Anthrax
February 14, 2018
House of Blues- Anaheim, CA
Thrash metal legends Anthrax performed to a sold out venue at the year old House of Blues in Anaheim, California. This was part two of the Killthrax tour which also featured metalcore giants Killswitch Engage and thrash metal band, Havok. Even on a holiday like Valentine’s Day, dedicated metalheads still showed up to support the bands they love and they did not disappoint.
The lights went out and a fully packed House of Blues roared with excitement as the band members came out one by one and started the show with Among the Living from their legendary album of the same name. Anthrax unleashed their thrash assault on the crowd and they responded really well by going full frenzy into a mosh pit. As if that song didn’t drive the fans crazy enough, next they played one of their best songs, Caught in a Mosh. It has to be one of the best thrash metal songs out there and is played specifically for people in the mosh pit and always drives them wild and has fans singing along with the lyric, “What is it? Caught in a Mosh!”.
The third song was one of the band’s more fun songs to hear live, their Joe Jackson cover of Got the Time. Anthrax next played what is perhaps their most famous song, Madhouse and is great to mosh to and sing along to and just about every metalhead in the world should know this song. Singer Joey Belladonna welcomed the audience to the show and introduced one of the band’s newer songs from their 2011 album Worship Music titled, Fight’em ‘Til You Can’t.
Anthrax may be from the 80’s, that hasn’t stopped them from slowing down and still deliver hard-hitting thrash metal to people of all ages. Anthrax would continue to deliver a thrash assault to fans as they played classics like Medusa, I Am the Law, and Be All, End All. Guitarist Scott Ian went center stage and started the familiar riff that Anthrax fans know and it was none other than their Trust cover of Antisocial, one of the band’s best songs and super fun to along to as Belladonna signal fans when to sing along to the chorus, “Anti-social!” Anti-social! Anti-social!”. The show was thought to be over as Anthrax left the stage and fans were chanting the band’s name. Not too long after, drummer Charlie Benante came back out and started the familiar drum play of another one of the band’s most famous songs, Indians. The mosh pit kept going as fast possible to the speed of the song. In the middle of the song, Belladonna paused the song and asked the people in the mosh pit to give a war dance. Once Ian started up the song again, The mosh pit only got more furious. The song ended and everyone in the crowd threw up their metal horns in the air as Anthrax thanked the audience once more and left the stage.
Review by: Misael Ruiz
