By Andrew Bansal
Jan. 23rd 2012, House of Blues, Anaheim CA: Usually, post-NAMM Monday is an extremely depressing day for me. During NAMM I get to say hello to almost all of my favorite musicians, and all of a sudden they are gone. But that wasn’t the case this time, as I headed back to Anaheim to witness the unbeatable line-up of Anthrax, Testament and Death Angel on the second leg of their North American touring run. The first leg of the tour was a resounding success wherever it went, and it came as no surprise to me that this show was sold out well in advance of its actual date.
The line of people waiting to get in was easily the longest I’d ever seen at this venue. Their wait wasn’t too long, as the doors opened promptly at 6.45 and everyone rushed in to get the best possible spot on the general admission floor. The lights went out at 7.30 and the stage curtains parted, signaling the start of Death Angel’s set, much to everyone’s delight. The veteran Bay Area thrashers wasted no time in setting the tone for the evening, opening up with “I Chose The Sky”. From the latest album Relentless Retribution they went straight back to The Ultra-Violence, to belt out the ever-amazing “Mistress Of Pain”. The crowd was totally into it at this point, and it only got better from here on. They did two more songs from the new album, and ended the set with two staples “Seemingly Endless Time” and “Thrown To The Wolves”.
It was great to see that they changed the set list from the first leg, and gave their fans something different. Through an excellent mix of new and old material, Death Angel presented themselves to this OC House of Blues crowd in the best manner possible, and brought their absolute A game. I still feel that the set lengths of the bands on this line-up are a bit lopsided. 30 minutes is way too short for a band like Death Angel, and I’m more than a 100 per cent sure that no one here would have complained had they played a 45-minute set instead. Nonetheless, Death Angel rampaged their way through their short, high-octane set and left the stage.
Set list:
1. I Chose The Sky
2. Mistress Of Pain
3. Truce
4. Death Of The Meek
5. Seemingly Endless Time
6. Thrown To The Wolves
After a 20-minute changeover, Testament hit the stage all guns blazing with “The Preacher”. The classic opening riff of this tune was sufficiently powerful to blow the roof off this place and get everyone in true thrash mode. There were moshpits and crowd-surfers galore, and when I looked around the venue in an attempt to absorb the atmosphere, it was impossible for me to find a head that wasn’t banging. The band followed up this killer opening tune with “The New Order”, and “The Persecuted Won’t Forget”, going from strength to strength with everything they played. And just like Death Angel, they also made a change to their set list, including “Practice What You Preach” for this leg of the tour. This was a glaring omission from their set on the first leg, and as soon as the second round of dates was announced, I could almost predict that they would bring this one back into the mix.
For me, “Souls Of Black” has always been one of the highlights of any Testament set, and this gig was no different in that regard. It’s a welcome albeit brief reprieve from the breakneck thrash of their other tunes, and it’s always fun to watch Greg Christian take centre stage to play the bass intro. The rest of this extremely crushing 70-minute set consisted of fan favorites like “Into The Pit”, “More Than Meets The Eye”, “D.N.R.” and a few others. Performance-wise, they were completely flawless, Chuck Billy was perfect on vocals and air-guitar, leading the band from the front, while his band mates complemented him brilliantly on their respective instruments. Alex Skolnick is one guitarist I’ll never get tired of watching, and when he combines with Eric Peterson, it gets even better. Gene Hoglan played the drums with the minimum of effort or expression, but his impact was clearly there to be heard and felt. All in all, an excellent performance from this perennially amazing band.
Set list:
1. The Preacher
2. The New Order
3. The Persecuted Won’t Forget
4. Practice What You Preach
5. Over The Wall
6. Souls Of Black
7. Into The Pit
8. Electric Crown
9. Henchman Ride
10.More Than Meets The Eye
Encore:
11.D.N.R.
12.3 Days In Darkness
13.Disciples Of The Watch
Just about as soon as everyone had sufficiently recovered from that Testament onslaught, the “Worship” intro greeted our ears as Anthrax took the stage, opening with two songs from their fantastic new album Worship Music. I’m so deeply in love with the album at this point that the timing for this show couldn’t have been any better for me, and I’m sure pretty much all Anthrax fans feel the same way. “Fight ‘Em Till You Can’t” is my favorite 2011 song and I definitely enjoyed it at this gig more than on any of the previous occasions I saw it live. Quite simply put, everything was clicking for the band during this stellar performance. Joey Belladonna seemed to be having the time of his life, putting his entire effort into each song and having a constant smile on his face. Besides doing the signing, he was also picking out cameras from people in the front row and helped out their video by adding a little on-stage point of view to it.
The five songs from Worship Music sounded absolutely terrific, and I loved every bit of it. But an Anthrax show isn’t an Anthrax show without tunes like “Caught In A Mosh”, “Antisocial”, “Got The Time” and “Indians”. Fun was had by all while these were being played. Even though you might be a fan of a band’s entire catalog, when you go to see them live, there’s always one song that’s your favorite, one song you go completely nuts for. “Indians” is most certainly my Anthrax song, and it’s not even an exaggeration for me to say that I lost my mind when they played it at this gig.
But there was a lot more to this Anthrax set, as it included the not-so-staple tunes like “N.F.L.”, “Among The Living”, “I’m The Man”, and most notably “Medusa”, which was the most pleasant surprise in this set list, and one of the best memories from the gig. The band played their last song “I Am The Law”, and thanked the crowd for turning up in huge numbers. “Long Live Rock ‘N Roll!” shouted Joey, as the Rainbow song of the same title brought an end to the night.
Overall, all three bands combined to give us their best, and this show tested out my head-banging stamina like none other. It was an incredible experience. This tour is still in its first week, and is an absolute must-see event for all metalheads.
Rating: 9.5/10
Set list:
1. Earth On Hell
2. Fight ‘Em Till You Can’t
3. Caught In A Mosh
4. Antisocial
5. I’m Alive
6. The Devil You Know
7. Indians
8. In The End
9. Got The Time
10.N.F.L.
11.Medusa
Encore:
12.Among The Living
13.Metal Thrashing Mad
14.I’m The Man
15.Refuse/Resist
16.I Am The Law
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