Arrival
I arrived at the venue at just after 6:00, an hour before doors opened. I always like getting to concerts at least an hour ahead of time so that I have time to get my t-shirt and still get right up to the front of the stage. I have never not been up at the front in the venue, so it works pretty well. When I got there, there were only about 15 people ahead of me. This was the closest to the front of the line I have ever been. The waiting was fairly boring, as is to be expected. At 7:03, we were allowed to slowly move down the stairs to have our tickets scanned. Because (for some reason) this was an 18+ show, everyone had to have their ID out as well as their tickets. Anyone who wasn't 18 was told to go stand upstairs and look through windows at the top of MacEwan Hall. After getting in and getting patted down and all that jazz, I was free to check out the merch table. T-shirts were only $30, which is really good, especially considering Anthrax are a pretty big band. I got a Worship Music tour t-shirt, and as I was leaving, I saw that there were signed copies of Worship Music for only $10. Not wanting to be laden down with anything during the show, I chose not to buy it, and I regret that now. When I turned away from the merch table, I was amazed to see that there were only 3 people at the front of the stage. So I casually sauntered over to the front (to the left of centre stage) and began the wait.Death Angel
Setlist
I Chose The Sky
Mistress Of Pain
Truce
Claws In So Deep
Relentless Revolution
The Ultra-Violence
Thrown To The Wolves
The lights went out at about 7:15, and there was a big roar of anticipation from the 50 or so people who were at the front of the stage in preparation of Death Angel. Before this, I had only ever listened to Death Angel's most recent album, but I knew beforehand that 4 of the 7 songs they played would be from that album, so I was excited enough. But even then, I had no idea how good they would be. I was absolutely blown away by the band. They got the crowd involved from the first song to the last, and by halfway through, there was already a pit going, despite there being not many people at all. Normally, I just bob my head a little for opening bands, unless I've gone to see them specifically. But I found myself headbanging furiously during songs that I had never heard before. And the crowd interaction during "Relentless Revolution" was fantastic, evident in most of the crowd yelling "take it all back". Before "Thrown To The Wolves" started, Mark Osegueda told the crowd that it was the last song of the night from Death Angel, and he wanted to feel the crowd. And he did. What a fantastic way to start off the night.
8/10
Testament
Setlist
Rise Up
The New Order
The Preacher
Native Blood
True American Hate
More Than Meets The Eye
Dark Roots Of Earth
Into The Pit
Practise What You Preach
D.N.R. (Do Not Resuscitate)
Over The Wall
3 Days In Darkness
The Formation Of Damnation
There wasn't too much of a wait between Death Angel and Testament as the Testament drum kit was already set up and covered during Death Angel's set. Plus the venue played Dio songs over the PA during the wait. When the lights first went out, there was another huge roar from the much bigger crowd. Unfortunately, they seemed to be having some problems with their intro tape. They didn't get that fixed for a full minute, during which people continued to yell. Before this show, I had only ever listened to 3 Testament albums, those being The Legacy, Souls Of Black, and Dark Roots Of Earth. Even with only those 3 albums under my belt, I was fairly well covered for this setlist. Like I predicted in my review of Dark Roots... "Rise Up" was definitely a perfect crowd interaction song. Chuck would thrust his microphone out over the crowd for them to yell back "WAR". The first half of the set was fantastic, with plenty from the new album (although I still would have liked to see "Dragon Attack" in there). However, after they had played "Dark Roots Of Earth", I found myself getting a bit bored. It may have been because I had been out drinking until 2am the previous night, but I didn't feel bored during Death Angel's set. It also could have been that I just wanted to get on to see Anthrax. That being said, "True American Hate" was probably the highlight of the set, and I even found myself attempting to sing some of the whoas during "Formation". At one point, Chuck came over the side of the stage where I was and threw out some guitar picks. And I managed to catch one of them in the air.
7/10
Anthrax
Setlist
Worship (Intro Tape)
Fight 'Em Til You Can't
Caught In A Mosh
Antisocial
Indians
Hymn 1 (Tape)
In The End
The Devil You Know
Deathrider
In My World
Efilnikufesin (N.F.L.)
Encore Break
Among The Living
Got The Time
I Am The Law
Here it was. It was finally time. The band I had wanted to see for years now were about to take the stage. I was a little shocked when they began the show with "Fight 'Em..." instead of "Earth On Hell", as they had previously began their shows with that. But I soon forgot about that and just enjoyed the music. "Fight 'Em" was a great song to begin the night, and it's still one of my favorite Anthrax songs. "Caught In A Mosh" was a great treat to have so early in the set, and by the time that was done, I was completely exhausted. But Anthrax refused to slow down. Demanding that the crowd sing along with the guitar intro to "Antisocial", Joey kept the crowd engrossed. As an excellent little easter egg, the band played the end of "Number of the Beast" at the end of "Antisocial", and then the intro to "Run To The Hills" before "Indians". During "Indians", just before Scott is supposed to yell "WAR DANCE", he stopped the show. He told everyone he wanted to stop before they got too invested in it, because he needed more energy from the crowd; he needed everything we could give him. While he was talking, Joey came over to the side of the stage where I was and threw his half-finished can of Red Bull out to the crowd. Somehow, I managed to catch it, and I looked at Joey to mouth "thank you" because I was really damn thirsty at that point. He looked right at me and said "good catch" and motioned for me to have a drink and pass it along to others at the front. Rather starstruck, I passed it along. I wish I could have kept that can. But it gets better.
The band left the stage while "Hymn 1" played, and when the opening bells of "In The End" began and the lights came back up, the band were all stood, heads down, one hand raised high above them in metal horns. Joey introduced "In The End" for Ronnie [James Dio] and I noticed for the first time how many of the lyrics in that song reference Dio. Given that it was for Dio, the whole thing was very moving. During one of the last 4 songs before the encore break, Joey again came over to my side of the stage. He downed most of his orange Gatorade bottle, then threw it to the crowd again. I grazed the bottle with my fingers as it flew in the air, but several other hands on it knocked it down behind the barricade. There was still about 1/5 of the bottle left, and that would have been fantastic right about then.
After a nice short encore break, the band returned to the stage for the last 3 songs of the night. "Among The Living" was a great sing-along song, and it was made so much more awesome for knowing the lyrics were about Stephen King's "The Stand". "Got The Time" was deliciously fast and furious. Finally, Anthrax ended the night with "I Am The Law". After the last song, Scott told the crowd to "always worship music", and Joey introduced the outro tape as Dio's "Long Live Rock 'n' Roll". As people started to drift away, I moved over to where the Gatorade bottle had fallen, and asked a security guard to get it for me. He did, and I walked away from that show with Joey Belladonna's Gatorade bottle.
9/10
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| Joey's Gatorade bottle with my shirt |
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| Testament guitar pick |
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| Testament guitar pick |
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