The Sound Academy is up and running again and ready for it’s grand re-opening and rebranding next month as Rebel, but in the meantime, I think we’re still calling it Sound Academy. The update looks decent, probably a bit better than it was before, though I likely still won’t make it out there too often. On this night, however, it was a no-brainer to head to the docks for a show featuring three legends of old school thrash – Death Angel, Anthrax, and Slayer.
After a too brief set by Death Angel, Anthrax took to the stage and delivered a great, high energy show full of hits from the past like “Time,” “Antisocial,” and “Caught In A Mosh” alongside songs from their latest, For All Kings. While the whole band put on an impressive performance, singer Joey Belladonna stood out in particular – the energetic frontman spent most of their set mugging for the crowd and generally goofing around. Also, unlike a lot of thrash vocalists, dude can actually sing.
This was my fourth time seeing and writing about Slayer, which means two things have happened – I’m starting to run out of original things to say about them and at this point, the shows become less about seeing the actual band and more about the experience of being at a Slayer show. And it’s certainly an experience – if you’ve never seen them live and want to get an idea of how into it the fans can get, check out the interviews and footage from the War At The Warfield concert video. At the outset, Tom Araya asked the crowd if they were ready to have fun and the answer was clear. Slayer shows are basically one big party, a celebration of the band that the fans adore so fervently. Araya put it best himself: “You guys love the music and we love to play the music.”