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…
::
pics ::
:.
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