A Greek crooner is showered in red and pink carnations by customers in an Athens taverna as they sway to his songs of love and passion.

But suddenly the flower-throwing of fans in high heels and sparkly lame outfits gives way to a wild crescendo of plate smashing.

Piles of crockery are broken at the singer's feet – a decades-old tradition of late-night folk revelry that has survived dictatorship, the Greek debt crisis and now the coronavirus.

"The Greek mentality is different from that of foreigners. When it comes to entertainment ... you have to have a lot of noise," said Christos Gounaris, who manages singers on the Athens folk scene.

It is the night of the Epiphany, a major religious holiday in Greece, and large tables are set out in front of the stage of the tavern in Peristeri in the working-class west of Athens.

Late-night bouzouki taverns like this are named after the lute-like instrument originally brought over by Greek refugees from what is now modern Türkiye in the 1920s.

The singer in the leopard-print shirt bringing the place to its feet is Pavlos Spiropoulos, who drives a truck during the week and sings long, tragic love songs at the weekend.

"When people throw plates and flowers at me I feel happy, because I feel I'm doing a good job and that the public loves me," said the 51-year-old, who has been singing since the age of 18.

'Let off steam'

Breaking plates "is a way for customers to let off steam," added the tavern's 56-year-old owner Vassilis Miggas.

"It's also a way to show the singers: 'You're good, I like that!'" he told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"We throw flowers and plates for those who put the most passion" into their performance, said Gounaris.

Plates are also broken at weddings to bring good luck to the bride and groom, or at christenings.

For some, breaking plates and throwing flowers is a way of showing wealth and social status. But now they are often included in the bill, costing the owners about 3 euros ($3.29) per dozen, before tax.

The practice reached its zenith in the 1960s, its popularity bolstered by appearances in iconic films such as "Never on Sunday" starring legendary Greek actress Melina Mercouri, with its theme song winning an Oscar in 1961.

At the time, 100,000 plates were broken every month and dozens of small companies sprang up to mass produce the made-to-break crockery, according to the "Piata yia spasimo" company, whose name means "Plates for smashing."

Based in nearby Piraeus, the family-run company, founded over 40 years ago, is one of the very last still making these plaster plates.

There is no definitive theory on the origins of the custom.

Gounaris said it evolved in the 1930s out of a previous tradition of knife-throwing.

"But people got hurt," he said, with patrons then throwing balloons and chocolates before settling on plates.

'We forget our problems'

Today the tradition is also a draw for tourists in some of the taverns in Athens's historic district of Plaka, or on islands popular with revelers such as Mykonos.

But it has also clung on among Greeks, weathering the ups and downs of the country's history even if it has lost some of its popularity amid safety concerns for artists.

Banned by the military dictatorship that seized power in 1967, Greeks started smashing plates again as soon as democracy was restored in 1974.

The squeeze on incomes during the near-decade-long Greek debt crisis was a blow, as was the coronavirus pandemic that forced restaurants, bars and entertainment venues to close for months.

But Spiropoulos is not worried.

"We're full (tonight)," he said.

In Greece "we drink, we go out to forget our problems!" he shouted.