To speak on a more personal level for a moment, I have to say that this was probably going to be the busiest week that I have ever adventured into in my role as a scribe in the Metal Republic. I’m not complaining of course because it was jam-packed with amazing and interesting things to do. For me it began last Friday night as Doro Pesch did a show over at the Gramercy Theatre while Arch Enemy performed right here at the Best Buy Theater. Two killer appearances in one evening but I made the best of it all. Fans can read about those events elsewhere on the website. So here we were at the start of a brand new week and this evening started off with what was titled “The Metal Masters Clinic 2” and while I felt that it was a little slow in getting started, it ended with a resounding Metal bang but that is all I am going to tell you as the finer details are for another narrative that you can enjoy at your leisure. Now it was time for Anthrax to tear up the stage and the show came about in a very interesting way. You see the bands brand new album “Worship Music” with singer Joey Belladonna was out today and if fans purchased it from a particular Best Buy they would get a free ticket to the event. They got cute and called this “secret show” an evening with Satan’s Lounge Band. Given the manner and speed in which the Internet works the bands secret show was talk of the town in minutes. Somehow I think that was the original plan.

After a quick introduction by Eddie Trunk the band hit the stage with a new tune entitled “Fight ‘Em Till You Can’t” and for those who had not yet heard the tune it is a perfect opener that has a lot of Old School Anthrax to it. Joey was doing great and running all around the stage and I had to say that his vocal register was very much on target. From this tune the hits from the bands catalog began and we found the Joe Jackson staple “Got The Time” being followed by the riot inducing “Caught In A Mosh”. For this one the entire floor was a mosh pit and I like that for this particular song especially. The interesting thing was that since this was a free and secret show it was not packed to capacity and instead only was made available to about 700 fans. That would be my guess if I had to gauge how many were in the place. “Antisocial” came up fourth and I’ve always enjoyed this Trust tune since the Anthrax boys do it so much justice and once it completed it was back to the new stuff with “The Devil You Know”. I view this tune and the opener as the strongest tunes on the new release and ones that the fans will take to the quickest. “Indians” was on the list and “Madhouse” and as you can see this was a very sticking to the expected standards kind of night with some newness tossed in for good measure. A friend was a little bummed that they were not pulling out anything “brave” from their repertoire but I replied how the fans want to hear the classics and not experimenting from the band. To each their own right?

I admit that I was surprised to hear them do the John Bush era “Only” but it’s really one of my favorite songs of them all and it’s nice to find it represented. At one point the band was joined onstage by Phil Anselmo who was being Phil and rousing the people up to frenzy. He is a madman I tell you. “I Am The Law” was bringing us close to the end of the night and I know you are probably saying “wow, short set” but since this was something free I was not going to argue about what we got. I’ve seen “secret shows” like this where the band plays five numbers for fans who had been waiting online all day. This was sufficient in my book. The eleven song set finished with “Earth On Hell” which is another new tune. Closing up I had to say that this was an amazing experience and if this was a “proper event” (meaning one that was actually selling tickets to the general public) that it would have been sold out for weeks and packed to the rafters. All in all a great way to celebrate the new album and at the same time give back to the fans. This was also a great way for the band to warm up for that Big Four event which would begin in t-minus forty hours. Synchronize your watches Metal Republic…….the music’s gonna get ya.

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