Anthrax
Monday, 15 June 2026, 7:30 PM – 9:00 PM
Zagreb // Boogaloo // Croatia
It doesn’t happen every day that a major band rolls into a club that holds maybe a thousand people at most. On their European summer run, Anthrax slotted in one of those rare, non-festival, headline-only shows — right at Zagreb’s Boogaloo — and sold it out in a mere three months after the announcement at the end of last year. Of course they did. Nobody had any reason to doubt it. The whole thing called to mind Gojira’s show ten years ago at the New Age club (7 June 2016, Roncade, Treviso, Italy) — RockLine concert review — a place that fits around 500 heads.
Like poking a stick into an overstuffed wasp nest. And that’s exactly how it went. The set was short but sweet, because Zagreb that evening was also hosting power metal giants Sabaton at the fairgrounds, and cramming two shows like that into one night — in a way that lets any eager fan catch both — is no small feat. So Anthrax kicked off at half past seven and it was all over by nine.
Thirteen songs and done. No brakes. Full throttle, in exactly the style you expect and demand from Anthrax. A neck-breaking party. Nothing less would’ve cut it. The sound was excellent, the band was in a supremely good mood, and the crowd was absolutely on fire. A tight, well-oiled, battle-hardened unit — each member constantly working the audience, keeping the whole thing running at the highest possible RPM of thrash metal machinery, the kind that can only be powered by complete, high-octane combustion like this.
You could say the show was over before it properly got started, that’s how fast everything flew by. Did anyone expect anything other than a Joey Belladonna-era setlist? Yes — and that’s exactly what counts as the real Anthrax. The genuine article, the band that belongs among the Big Four of thrash metal. They rolled out classic after classic and didn’t stray far from the eighties for a long time, as the old-school wallops came thick and fast: opening with the fury of Among The Living, the rabid cover of Joe Jackson’s Got The Time, then on through Spreading The Disease madness with Madhouse, another return to Among The Living with Caught In A Mosh, a detour back to the debut Fistfull Of Metal with Metal Thrashing Mad, and closing out the devastating stampede with the second Persistence Of Time entry Keep It in the Family. Only then did the more recent For All Kings track Breathing Lightning give the crowd a chance to grab a breath of much-needed oxygen and come back to earth — followed by the brand-new It’s For The Kids from the upcoming album Cursum Perficio — and just like that, we were two thirds of the way through.
The band launched into the big finale with the classic Medusa, and hot on its heels came the no-less-eagerly-awaited, mandatory setlist fixture Indians — this time with Belladonna sans headdress — which delivered the expected highlight of this truly wild new encounter with Anthrax, one I had honestly been missing ever since that distant meeting with the band in Maiano, Friuli — it was 22 July 2016 (RockLine concert review). Then came the crushing, mandatory Antisocial, which once again proved just how perfectly punk and metal can coexist hand in hand, before the fourth Among The Living destroyer closed the show: I Am The Law.
The crowd was inconsolable — worked up, riled, and hungry for more. Not ready to let go. The math just didn’t add up, because the whole thing had been outrageously short. The audience wanted another missile to the skull. The band exchanged glances, a rapid debate unfolded, some slick stage communication — and they reached a consensus: for the encore, they blazed through the classic single I’m the Man, taken from the standalone EP of the same name from 1987. There simply wasn’t time for anything more.
The only minor gripe about this exceptional, no-survivors-left-in-the-club bombardment is a somewhat predictable setlist — the band could have thrown in a surprise or two, something they haven’t played live in a while. But that takes nothing away from the outstanding concert experience delivered by this iconic thrash metal outfit. Shoving, slamming into each other, moshing, circle pits — in short, a warzone, a decisive battle at its most brutal, right through to total devastation. That’s what Boogaloo looked like when it was all over. That’s what we all came for, and that’s exactly what we got. Anthrax cannot and will not disappoint. The new album — the aforementioned Cursum Perficio — is coming this autumn, and after that, here’s hoping a new European tour follows as soon as possible!
Author: Edita Klemen & Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Anthrax – setlist:
1. The Number of the Beast (orig. Iron Maiden) – taped intro
2. I Can’t Turn You Loose (orig. Otis Redding) – taped intro
3. Among the Living
4. Got the Time (orig. Joe Jackson)
5. Madhouse
6. Caught in a Mosh
7. Metal Thrashing Mad
8. Keep It in the Family
9. Breathing Lightning
10. It’s for the Kids
11. Medusa
12. Indians
13. Antisocial (orig. Trust)
14. I Am the Law
—encore—
15. I’m the Man
