Artist: Anthrax
Title: Alive 2 (2005) The DVD
Label: Sanctuary Records
Release Date: 9/20/2005
Genre: Heavy Metal
Rating: 8/10

One of the biggest Metal happenings in 2005 definitely had to be the reunion of the classic Anthrax line up of 1985. It was 13 years since the Metal Community saw Joey Belladonna, Scott Ian, Charlie Benante, Dan Spitz and Frankie Bello on the same stage once again and this film gives us a front row seat to the action. The “Among The Living” lineup is revered and respected in the Metal world for the impact that they had on the genre overall. Recorded on June 3, 2005 at New Jersey’s Starland Ballroom you are brought right into the mosh pit and will not suffer any damage as a result of it. I attended this piece of Metal history and have a comprehensive concert review elsewhere on the site and I can only tell you that as crazy as it looks you had no idea of how wild and fun this was unless you were there. Watching the video made me recall the absolutely killer time that me and my Friends all had as Anthrax belted out “hit” after “hit”. The band sounded incredibly tight for such a recent reunion and given this was the first real performance it was truly incredible. I looked back to my notes on the concert to confirm that several songs were left off of the DVD. Songs like “Got The Time”, “Antisocial”, “Metal Thrashing Mad” and “Lone Justice” did not make the cut for some reason and this was probably my only disappointment. Perhaps licensing was an issue with the covers, but I think the others should have remained. There is a chance that they did not come out good on the film because one of them makes an appearance on CD in “Antisocial”. I think it would have been smart to release the entire show which would make it the perfect memento of this historic performance. The overall production on the DVD is excellent and the sound and use of camera angle works very well. When I saw the show I only saw one boom camera and did not notice anyone else around shooting. I am glad there was more than one for that would have made this a very dry DVD to watch.
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