Tag Archives: chuck billy

Features, Tours and Festivals

Metal Allegiance Announce Destination (Almost) East Coast Tour

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By now you’ve heard about the Heavy Metal Supergroup known as Metal Allegiance and if not it’s a talent whirlwind that features Alex Skolnick, Mike Portnoy, Mark Oseguesda, Chuck Billy and more. They toured these parts a few months ago and it was a blast that was enjoyed by all. Earlier today a press release went out citing how the group would be swapping some members for a brief East Coast run. I’ve copied the press notice for you below so check out the poster, press copy and dates before I return with some additional thoughts.

Tour - Metal Allegiance - Spring 2016

The Press Release:
METAL ALLEGIANCE are proud to announce their Destination (Almost) East Coast tour! The 7 day trek kicks off March 31st in Providence, Rhode Island followed by stops in Poughkeepsie, New Haven, and Lancaster before the final show on April 7th at the Gramercy in New York! With the recent release of their critically acclaimed self-titled album under their belts, they are bringing their all-star team and epic live experience to the East Coast! In true METAL ALLEGIANCE form, the band is bringing along some good friends to share the stage. Accompanying the band for these 7 special shows are none other than Mark Oseguesda (DEATH ANGEL). Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal and Chuck Billy (TESTAMENT).
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Events, Reviews

Anthrax & Testament @ Best Buy Theater (2/8/2012)

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It has to be cool to be Anthrax right now because the band has clearly been riding a high for the last few months and was getting more attention than they had over the most recent years. The reunion with singer Joey Belladonna found the release of “Worship Music” as their next CD and the response to the album had been terrific. Many sources cited this as the best Metal album of the 2011 year in case you wondered. So after some amazing tours and that small, unknown and hardly discussed Big Four Tour, the band was doing a co-headlining run with the mighty Testament and bringing Death Angel along for the ride.  I wasn’t going to miss a moment of this exciting event, and you can check out all the details and concert photos by scrolling past the logo below.  Then I encourage you to scroll on down the blog posting to see some of the other items that caught my attention during the night.

Artist: Anthrax
Venue: Best Buy Theater (New York, NY)
Opener: Testament & Death Angel
Date: 2/8/2012
Label: Megaforce Records

I’m willing to bet good money on it having been a really exciting past few months for the guys in Anthrax because not only were they still riding high from the positive reception to their “Worship Music” CD; but they were also now on a headlining trek that immediately followed “The Big Four” event and delivering the Metal Justice with the incredible Testament. The bands had been referring to this as a co-headlining run but Anthrax appeared to be closing all of the shows. Generally with tours like this the bands will swap out on the headlining spot but I had not heard of this happening on this run of shows. Tonight was the final night of the North American Tour and what a way to close it out……being home in New York City. The gigs would be enhanced by the presence of Death Angel and I made sure to get to the Best Buy Theater nice and early to not miss a single note of this killer evening. Here is how it went down.

Death Angel: I had to say that I was really happy to find Death Angel on the bill with these other giants because they have been on a bit of a rise themselves since their “Relentless Retribution” album of 2010 and based on the reaction of the crowd when the band hit the stage, they were very much appreciated by this NYC audience. The band hit the stage like they were on fire. I liked that, and especially since they were the first of three groups. They had a lot to prove to this audience and then again they didn’t have much to prove as the consensus was high on their ass kicking abilities. Singer Mark Osegueda was a flurry of motion and bounded from left to right to left to right on the stage and all the while whipping his lengthy dreadlocks around as he head banged. There was not a lot of time wasted with banter and that was a good thing since the band only seemed to perform for about thirty minutes. Their seven song set featured “I Chose The Sky”, “Mistress Of Pain”, “Truce”, “Claws In So Deep”, “Buried Alive”, “The Ultra Violence”, and “Thrown To The Wolves”. Three of the tunes hailed from the bands most recent album and this is a high recommendation if you do not have it already. This all too brief set proved one thing in the eyes of the New York Metal Republic and that was that Death Angel is welcome back anytime and should visit us again with a headlining set. Now it was time to declare our Testament for Metal.
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Events, Reviews

Slayer & Megadeth @ Izod Center (8/12/2010): American Carnage Tour

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Logo - Slayer

Artist: Slayer
Venue: Izod Center (East Rutherford, NJ)
Opener: Megadeth, Testament
Date: 8/12/2010
Label: American Records

The East Coast contingent of the Metal Republic was finding a whole lot of entertainment being delivered to them these last few weeks especially if they were only paying attention to the various clubs around them in the city. It’s true because the Big Apple had a rousing week that began with Y&T, Lillian Axe and Night Ranger who had each performed shows of their own at one of our favorite haunts B.B. King Blues Club and Grill in Times Square. Now that the Hard Rock side of things had finished, it was time to indulge in the Metal once again with an incendiary roster that included Slayer, Megadeth and Testament who had all banded together under the banner of “The American Carnage Tour”. The interesting thing for me was that I was not originally planning on hitting this show even though the lineup was killer. I had seen all of the bands a number of times before and I was not able to secure my normal Metal media credentials to do it up properly but when a ticket was given to me by the friend of a friend I knew that I had to be there and let you know the overall scoop. The closest that the show would hit NYC would be at Long Island’s Nassau Coliseum and the Izod Center over in East Rutherford, NJ. We would be going to that one which was all right by me since I hate the trek to the Long Island arena. It was going to be interesting to be “off duty” this evening, but since I bleed this website for you, there is really never such a thing going on. Tonight I walked among the Metal Republic as one of its own maniacs as opposed to being its scribe of what went down.

The parking area seemed full and the fans were blasting a little bit of everything from Maiden to Priest to the expected three bands that were going to play tonight. I am always amused when the tailgaters choose to listen to the band that they are going to see right before a show. There were a lot of people cooking as well and this was a good night for it. As I wandered the halls of the Izod Center, it was great to see the number of Metal heads representing and I had to say that I recognized a lot of them from the other shows that I attend on a regular basis in the city. What I was not expecting was the setup of the arena itself and what I am referring to was it being done up as a theatre and being a space that had at least a 1/3rd cordoned off. To better imagine it, think of the stage itself being closer to the middle of the floor area as opposed to the far end side. The running order for the show would be Testament, Megadeth and then Slayer.
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Music, Reviews

“We Wish You A Metal Xmas and a Headbanging New Year” (Deluxe Edition) by Various Artists

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Artist: Various Artists
Title: “We Wish You A Metal Xmas and a Headbanging New Year” Deluxe Edition
Label: Armoury Records
Release Date: 9/14/2010
Genre: Holiday Metal
Rating: 4/5

A couple of years ago the folks over at Eagle Records gave the Metal fans a holiday album that was really something up their alley. Though not as much a story-telling enterprise as the Trans-Siberian Orchestra or as tongue in cheek a delivery as a Twisted Christmas, this really had some interesting and fun stuff to enjoy. Having reviewed the original CD and then its EP follow-up, I decided to combine and slightly rework those thoughts based on Eagle Records re-releasing these albums in time for the 2010 holiday season as one package.

“I’ve been a fan of the holiday juggernaut that is the Trans-Siberian Orchestra for several years now, but there was no way that my experience with that would have prepared me for how Twisted Sister would deliver their “Twisted Christmas” release. I bring them up as it originally hit me as one of the most absurd items in reviews to do pile but after several listens I found myself intrigued at just how well the conventional Metal vibe worked when crafted together with Holiday classics that they chose. It was an album that left you hungry for more and that made the arrival of the “We Wish You A Metal Xmas and a Headbanging New Year” release something I was eager to dig into. The players on this one are as vast as the Metal genre itself and as result finds legends like Alice Cooper and Ronnie James Dio performing along with the likes of diverse quality players like Steve Lukather and Ray Luzier and many, many more. The vibe of this release is rather heavy which was good and I admit it that it almost felt like a Motorhead track when Lemmy gave it a go at “Run Rudolph Run”. Shock master Alice Cooper and John 5 delivered the creepiest “Santa Claws Is Coming To Town” I’ve ever heard and believe me at the end of this one, the fact that he knows when you are sleeping and knows when you are awake will scare the Charles Dickens out of you. Winners come shining through during a few numbers like “Silver Bells” which has a powerful modern Metal drive to it and Geoff Tate singing and I felt the same way about the albums opening title track that gave us the magical voice of Jeff Scott Soto, a singer I have always been able to enjoy. Dio is at his ominous best with Mr. Iommi and company for “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” and the best way to describe this one is as imagine the band Heaven And Hell doing the track. Weird huh, but it does work on some levels. I had to say that I was put off by the Death Metal growls of Chuck Billy and Thrash treatment given to “Silent Night”, as this is a track that I like to much to see given such a reworking. Of course there are some who might enjoy the chance to finally hit the circle pit to this one, so here you go folks. Former Judas Priest/Iced Earth front man extraordinaire Tim Owens hits it out of the park with “Santa Claus Is Back In Town” and he sounds like he is having a blast and the same can be said for King’s X vocalist Dug Pinnick during “Little Drummer Boy”. It wouldn’t be fair for me to ruin every single surprise on the album so I shall leave the remaining tracks to your own surprise as you unwrap this present with glee after you taking it from the spiked leather stockings that are hanging on your mantle. It does end with a rousing rendition of John Lennon’s “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” and I love this tune and felt the guitarist/singer did a fantastic job of it. He is joined by Toto’s own Steve Lukather who can deliver the goods in any situation it seems.
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Music, Reviews

“First Strike Still Deadly” (reissue) by Testament

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Artist: Testament
Title: “First Strike Still Deadly” (reissue)
Label: Prosthetic Records
Release Date: 3/18/2008
Genre: Thrash Metal
Rating: 4/5

You have to admire a band when they set out to re-release classic tracks from early in their career but instead of delivering something which you are long familiar with on a compilation release decide to go through the painstaking process of re-recording and producing the songs with today’s available technology. I say this with a wry sense of sarcasm because it’s all too often when bands choose to do something of this type and the listener ends up receiving stuff that sounds so far off the mark of what you once knew and loved. One such example was with the dreadful “re-do” of Twisted Sister’s “Stay Hungry” where the guys re-recorded the classic album and delivered it to their fans as “the way it should have sounded” – spare me guys, that was not necessary. Fortunately this would not be the case with the release of Testament’s “First Strike Still Deadly”, a 2001 album that has been picked up and re-issued by Prosthetic Records for us all to enjoy in 2008. “FSSD” offers the diehard Testament loyalist the best of the tracks from their first two albums as far as its band members were concerned. The tunes while re-recorded using the technology of the time come off as not having one ounce of over-cleaning done, nor being too produced to be able to enjoy the rawness and brutality that Testament so often delivered during this time. From beginning to end this is a powerful listening experience that makes a Metal fan wonder how this band took a little longer in reaching some of the heights enjoyed by the first wave Thrash Metal bands.
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