in The Big Machine from One Hour by the Concrete Lake where he roars "I AM JUST A WHEEL!" always makes me crack up).

Last week I had the pleasure of seeing Pain of Salvation live in Greece, and other than attending the concert itself, I had the opportunity of striking up a small conversation with Daniel Gildenlöw, and meeting the rest of the gang. But let me start at the beginning -

This small escapade started when my friend Leah asked me whether I want to see a PoS concert the week after. I was in the middle of my semester, completely swamped up in schoolwork with hardly any time for breathe, let alone go out. So naturally I said "yes" and ordered a plane ticket to Greece.

The day of the show I've decided that if I flew all the way to Greece from Israel, I might as well pop in to say hello, so there we found ourselves strolling in high noon through the very shady parts of Athens on our way to Fuzz club. In my mind I had already devised several nefarious plans to counterfeit any and all of the barricades that will stand in my way. I was not disappointed. Shortly after I've encountered my first barrier: a completely open door to the club.

Soon it was overcome, and in a while I found myself talking with the tour manager. Not long after, I had already made several new friends: Nikos from the power metal band The Silent Rage, Mina from the gothic metal group The Rain I Bleed and Chris Entee, sound engineer and guitar player from a band whose name I don't remember, but will soon check and correct. We also ran into the support act Scar Symmetry, which led to us spending the day after with them. That must have been an odd scene - Two Israelis, two Greeks and five Swedes sitting in an Irish pub in Athens sipping beer under the sun.

Mr. Gildenlöw was very down to earth, but even more surprising –much taller than me, which is no easy feat in general, but I suppose much easier for those of the Nordic folk. We stayed in for the soundcheck, and then for the show which was in one word: Brilliant. First of all, thanks to our aforementioned friend Nikos we managed to get the best seats in the house, on our very own comfy couch, right next to the sound engineer. The concert sound itself was dead on – every instrument was clearly heard and no note was ever murky or muddy. The set opened with what I gathered to be some sort of children's nursery song in Swedish, followed by the much more dramatic opening of Remedy Lane.

At first I was afraid that most of this show's setlist will be taken from their latest album Road Salt One, but I was happy to find out that it included many songs from The Perfect Element, Be, Entropia and even the stuff from Road Salt and Scarsick worked out pretty well live. In the encore proceeded to perform a mix of strange covers with Daniel playing the drums: The Beatles' Come Together and Stevie Wonder's Superstition with Joahn on vocals, as well as two Dio Covers – Don't Talk To Strangers with Léo Margarit on vocals, and a jazzy version of Holy Diver.

I was surprised to find out that both Léo and Johan are excellent singers. Daniel is very charismatic as a frontman, seamlessly switching from the very dark topics of his songs to harmless band-crowd banter and back again. Not unlike Solstice Coil, at times.

The entire experience was exhilarating and reminded me why I love music so much. During the show there was a sense of connection in the air, and not in an odd hippy way, but in a deeper, more spiritual manner. It reminded me why I love music so much, and how sometimes all it takes is the right notes to reach out and touch someone from a distance.

I did end up giving Daniel a copy of our upcoming album Natural Causes. So is there a chance you'll get t to see a Solstice Coil and Pain of Salvation cooperation in the future? Time will tell.