DEATH ANGEL Exhilarates Grateful Hometown Fans

By Aniruddh "Andrew" Bansal

My rating:

(Photo courtesy of Scion A/V)

February 26th 2011, Slim's, San Francisco CA: After some great shows across the continent on the North American Retribution Tour, the last night of the tour was in Death Angel's hometown of San Francisco. I always kept hearing about how crazy Bay Area thrash shows are, even to this day. It's something I always wanted to experience and never really got a chance to, but tonight that was about to change. They put on some seriously high-octane shows down in So Cal, and I could only imagine what it would be like when they take the stage in front of their home crowd. By the end of the night, I had been part of a show that was even better than I had expected it to be.

This was my first time at Slim's, and for starters it was great to note that this was an all ages venue which is always a great thing for a thrash metal show. I was quite surprised by the fact that there were no local openers on the bill tonight, specially because they've been having local openers at every other show on the tour. It was perhaps an indication that this show was the biggest of the tour in terms of venue size and popularity, and that the venue didn't even need local openers to bring their own fans to the show. I can't say enough good things about this venue, as they even had free water available to whoever wanted it, and the merch tables were in close proximity to the stage, giving everyone a chance to check out the items on sale, unlike most LA club venues where the merch stands are out of visibility range and the bar is given utmost importance.

As it turned out, Bonded By Blood opened up this sold out show, and I was pleasantly surprised by the number of people who were into their music, far greater than the LA and OC gigs. They changed their set list as well, switching around a couple of the new tunes. As always, frontman Mauro Gonzalez did his best to get the crowd involved, only this time they did in fact respond to him as a few of them took part in singing the chorus for "Feed The Beast". With that they bid goodbye for the final time on this tour. I would call it the most successful tour they've done thus far in terms of their performance and the ease with which they fit the bill alongside Death Angel and Lazarus A.D. In addition, I thought the announcement of Mauro as the permanent new vocalist made a huge difference, and he was no longer a mere touring member like he was on the Forbidden tour, thus putting an even greater effort into the show every night.

Lazarus A.D. were up next, and they absolutely killed it. The new songs sound better and better every time I hear them live, and the fact that they played them every night for the best part of four weeks must have contributed towards their incredibly tight performance tonight. With their new sound that focusses a lot on guitarist Dan Gapen's clean vocals, they now have two frontmen in the band instead of one. On the other side of the stage, Alex Lackner on rhythm guitar adds greatly to the band's overall stage presence. Despite the impact of the new material, the highlight of their set was most definitely the twin guitar harmony in the middle of the song "Revolution". Overall, I am extremely pleased with Lazarus A.D.'s performance on this tour, and I commend them for picking just the perfect tour as the first in support of "Black Rivers Flow".

Chants of "Death Angel! Death Angel!" rang loud inside Slim's as the crowd anticipated their heroes hitting the stage soon. This is exactly the kind of atmosphere every Death Angel show deserves and I was happy to finally see it materialize tonight. The excitement levels hit the roof as Death Angel took the stage, opening up with "I Chose The Sky". The new tunes were killer as usual, but tunes like "Evil Priest", "Mistress Of Pain" and "Thrown To The Wolves" were the ones that really drove this crowd into a frenzy. Frontman Mark Osegueda was talking to the crowd a lot more than he did on the previous shows I saw on this tour, making it quite clear that he truly felt at home here tonight. But unlike how some other bands do it, the talking didn't have a negative effect on their set time as they still played the 18 songs they were supposed to play. From among the new tunes, "This Hate", "Claws In So Deep" and "Opponents At Sides" sounded amazing. Rob and Mark's vocal harmonies came across as intense and powerful. Ted got a chance to take center stage as well, to start off the song "Seemingly Endless Time". He was flawless on the rhythm guitar. The newest members of the band, bassist Damien Sisson and drummer Will Carroll also did their bits to perfection.

"Thrashers" was the highlight of their set, and the most memorable chapter of this show. Mark invited the guys from Lazarus A.D. and Bonded By Blood to join them on stage, and they seemed to be having the time of their lives sharing the stage with a band like Death Angel. After this the band came back out again for the encore, and thanked the highly energetic crowd. I felt that the set was a great mix of tunes from their entire catalog, and I was happy to see as many as seven songs from the latest album. If anything, they should include another song or two from it. I would love to see "Volcanic" in the set next time. And staying true to their down to earth demeanor, they invited all the fans to the after party at the Cat Club, a venue three blocks down the street. The after-party was a very relaxed affair. All members of the band had smiles of satisfaction on their faces, and rightly so, because even though we are not yet through the first quarter of the year, I foresee this tour to end up as one of the best, if not the best tour of 2011.

A fitting finale to a tremendous tour, in the home of thrash.

Catch Death Angel on the 2nd leg of their North American Retribution tour!

04/08/11 Last Day Saloon - Santa Rosa, CA
04/09/11 Dante's - Portland, OR
04/10/11 El Corazon - Seattle, WA
04/11/11 Biltmore - Vancouver, BC - CANADA
04/12/11 Dickens - Calgary, AB - CANADA
04/13/11 Pawn Shop - Edmonton, AB - CANADA
04/14/11 The Exchange - Regina, SK - CANADA
04/15/11 The Osbourne Village Inn - Winnipeg, MB - CANADA
04/16/11 Station 4 - St. Paul, MN
04/18/11 Larimer Lounge - Denver, CO
04/19/11 Club Vegas - Salt Lake City, UT
04/22/11 Ventura Theater - Ventura, CA
04/23/11 Avalon Theater - Santa Clara, CA

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