Wow.
I wrapped up year numero dos with Metal Insider inside a cement mixer.
Municipal Waste – Blind Guardian – and now Exodus. Now THAT is how you spend another year covering concerts. I attended many shows and wrote some words about some of those shows. Damn, ya’ll, 2024 was SOMETHING.
This past Friday brought to Williamsburg a four-way Diablo of a lineup for my last thrash bash of the year. A billing so refined that as I traveled to Warsaw in Greenpoint, I thought, okay, this is a mixture of bands for breakcore and thrash fans. One of the all-time iconic Bay Area thrash bands formed in 1980, known as Exodus, brutalized the stage on a frosty and bitterly cold November evening alongside Havok, Candy, and Dead Heat for New York’s finest moshketeers to fuck some shit up, wrecking some necks, and breaking some bones in the process.
As it appeared to be taking forever for the doors to open, they eventually did as the autumn moon was casting down rain. Those who arrived early entered the venue to pre-game and warm up with some spirits. The first thing for me to strike off was a hearty Polish dinner. The kitchen opened up a little after the doors opened. If you ever attend a gig at this venue, I highly suggest trying two Kielbasa sandwiches and the Warsaw special with a few pierogies, some Kielbasa, and hunter stew. The portions are minimal at best. However, it is still a meal deal worth the twenty-seven dollars without reducing your drink money, your merch money, or your ticket money for an upcoming gig because we all know that the end of 2024 is looking staked for our kind of music.=
The California crossover thrashing hardcore allies in Dead Heat was the first band to do it up Brooklyn style in the exchanged spirits of L’amour and the Saint Vitus Bar. It was my second time seeing them in 2024 since throwing down with Municipal Waste at the Brooklyn Monarch in February. Dead Heat brought the heat in dead heat for a half-hour to show the newcomers how to rip and tear a venue apart, but they made the most out of their minutes for the most fatal of the New York hardcore faithful. It was refreshing to see them again. Dead Heat got the pit going with their high-energy performance and prepared the early attendees for an experimental knockdown with Candy.
I had no idea what seeing the Richmond hardcore four-piece named Candy would be like, but it was psychoactive. As the most radical band on an otherwise thrash metal-heavy program, the extremity framed Candy’s brand of hardcore music with vocal chord shredding to be grinded out from vocalist Zachary Quiram knocked out some sweet electronic elements. Candy kept our interest with plenty of guitar riffs from Michael Quick. Candy did not run out of energy for a second for their twenty-five minutes on stage, twisting the air, and warmed up Warsaw for the burning thrash attack of Havok. It was amusing as music mashups like Slay-52s Raining Lobster and Donzig’s Bad Mother from Bill McClintock roared out of the P.A system as Havok was setting up.
In da clerb, we all fam with Candy. After what felt like an ibuprofen-induced fever dream, it was time for Havok to do what they do best at delivering modern thrash with one Uzi bazooka banger after another as the crowd surfing and the slam-dancing began to boil the auditorium. Like the previous times I saw them, a newer lineup of Havok, now with their sneering shredder in David Sanchez and drummer Pete Webber at the helm as the original members rode shotgun with Exodus in style and swagger that night while sounding awesome when playing tracks like Prepare for Attack, Phantom Force, and the two original songs from their newly dropped New Eyes extended play. David Sanchez is in a league of his own. His nasty growl and snarl give the band as much personality as John Kevill brings to Warbringer. Thrashing it back haaaarrrrd, it was a top-notch performance for forty-five minutes from one of the top-tier bands of the new wave of thrash metal to tide the thrashing force over for the immanent Exoduuus attack!
By the time the horde of metal maniacs witnessed a broad range of heavy music, a now jam-packed crowd was on their feet and stayed there for the rest of the night for the arrival of the long-awaited return of one of the first thrash metal bands known as Exodus. The legendary Bay Area thrashers fleet-footed their set off with The Last Act of Defiance. From that rapid-fire opener to what was to come, a now somewhat subdued selection of neo-thrashers that you would find at a kegger bedazzled the middle of the floor, subjugating Warsaw in what felt like being jumbled around in a mixing truck. An Exodus crowd is anything but calm – the mosh pits and crowd surfers were a mix of younger faces around my age and older fans reliving their Headbangers Ball days of youth deciding to join in to paddle us other headbangers around with full speed intensity. Fuckin’ hell, neither the audience nor the band relaxed for a moment, but seeing how titanic Steve “Zetro” Souza, Gary Holt, Lee Altus, Jack Gibson, and Tom Hunting as a band, it did not bother anyone.
Exodus turned in a razor-sharp set for an hour and then some of good, friendly, violent fun for all. The band played a fourteen-song song set that mainly covered the Zetro era like Blood In, Blood Out, Fabulous Disaster, The Beatings Will Continue (Until Morale Improves), and Blacklist kept the room moving while dusting off a deep cut to honor Paul Baloff with Metal Command, including the aggressive Deathamphetamine from the Rob Dukes period of Exodus. When he wasn’t barking out lyrics with his signature hissing vocal style, Steve expressed his appreciation a few times for the Brooklyn crowd, correlating and comparing a modern audience to when Exodus performed at the famous L’Amour nightclub in 1986. West Coast, East Coast, it doesn’t matter. The connection between Exodus and their Atlantic Coast fan-base is ironbound. It was unbreakable that particular Friday night.
The band brought the heavy, old-school thrash metal headlining Warsaw. The star of the show was Tom Hunting. You’d think his battle against squamous cell carcinoma would’ve affected his performance. It hasn’t one bit. Tom sounded the same and performed with the same drumming prowess since 1985. The quality thrashing fun from Exodus concluded with four more full-speed assaults. The second the opening guitar riff began for Metal Command, about 200 of the nearly thousand-filled Warsaw scorched around in a circle like it was 1985 all over again. The final three songs arrived for Exodus to waltz it up with Brooklyn a few more times, closing with War is My Shepherd, the Toxic Waltz, and Strike of the Beast. It was a night of good food, great music, and great times. With the holiday rush having us spend more than we need to while dealing with our crazy families, this is a unique package to see for a reasonable price if you’re looking for a perfect early Christmas present for yourself or to gift the metal fan in your family before this tour ends in a few weeks. All four bands were great. After one more night of neck-wrecking delights, I went back to reality feeling prideful that I got to write some of the best damn live gig reviews you will ever read to wrap up another adrenalized year of covering concerts for Metal Insider. Heavy metal foreveeer!
