Location: Roncade (Treviso) / New Age Club / Italy
Date: Tuesday, 26 November 2019
Sepultura! We all get there in the end. Every single one of us. Even those of you who don’t know them. Even to the band that brothers Max and Igor Cavalera founded back in 1984. Their vision was a form of artistry that was ahead of its time — one that pushed extreme metal’s horizons wide open and blew the doors off new dimensions that generations of new bands would go on to follow, with Sepultura as a massive creative reference point. Igor and Max have long since left Sepultura, but the legacy they built within that iconic band stands like a rocky massif on the world’s metal map. Back in 2016 they already toured under the Cavalera name, performing Sepultura’s album Roots, and this year they confirmed another run of shows — this time building the set around Sepultura’s third and fourth studio albums, Beneath The Remains and Arise. Rounding out the lineup are the exceptional guitarist Marco Rizzo, who has been saving Max’s skin in Soulfly for years, and bassist Mike Leon — also a Soulfly bandmate of both Rizzo and Max.
A solid turnout was expected for the Cavalera brothers’ only Italian show. And rightly so. The New Age Club in Roncade near Treviso was packed to the rafters. Around 600 fired-up fans of classic Sepultura crammed into this long-running club, which over the years has hosted some genuinely enviable names from the world rock and metal map.
The opening minutes of the evening belonged to the trio Healing Magic, fronted by bassist and vocalist Igor Amadeus Cavalera, with drummer Johnny Valles and guitarist Trevor Scott rounding out the lineup. You guessed it — Amadeus is Max’s son. You can’t miss the resemblance to his father, though the key difference is that the lad, at a tender 24, is considerably leaner than his famous old man. The band only got started last year, but that was enough time to put together a handful of original tracks under the banner of their EP »Restoration«, which they ran through in a short set in front of a crowd that was otherwise fever-pitched with anticipation for the main act. A mix of old-school thrash influences, desert-gazing stoner vibes, and sludge-heavy phrases, all riding on a groove-laden sonic mass — and of course, you can clearly hear the influence of the school of dad Max. The trio, with an enthusiastic Amadeus at the front, delivered a pleasant (and mercifully not-too-long) warm-up before the nostalgia trip back to Sepultura’s classic era.
The wait for Cavalera to hit the stage felt long. Things got underway about 20 minutes before ten in the evening, though Rizzo had been on stage for a while already, tucked away in the left corner behind the drums, warming up his fingers with quick arpeggio runs while waiting for the rest of the band. The venue darkens; next on stage, stepping into shafts of red spotlight, is Igor — he waves to the crowd and takes his seat behind the kit. Max’s imposing silhouette follows, and the crowd goes into delirium. The band launched straight into Beneath The Remains, the lights blazed up, and Max was on stage in a look that perfectly embodied his Sepultura-era outfit. Ripped jeans and a battered black vest covered in patches of all kinds. Rizzo brilliantly captured the old-school Mesa Boogie sound that underpins Beneath The Remains — a sound Sepultura adopted at the time from the Florida death metal pioneers such as Death, Obituary, and Morbid Angel.
The band rolled through the tracks. One after another. In sequence. The club was bursting at the seams. What we were especially curious about was Max’s form — his vocals in particular. He held up surprisingly well. Compared to what we’ve witnessed at recent Soulfly shows, Max actually handled the vocal duties very solidly. Track after track. True, he scratches at the guitar more than he plays it — and this was not just audible, it was clearly visible on more than one occasion. But Rizzo does everything. Literally everything. He carries a massively charged, razor-sharp, avalanche-like sound, and at the same time solos like a man in a trance. Rizzo is genuinely the main engine in this setup. Igor, too, drove the drums with complete authority, though you might have expected a few more earth-shaking bursts — then again, as a drummer, Igor simply hasn’t pushed his development much further over the years compared to his peers in thrash and death metal. Solid. Solid across the board — enough for the classics to land just right. As said: the focus was on Max, and he held up surprisingly well. From Beneath the Remains the band skipped three tracks (Sarcastic Existence, Lobotomy, Hunger), closing out the first chunk with Primitive Future before moving on to Arise without any particular fanfare. Just five tracks. Still — the crowd was beside itself. Max radiated a bright mood all evening and, despite the usual crowd-rallying moments, didn’t shout “Jump” even once. This time he made enthusiastic use of the stage — strolling over to Rizzo, then to Leon, drifting back to the drums to check up on his brother, and throwing out more than a few smiles to the crowd. He also kept a fair amount of eye contact with the front rows. Max’s charisma remains infectious and unmistakable. Even just that piercing gaze he fixes on the crowd moves you. He’s a presence. A big presence. And in terms of stage outfit, the great warrior was breathing extra life into the classic era of his band.
So unfortunately just five tracks from Arise (Arise, Dead Embryonic Cells, Desperate Cry, Altered State, Infected Voice) — and it’s a bit puzzling that the band didn’t play at least Under Siege (Regnum Irae), or anything else from this iconic album (Murder, for example), which at the time was openly flirting with the rising death metal wave. Instead, Cavalera paid tribute to Motörhead with a performance of Orgasmatron — the B-side to the Dead Embryonic Cells single. Max had a particularly good time during Altered State, when the band launched into War Pigs (Black Sabbath) in the middle section of the track, and the line “Oh lord yeah!” slowly and ever more loudly morphed into “Porko Dio” — which is, of course, Max’s standard theatre at Italian shows, Soulfly dates included. This time, though, nobody in the crowd had to egg him on — he just started howling it from the stage himself, and the whole room quickly got on board, bellowing it together as one.
Cavalera then threw a real curveball with a performance of Bestial Devastation, taken from the iconic EP of the same name. The Cavalera duo hadn’t played that track since 1988. So it was right here, at this one Italian show, that they played it again for the first time. Troops Of Doom from the debut album poured more fuel on the fire, containing an Escape to the Void segment in its closing section, and when Max announced the Chaos A.D. classic Refuse/Resist, it was clear that this fiery, red-hot gathering was approaching its final chapter. The crowd was satisfied. A few times Max managed to get the entire room involved. From the front rows all the way to the entrance of the venue — roughly the size of the Szene in Vienna — arms were shooting up in the air.
An hour and twenty minutes flew by in a flash. It was absolutely worth the trip. A condensed version of both iconic albums, yes, with the runtime you’d expect — but the crew hadn’t promised before the tour that they’d play either album in full, so there’s really no grounds to complain. Max actually performed well — better than expected, given that his stage fatigue in recent years has sometimes been genuinely sorry to watch. Rizzo once again played the most pivotal role in all of this. The evening satisfied every soul who had made the journey to Roncade to catch a few rays of classic Sepultura as directed by its two creators — and they hadn’t come just from Slovenia: you could also spot a handful of license plates from Rijeka and even Pula.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Setlist:
1. Beneath the Remains
2. Inner Self
3. Stronger Than Hate
4. Mass Hypnosis
5. Slaves of Pain
6. Primitive Future
7. Arise
8. Dead Embryonic Cells
9. Desperate Cry
10. Altered State
11. Infected Voice
12. Orgasmatron
13. Odens Ride Over Nordland (orig. Bathory, bonus track)
14. The Curse (bonus track)
15. Bestial Devastation
16. Troops of Doom (including Escape to the Void)
17. Refuse/Resist
18. Beneath the Remains / Arise / Dead Embryonic Cells
