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2006-06-21 DE – Essen - Zeche Carl

80’s revival – the second part! Because the Bay Area thrash veterans EXODUS are up to their tricks since 1982! The reunion was skeptically eyed at that time but with their comeback album Tempo Of The Damned they silenced all critics. Since that the cats are hardly to stop and landed another strike with the last years Shovel Headed Kill Machine. As it’s known, Rick Hunolt left and left his place for Lee Altus. Drum legend Paul Bostaph replaced Tom Hunting, who left for healthy reasons and guitar roadie Rob Duke took over the micro. Only axe-man Gary Holt is the calming and stable influence in EXODUS over all these years. And finally I could catch the guys…

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:. THE VERY END ~ filled the local support slot. I have to confess, these thrashing death metallers from the Ruhr-area passed me unnoticed so far. Just our reviewer Seb got recently the chance to see them performing live. However, behind the “young” band well-known “old” faces are to find that already caused some furors in bands such as Night In Gale, Ninnghizhidda and Destillery. Visibly proud to open for Exodus THE VERY END served the full broadside right from the beginning. Well-suiting the terminator intro theme the band kicked off with Black To Come, a great crusher and smashing hit that doesn’t take any prisoner and is exemplarily of what the band is about: brutal Death/thrash metal with heavily low-tuned guitars. Grooves as fucking hell! Just great! No growls but thrash-like gritty singing with some clean passages, melodic parts and much dynamics in every song. Awesome! And a nice practice for your neck ;) Stupidly the amp of guitarist Volker didn’t want to follow the band’s attitude and switched off his lights, what caused some laughs and a little break. THE VERY END shrugged off and wanted to bridge this situation with a song, where the second guitar isn’t missed that heavily. Singer Bjoern and 4-stringer Marc: “let’s take this one, is the best for only one guitar…”, replied by guitarist Rene: “no, no, nooo, that’s the worst one for this…” *lol*… erm...ok, seems the cats know their songs well ;) Anyway, the amp started to work again and the guys had to hurry, but one song needed to be cut though. However, at the end a great show, promising material and me is a fan now ;) Yes! Way to go cuties! \m/
Setlist: Intro (Terminator Theme), Black To Come, Loss Theory, Exit Plan, The Negative, This End, Stabwound, Me vs. Life, Gravity, Silencing

:. EXODUS ~ took up some more time to change the backline. Gary Holt and bassist Jack Gibson were most time among the crowd and talked to fans. In the second and smaller hall of Zeche Carl the huge soccer screen was put into (coz of the weather outside), letting people switch between both rooms. If at all, approx. 100 people were showing up, what might be due to bad promotion of the booking agency and the venue and of course the fact: we have the soccer world champions chip on one hand and all these huge summer festival on the other.
As a result EXODUS seemed to be quite disappointed but the welcome of the present fans were loud and cordial, while the Cali-guys opened with Raze from current album Shovel Headed Kill Machine. The crowd reacted enthusiastically and infected the band that looked stressed. What singer Rob Dukes tried in evilly pulling faces the rest of the band compensated with smiles and grinning faces. In between tour manager Joey Severance got attacked when he played a trick on them (wrong setlist on stage the band first noticed in the middle of their set). The performance has found its highlight when EXODUS played even 4 old classics from legendary album Bonded By Blood (Piranha, A Lesson In Violence, Bonded By Blood and Strike Of The Beast (encore)). Also Pleasures Of Flesh got considered, whereas the rest of the songs came from the last two records. What else I can tell you? It was a fucking great show! And EXODUS still know how to kick ass badly. It’s great to see how they still leave scorched earth…;)
Setlist: Raze, Deathamphetamine, Blacklist, Piranha, I Am Abomination, Brain Dead, A Lesson In Violence, The Last Act Of Defiance, Bonded By Blood, .44 Magnum Opus, Shovel Headed Kill Machine // War Is My Sheppard, Strike Of The Beast

 

story/pics © Dajana