Author: Rok Klemše
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Venue: CUK Kino Šiška, Ljubljana
Concert date: 12/12/2011
Attendance: 400
The year before last, the Thrashfest touring festival made its first stop in Slovenia, with Kreator, Exodus and Death Angel ruling the stage. Last December the thrash caravan rolled back into Ljubljana, this time as Thrashfest Classics, with no fewer than five bands – Mortal Sin, Heathen, Destruction, Exodus and Sepultura. And every single one of them played nothing but songs from their first records, the albums that built and defined the thrash metal genre.
First on stage were the standard-bearers of Australian thrash, Mortal Sin, but because of the early hour I caught only the last few seconds. I hope their new record Psychology of Death will bring them to Europe yet. It was really great to see that Rock the Nation, as the tour organizer, realized that your average Suicidal Angels can’t be the opening act for absolutely everyone.
From down under we hopped over to California, more precisely San Francisco and even more precisely the Bay Area, the cult mecca of thrash metal, where the legendary Heathen got going in 1984. At the end of the eighties the band jumped on the roaring thrash metal train and put out the phenomenal debut Breaking the Silence, followed four years later by an even better successor, Victims of Deception. Soon after, as thrash sank into obscurity, so did the band, and they came back to life nowhere other than Thrash of the Titans in 2001, which deserves credit for restarting and reviving the dormant genre. They proved they didn’t return for nothing with the phenomenal comeback album The Evolution of Chaos (2009), which they also presented at Pekarna in Maribor. But this time it was all about a trip back in time, and it was so good that I could practically picture David White’s mane sprouting back out of a bald head. With a superb old-school set Heathen proved that in 2011/12 they’re as strong as in 1987, when the debut came out, and the Altus/Lum guitar duo, with their virtuosic, polished playing, would drive any guitarist to curl up in a corner and suck their thumb. The guitar juggling is what made Heathen special from the start of their career, and even today the spectacular, breakneck solo trading between the two guitarists is breathtaking. If you stuck Heathen songs in Guitar Hero, its creators would probably rack up a pile of lawsuits over all those complex finger fractures. In Kragen Lum especially, Lee Altus has finally found an equal partner, who this time even outdid Altus in energy. Altus did look a bit tired and wrung out, but then he was working a double shift on this tour, with a stormy Exodus set waiting for him just over an hour later. Charismatic frontman White led the crowd through classics like Open the Grave (finally in full this time!), Opiate of the Masses, Mercy Is No Virtue and more, with colorful banter in between. He wowed with a fantastic vocal performance and proved that the years haven’t touched his clean, melodic voice, which is perfectly preserved, not even remotely.
Next came the knife sharpening, as Germany’s Mad Butcher flew into the mosh pit, and with him Schmier, Mike and Vaaver, the legendary Destruction trio. Destruction started their journey in 1982, which puts them at least on a par with (if not ahead of) thrash forefathers Metallica and Exodus – and on European soil, no less! Destruction didn’t sound as pretty as Heathen before them. They dropped us to our knees right in front of the Antichrist with a racket from the first second to the last, a sickly rasping Schmier who, despite thirty years of thrashing, shows not a trace of fading energy, crushing drumming, and Mike’s butcher riff machine, which covers as much space with a single guitar as Gerre from Tankard (when he’s not on a diet, that is). Destruction own the stage to the bone. Energy sparks off little, wiry Mike and his mane doesn’t rest for a second, while commander Schmier strolls like a great general between three skull-draped microphones. The trio served up a proper old-school “thrashgasm” this time and played only tracks from the debut Infernall Overkill, its follow-up Eternal Devastation, and even the Sentence of Death EP. With excellent sound that ripped, tore and chopped like a little devil on a good day, Destruction opened the gates of hell with The Ritual and a black mass, and out through them slipped Antichrist, Tormentor and invisible forces, Satan took his Vengeance too, and the whole gang was led by Mad Butcher. The German trio proved once again that the name Destruction is one worthy of awe and one of the greatest institutions of thrash metal. At Schmier’s command we finished by cursing the gods with the crushing classic Curse the Gods, and it took a full five minutes before we got our necks to stop.
With veterans Exodus we dipped our fingers back into San Francisco Bay, where they were gnawed to the bone by piranhas and sharks in the form of thrash classics from three cult albums – Bonded By Blood, Pleasures of the Flesh and Fabulous Disaster. Rob Dukes mangled them vocally for the most part (though luckily he skipped the moronic hillbilly banter this time), but the instrumental four-piece was so good that even Dukes’ monotone growling went down a bit easier. Without stage beast Gary Holt there’s no Exodus, just like there’s no Iron Maiden without Steve Harris, and despite being sick Holt proved there are no half measures for him on stage. Non-stop headbanging and egging on the feverish crowd (whose “good friendly violent fun” the grumpy security guards sadly didn’t get) and one of the “tightest” guitar performances in thrash – that’s what defines Holt and his guitar sparring partner Lee Altus. The unforgettable “crunch,” the crunching of Gary’s guitar biting through icebreaker riffs like Jaws, and the breakneck solos burrowed straight into our eardrums. The crushing rhythm section lagged in nothing, Jack Gibson’s bass rattled again like a call to arms, and the incredible Hunting is no accident one of the best thrash drummers around, torturing the skins without mercy and looking like Animal from the Muppets while doing it. On top of an excellent performance, Exodus delivered a phenomenal setlist, ruled above all by rarely heard classics like The Last Act of Defiance, Fabulous Disaster, Brain Dead, Deranged and Pleasures of the Flesh. During Metal Command, at Dukes’ invitation, Alex from Negligence even flew onto the stage for the last verses (and proved he’d be a hundred times better replacement for Dukes). Strike of the Beast or Strike of Exodus? Doesn’t matter, either way you’ll lose your head.
I won’t get dragged into the “neverending” debate about whether Sepultura without the Cavalera brothers is even still Sepultura. The fact is that Sepultura today are what they are, and as such they did one hell of a job at Šiška. Thanks to the best sound of the night, the eternal classics sounded even more murderous than usual, Kisser’s solos even more apocalyptic, Green even more roaring, and the fantastic drumming even more earth-shaking. New drummer Eloy Casagrande (this was his first tour behind the Sepultura kit) stole all the attention with incredible playing – no, with merciless pounding on the drums with the force of a ten-ton hammer. Kisser as the sole guitarist covered enough space that you couldn’t hear a single gap, and the song selection was phenomenal anyway, even though only Kisser and Paulo were in the band when those songs were written. Today’s Sepultura could run over a feeble Max for fun, and for that alone they don’t deserve to have primitives pelting the band with beer. Despite a few such incidents, the band didn’t pay them much mind and pulled off a top-notch set to the end, and with Kaiowas, where the drummers of the other bands joined them, they delivered a crushing surprise.
Thrashfest Classics was a real “blast from the past,” and given the strength of all the bands involved, I hope Thrashfest Classics will be to thrash in this century what Clash of the Titans was to it in the last.
Photos: Nina Grad
Setlist
HEATHEN: 1. Pray For Death 2. Goblin’s Blade 3. Open the Grave 4. Hypnotized 5. Opiate of the Masses 6. Mercy Is No Virtue 7. Death By Hanging DESTRUCTION: 1. Total Desaster 2. Satan’s Vengeance 3. Mad Butcher 4. Black Mass/Antichrist/Death Trap 5. Invincible Force 6. The Ritual/Thrash Attack 7. Tormentor 8. Eternal Ban 9. Bestial Invasion 10. Curse the Gods EXODUS: 1. The Last Act of Defiance 2. A Lesson in Violence 3. Fabulous Disaster 4. Brain Dead 5. Exodus 6. Deranged 7. Pleasures of the Flesh 8. Piranha 9. Metal Command 10. And There There Were None 11. Bonded By Blood 12. Toxic Waltz 13. Strike of the Beast SEPULTURA: 1. Intro 2. Beneath the Remains 3. Territory 4. Dead Embryonic Cells 5. Desperate Cry 6. Mass Hypnosis 7. We Who Are Not As Others 8. Altered States 9. Infected Voice 10. Substraction 11. Inner Self 12. Kaiowas 13. Refuse/Resist 14. Arise
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